Baltimore, MD - March 22, 2016 - The National Information Standards
Organization (NISO) seeks comments on the draft Altmetrics Definitions
and Use Cases document, NISO RP-25-201X-1. The draft is an output of the
NISO Altmetrics Initiative, a two-phase project aiming to address
limitations and gaps that may hinder the adoption of altmetrics, an
expansion of tools available for measuring scholarly impact of research
in the knowledge environment. Draft output from one
NISO altmetrics working group studying data quality
was released for comment earlier this month, and further draft outputs
from a third working group addressing specific output types, including
data metrics and use of persistent identifiers, will be released soon.
"The Definitions and Use Cases document is short, but encapsulates the
many discussions the working group held to review and hash out
definitions from many diverse sources of information in the altmetrics
field," remarks Robin Chin Roemer, Instructional Design & Outreach
Services Librarian at the University of Washington Libraries, and
co-chair of Working Group A (Definitions & Use Cases), the group
that developed this document. "We also include a statement about the
role that alternative assessment metrics plays in research evaluation,
to help place the document in context and advise on altmetrics' possible
applications."
"Use cases for altmetrics are driven by different stakeholders in the
research ecosystem," adds Michael Habib, a consultant working in
scholarly communication, publishing, and library markets and co-chair of
Working Group A (Definitions & Use Cases). "The NISO document means
to highlight the different ways in which the stakeholders collect,
develop, and consume altmetrics, and to explain and contextualize
commonalities between stakeholders' needs, goals, and usages."
"Members of the working group and NISO are interested in receiving wide
feedback on this draft document, to be incorporated into the final
version to be published by NISO later this spring," comments Nettie
Lagace, NISO Associate Director for Programs. "Working Group A's output
lies the groundwork for the other two working groups in that the
definition of terms used allows different stakeholders in this space to
understand when they are talking about the same thing. In addition, the
development of use cases and their relationship to stakeholder groups
clarifies requirements and priorities for further development."
The draft Recommended Practice is open for public comments through April
20, 2016. To download the draft or submit online comments, visit the
NISO Altmetrics Initiative web page at
http://www.niso.org/topics/tl/altmetrics_initiative/.
About NISO
NISO, based in Baltimore, Maryland, fosters the development and
maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent
management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be
trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO
engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other
organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through
the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO
works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire
lifecycle of information standards. NISO is a not-for-profit association
accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For
more information, visit the
NISO website.
