Using Altmetric: Home

Altmetric provides access to alternative metrics (altmetrics) for publications. It allows you to look beyond traditional bibliometric measures of research impact like citations, journal impact factors, and number of publications. Altmetric measures broad attention with mentions.

Mentions include:

• Social Media: X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Google+, Reddit, Weibo, Pinterest and LinkedIn
• News and blogs
• Policy and patents
• Academic Sources: Peer Reviews and Faculty Opinions
• Other Sources: Wikipedia, Youtube, and Q&A Posts

For more information on the sources tracked by Altmetric, visit the relevant support page.

Altmetric calculates Altmetric Attention Scores based on the mentions of publications. The score accounts for mentions in social media, news, blogs, policy patents, videos, and academic sources to measure the broad impact of research.

Different mention types are weighted differently to calculate the Altmetric Attention Score. For instance, news articles are weighted 8, policy documents are weighted 3, and social media posts are weighted 0.25. More information on how the scores are calculated can be found on this Almetric Support page.

A summary of the mentions for a publication is displayed in the Altmetric donut. The donut displays the Altmetric Attention Score in the center; the surrounding colors represent different mention types. The image below from Almetric shows what each color represents in an Altmetric donut.

Altmetric Attention Scores are shown for publications in Dimensions when available.

Everyone at UNC has access to Altmetric Explorer. To access Altmetric Explorer:

1. Go to the Altmetric website
2. Select 'Sign In' in the upper right corner
3. Enter your UNC email address
4. Sign in with your ONYEN

You can perform a search by selecting "Quick Search". You can search for keywords, titles, funders, journals, and affiliations. Once you enter your search terms, you can select to search for the terms in keywords or titles. Altmetric will also display funders, journals, and affiliations that contain your search terms. You can select the funder, journal, or affiliation of interest to search for all works that are associated with your selection.

After you have completed a quick search, you can perform an advanced search of the term by selecting "Edit Search".

The advanced search page gives you the option to search within a variety of fields, including keywords, subjects, afflilation, title, journal, DOI, publisher, open access type, publication date, type of output, and ORCID. You can select multiple fields to narrow your search. More information on advanced search can be found on this Altmetric Support page.

You can save your search by selecting "Save Search". You can choose to save the research highlights or save certain tabs of your search (research outputs, timeline, demographics, mentions, mention sources, or journals) by selecting the tab of interest.

You can export individual tabs by selecting "Export This Tab".

You can view your saved searches by selecting the list menu icon (icon with three lines and a dot next to each line). In your saved searches, you can set up daily, weekly, and monthly emails or create sharable reports of the searches. You can also edit or delete searches.

You can import a Dimensions search to Altmetric:

1. Sign in or Register in Dimensions using your UNC email.
2. Complete your search in Dimensions. More information on searching in Dimensions can be found in our Dimensions guide. 
3. Select "See attention in Altmetric Explorer". This option is only available if your search has fewer than 25,000 results. If you have more than 25,000 results, you will need to narrow your search before importing it into Altmetric.
4. Dimensions will direct you to a sign in page if you are not currently logged in to Altmetric. Sign in to Altmetric using your UNC email.
5. You can now see the Dimensions search in Altmetric. You can modify the search by selecting "Edit Search".