Things are going very well for Chapman University Digital Commons. Here we will highlight a few new features and collections from April 2016.

New feature: Altmetric Badges

This month, Altmetric badges were added for to our journal article series.

What are altmetrics?  As the name suggests, they are alternative metrics to traditional citation counts, meant to provide a complementary snapshot of the attention a piece of research garners, especially in the early days after publication before the paper is cited.

The Altmetric badges provide a color-coded emblem that showcases altmetricbadgesmentions in news outlets, blog posts, readers on Mendeley and CiteULike, inclusion on Wikipedia or Reddit, and social media mentions like Facebook shares, tweets, and Google+ posts.

On Digital Commons, the badges are featured just under the Share buttons in the right sidebar for each article.  Simply hover over the donut to reveal the Altmetric counts for different forms of media, then click any of the statistics to discover where your research has been getting attention.

The Altmetric badges are generated by tracking public mentions of DOIs, so as of now, they only display for journal articles that feature a DOI.  They are also suppressed in cases where an article has not yet garnered mentions in any of the trackable categories.

To learn more about altmetrics, please check out the Scholarly Communication research guide.  For questions about the Altmetric badges in Digital Commons, please contact the Coordinator of Scholarly Communications, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, at laughtin@chapman.edu.

New collection: Music programs

This month, we digitized and added nearly 1,000 programs from music performances here at Chapman University to Digital Commons.  Stretching back to 1992, these programs reflect musical performances by students, faculty, and guest artists, as well as Chapman’s various ensembles, choirs, and orchestras over the years.  They are a great showcase of the breadth of talent in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music and a testament to its growth over time.

Click here to see the music programs!

Thank you, as always, for contributing to all the great examples of Chapman research and creative work in Chapman University Digital Commons.  As we add more quality content like yours, our reach keeps growing.  Please continue to spread the word, and remember to send any new publications, data sets, teaching materials, or other content to Kristin Laughtin-Dunker at laughtin@chapman.edu.