An Investigation of the Quality of Altmetric Data with Altmetric.com and PlumX as Examples

Altmetrics, as an open-source tool to present the social impact of publications, has drawn great attention in the scientometrics and informatics fields. The quality of altmetric data is fundamental for applying and analyzing altmetrics in research evaluation, and altmetric data providers are crucial in ensuring data quality. This paper selects the two most commonly used altmetric data providers for an empirical study on analyzing data quality, coverage, consistency and heterogeneity. It proposes suggestions on the use of altmetrics data of the two platforms in the hope of providing a useful reference for other researchers.