Altmetrics, Biased Metrics, and Contentious Metrics.

Across the athletic spectrum, many sports fans are fond of chanting that their beloved team is Number One. Championship games exist to test the validity of such claims. The journal world has similar characteristics, except there is no playoff system to validate champions. Nevertheless, proprietors of periodicals can boast of the results of measurements purporting to show that their journal produces a positive impact on readers. Different kinds of measures exist to assess the impact of publications. Until recently, the influence of a published article primarily would be measured by its citations, a slow process resulting in a long wait before its importance truly is recognized. Altmetrics increasingly are recognized as tools that aim to measure the real-time reach and influence of an academic article.