What's the deal with the donut? Altmetrics—and how they fit into grant applications
Published on September 30, 2026
Dear Librarian… is Western Libraries' advice column unpacking the practical realities of academic publishing, open access, research data, copyright, and more. Each installment answers a real question submitted by a Western researcher or graduate student—or breaks down a timely topic you might not know to ask about yet.
Dear Librarian,
A funding application asks me to describe the broader impact of my work, and a colleague suggested altmetrics. I've only ever tracked citations. What are altmetrics, and are they worth my time?
Best,
Curious
♦
Dear Curious,
Good question, and it's worth a closer look.
For a long time, research impact has mostly meant one thing: citations. They still matter, because they show how your work influences future scholarship. But they're only one piece of the story. Researchers also want to know how their work is being discussed, shared, and engaged with beyond academic journals.
That's where altmetrics come in. Short for alternative metrics, they capture the attention and engagement around a research output across many platforms and audiences. Instead of looking only at citations in scholarly publications, they look at how your work shows up in news articles, policy documents, blogs, social media, educational resources, online reference works, and other public or professional spaces.
Many researchers first come across altmetrics through the Altmetric Donut 🍩, a colourful visual badge that often sits alongside articles. Each colour stands for a different source of attention, such as news coverage, social media, blogs, policy documents, patents, or Wikipedia citations.
In other words, altmetrics answer a different question. Citations tell us how research shapes future scholarship. Altmetrics tell us how research is being noticed, discussed, and shared right now.
And "right now" is the key. Online conversations move fast, so an article can start drawing attention within days of publication. Meaningful citation counts can take months or even years to build.
To follow this kind of attention, altmetrics tools rely on persistent identifiers, which work like tracking numbers for your research. Altmetrics can track many kinds of research identifiers, including:
- DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
- PubMed ID
- ISBN
- Handle
- arXiv ID
- SSRN ID
- RePEc ID
- ClinicalTrials.gov records
- URLs and URIs
- ORCID records
Many altmetrics tools roll this activity into a single score. The Altmetric Attention Score, for example, looks at three things:
Volume: How many people or sources are talking about the research?
Source: Where is the attention coming from? A mention in a major international news outlet is weighted differently than a social media post.
Author of the mention: Who is sharing the work? Attention from policymakers, practitioners, and science communicators may carry a different significance than promotion by the publisher itself.
Why does this matter? Altmetrics can show evidence of societal engagement, knowledge mobilization, and policy influence that citation counts might miss. They can also show which audiences are engaging with your work and where those conversations are happening.
So are they worth your time? Yes, but think of altmetrics as a partner to citations, not a replacement. Together, they help tell a more complete story about your research impact.
Kristin Hoffman
Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian
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