In March 2009, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) became the first publisher to track transparent and comprehensive information about the usage and reach of published articles – rather than journals – so that the academic community has another avenue to help assess their value. These measures are called “Article-Level Metrics (ALMs),” and currently include:
- Article Usage Statistics – HTML pageviews, and PDF and XML downloads;
- Citations – From Web of Science, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Crossref:
- Social Bookmarks – currently from CiteULike and Connotea;
- Comments – left by article readers
- Notes – also from readers
- Blog posts – aggregated from a variety of sources
A primary aim of Article Level Metrics is to provide the academic community with new ways to evaluate individual articles directly on their own merits, rather than on the reputation of the journal in which they happen to be published. As a result, Article Level Metrics hold the promise of helping new ways for measuring and evaluating research quality and impact – to evolve.
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