Analysing Altmetric data on research citations in policy literature - the case of the University of Sheffield

One of the sources of attention Altmetric.com tracks is the number of times research outputs have been cited in policy literature. Andy Tattersall and Chris Carroll explored the case of the University of Sheffield and what the data says about the impact of its research on national and international policy. The percentage of outputs with at least one policy mention compares favourably with previous studies, while huge variations were found between the time of publication and the time of the first policy citation. However, some problems with the quality of the data were identified, highlighting the need for careful scrutiny and corroboration.