On March 20, 2023 Prof. Małgorzata Kowalska-Chrzanowska from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń presented the lecture The role of altmetric indicators in the promotion of research output.
The speaker divided the lecture into two parts. The first was aimed at introducing the audience to the issue of altmetric indicators. She began by indicating the most important legal regulations for research output evaluation. Then she moved on to outline the role, advantages, and disadvantages of bibliometric indicators in that process. The latter provided the impetus for discussing the idea and importance of altmetric indicators, i.e. alternative metrics derived from electronic channels of scholarly communications, such as blogs, social media, platforms dedicated to scholars, reference managers, open repositories, websites for sharing of multimedia presentations, bookmarks management, and recommending scholarly artefacts. The lecturer explained not only where the interest in altmetrics came from, but also what the most common types of altmetrics are. She also characterised functionalities of selected tools aggregating them.
In the second part of the lecture, Prof. Kowalska-Chrzanowska discussed three case studies demonstrating the potential of using altmetrics. Through them, she evaluated research output of a particular researcher, an entire scientific discipline, and a specific research field.
Finally, the speaker presented the benefits of using altmetrics, and the risks associate with their unreflective implementation in the process of evaluation of research output. She also attempted to answer the questions of whether the alternative measurements are an antidote to the limitations of bibliometric indicators, and whether they have a chance to become an essential part of research output evaluation in the future.