Written by Lene Janussen Gry
Are you part of the academic community on Twitter (now X)? Recent changes to the platform are affecting the academic social media arena and altmetrics tools.
Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform Twitter (now X) has brought in changes that affect the academic community, both in terms of where academic news and publications are shared and discussed, and now also in terms of altmetrics.
ALTMETRICS: ‘Alternative article-level metrics’ are metrics based on a research article’s mentions as harvested
from social media platforms, news media, and policy documents, Twitter having been one of the main providers.
The main altmetrics tools are altmetric.com (by Digital Science) and PlumX metrics (by Elsevier).
Elsevier recently announced that its altmetrics tool PlumX would discontinue all Twitter (X) metrics as of August 31st 2023, the stated reason being: “changes in market conditions” (plumanalytics.com, 31 August 2023).
Altmetric.com has announced that they are “observing ongoing developments with the platform closely”. They are still tracking tweets as usual but are “working on a number of scenarios as to how we might adjust to any developments that may occur in the future” (altmetric.com, 8 June 2023).
A large number of academic Twitter users have already fled the platform or are planning/considering doing so due to dissatisfaction with recent changes to the platform, the most problematic of which are discussed here: Social media has changed – Will academics catch up?).
Some have moved on to alternative platforms, including Mastodon, Threads, Spoutible etc., and many are, of course, still hanging on to Twitter(X), perhaps simultaneously maintaining a presence on other platforms, to be able to keep up with their peers. So far, former Twitter users have sought out different alternatives – and there is no consensus on where the “new Twitter” is.
Elsevier has not made it clear whether they will harvest mentions from other social media platforms instead, and altmetric.com are still monitoring developments, as mentioned.
The CBS Library newsletter will keep you posted on future changes. If you have questions or comments on this matter, please contact Lene Janussen Gry.