“Let’s Work Together”: UCD Research, UCD Library and Altmetrics

Because of the similarities and newness of their domains of influence, academic libraries and university research offices often have interesting relationships. This presentation is a case study in collaboration between these two units at University College Dublin. Both have recently undergone major restructuring (or are in the process of it), and the fields of research analytics and bibliographic/bibliometric services, identified as important strategic objectives, are relatively recent to both university administration and librarians. Over the last three years, UCD Research and UCD Library have addressed the need to demonstrate the value and impact of research outcomes in various ways, building knowledge and skills and acquiring tools to evaluate research outcomes. One such tool is altmetrics, which complements the traditional tool sets based on citation impact metrics and attempts to represent and measure impact in social and policy spheres. Altmetric.com, an altmetrics service, provides tools for gathering and analysing mentions of research publications in social and news media, research platforms and government and policy papers. There are free APIs available at article level and a subscription based tool, Altmetric for Institutions, which can be used at any level of an institution’s hierarchy such as University, College, School or any other locally defined groupings. We discuss how atlmetrics have been used at UCD and how they have brought UCD Research and the UCD Library together in new and unforeseen ways. The project is very much a work in progress, and the finer details of division of roles and responsibilities are yet to be fully clarified. We propose that differences that may still remain will serve to heighten the sense of achievement gained through what we believe will ultimately prove a decidedly productive collaboration.