Comparing digital apples to digital apples: Background on NISO's effort to build an infrastructure for new forms of scholarly assessment

Abstract

Citation metrics and the journal impact factor have been the traditional forms for decades of assessing scholarly impact. These metrics are being challenged in today's digital content environment as no longer being the best methods for research assessment due to issues such as currency and granularity. New alternative metrics – altmetrics – have sprung up, but they are not without their own issues, in particular lack of standardization. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) launched a project in 2013 to explore, identify, and advance standards and best practices for alternative metrics. A draft white paper summarizing recommendations of the first phase has been issued and will be followed by the second phase of developing one or more of the proposed standards and recommended practices.