Altmetrics is used to refer to "alternative metrics" or "article-level metrics." Altmetrics attempts to fill a gap in traditional metrics by using social media mentions, link backs, blogs, news outlet coverage, and other web metrics to measure the attention given to a particular work. Altmetrics are especially well suited to datasets and types of scholarly work not covered by traditional metrics. As with other metrics, altmetrics don't necessarily tell you anything about the quality of the individual publication. It's always best to review the publication yourself and investigate mentions as need be.
Some article level metrics are incorporated onto individual publisher and journal pages, such as Public Library of Science (PLoS) publications.
Another option is to use a tool like, Altmetric Bookmarklet in Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari. Clicking the bookmarklet when looking at an article, will display a colorful wheel containing the Altmetric Attention Score and additional information about where it was mentioned.
In Scopus, the field-weighted citation impact (FWCI) shows how well cited this document is when compared to similar documents. A value greater than 1.00 means the document is more cited than expected according to the average. It takes into account:
Click on any article and look to the column on the right to see the FWCI. You can also view PlumX metrics in Scopus which show save and download data from select resources.
