In discussions of altmetrics and citation metrics, we usually think in terms of "here and now" and are looking from the angle of the active researcher who needs to find and curate recent and incoming information, get measures of one's own impact etc. But the ability to identify long-term patterns, e.g., multiple spikes in citations (or mentions in books, articles, blog posts) over years and decades is the stuff of dreams for historians and other social scientists. This is what they do for a PhD - spending years in libraries (sometimes having to travel halfway around the world to other libraries), just to indentify such patterns. Now they can get this done in days (or minutes) and instantly move on to what they really should be doing - analysing and intrepreting these patterns. This session would explore the ways historians and anthropologists of science can use these tools so they can get the most out of them.
Questions:
- How have you used altmetrics in history or social science?
- What tools do you find most useful for analyzing altmetrics?
- What barriers exist when applying altmetrics in #histsci or sociology of science?
