Career development tips for today's nursing academic: bibliometrics, altmetrics and social media

Aims. A discussion of bibliometrics, altmetrics and social media for the contemporary nursing scholar and academic researcher. Background. Today's nursing academic faces myriad challenges in balancing their daily life and, in recent years, academic survival has been increasingly challenged by the various research assessment exercises that evaluate the performance of knowledge institutions. As such, it is essential that today's nursing academic keep up to date with the core competencies needed for survival in a modern research career, particularly the intersecting triad of bibliometrics, altmetrics and social media. Design. Discussion paper. Data sources. Published literature and relevant websites. Implications for nursing. The rise of social media and altmetrics has important implications for contemporary nursing scholars who publish their research. Some fundamental questions when choosing a journal might be 'does it have a Twitter and/or Facebook site, or a blog (or all three)'; and 'does it have any other presence on social media, such as LinkedIn, Wikipedia, YouTube, ResearchGate and so on?' Another consequence of embracing social media is that individual academics should also develop their own strategies for promoting and disseminating their work as widely as possible. Conclusion. The rising importance of social media and altmetrics can no longer be ignored, and today's nursing academic now has another facet to consider in their scholarly activities. Despite the changing nature of research dissemination, however, it is still important to recognize the undoubted value of established knowledge dissemination routes (that being the peer-reviewed publication).