PKP is pleased to announce the release of the Paperbuzz Plugin for Open Journal System (OJS) versions 3.1.2 and above, built in cooperation with the Paperbuzz team at Impactstory. This new plugin will bring free altmetrics (an alternative to traditional citation-based metrics) based on open data to thousands of OJS journals.

What is Paperbuzz?

Paperbuzz is a free and open service built by Impactstory with PKP’s support. It takes the complex data collected by Crossref Event Data and calculates metrics for every article that has a digital object identifier (DOI) registered with Crossref.

What is Crossref Event Data?

Crossref Event Data is a service that tracks events on the Web like bookmarks, links, shares, etc. whenever the event is connected to Crossref metadata. At this point, Crossref Event Data is collecting data from the following sources: Crossref links, DataCite links, Hypothes.is, Newsfeed, The Lens, Plaudit, Reddit, Reddit Links, StackExchange, Twitter, Web, Wikipedia, WordPress.com. Full details can be found in the Crossref Event Data User Guide.

How Does the OJS Paperbuzz Plugin Work?

When a reader loads an abstract page for an article that has a Crossref DOI, the plugin sends a request to Paperbuzz in the background and then displays the number of mentions for each source below the abstract. If there are sufficient events, it will also display a graph (using a javascript module called PaperbuzzViz).

The diagram below shows how the whole system fits together: Crossref finds mentions on the web and makes them available in an event stream; Paperbuzz reads that stream and aggregates the events into metrics; PaperbuzzViz uses this simpler API to represent it visually (with numbers and graphs); and the OJS Plugin displays this on your article’s landing page.

Poster presented at the 5AM Conference describing the components of PKP’s altmetrics solution, including Paperbuzz. See full image here.

How Do I Enable It in OJS?

To get the Paperbuzz plugin working, simply log into your OJS journal, go to Settings > Website > Plugins and choose the Plugin Gallery. From there, you will see a list of available plugins, including the new Paperbuzz plugin. Once you find it, click the Install button. You will then find the plugin in the Installed Plugins tab, where you can configure it.

What Can I Expect to See?

What you see will depend on the number of events that Crossref has been able to identify for your DOIs. The number of articles that have been mentioned varies greatly, so your mileage may vary. That said, in all instances, the plugin will display the download statistics available within OJS itself; in cases were only a few events are available for a given source, the plugin will display the metric along with an icon; and in the cases where many events are available, it will display a simple graph showing when the events took place.

What is the Future?

PKP and the research team at the ScholCommLab have been working on a method to reliably collect mentions of research on Facebook, which are not currently collected by Crossref. In the near future we will be sending data about mentions of articles published in OJS journals to Crossref. The data will then make its way into Paperbuzz and to your journal—no action required on your part.

The same is true for when Crossref gathers data from new sources. Crossref is interested to know what additional sources may be of interest to you and your communities. Whether you are a user of Event Data or are interested in contributing your own data, you can reach out.

Comments? Questions? Connect with us on the PKP Community Forum: https://forum.pkp.sfu.ca.

This research was conducted as part of the CO.SHS project and has been supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (Cyberinfrastructure Initiative – Challenge 1 – First competition).