On the issue of the alternative ways of evaluating scientific results

The problem of evaluating scientific results is gaining relevance with their social importance growth. The lack of common position in the scientific community regarding the effectiveness of both traditional scientometric indicators and expertise, as well as the active development of information technologies led to the emergence of a new approach based on the use of alternative indicators of evaluation - altmetrics. As altmetrics are still developing, it is necessary to direct the expert community’s efforts to study their capabilities in relation to evaluating scientific results. This article should make up for the lack of such studies. The empirical base consists of data from the Altmetric service and the international scientometric database Web of Science. In the study, the researchers analyze the altmetrics use degree in sectors of scientific knowledge, countries and authors’ affiliations; try to determine the relationship nature between the popularity indicators of scientific articles in the Internet and citation metrics in the scientific community. The results of the research led to the conclusion that the use of altmetrics as criteria for evaluating scientific effectiveness has limitations, as they are more an indicator of temporary attention to the publication and do not allow predicting the future citation degree. The findings confirm the emerging scientists’ opinion that altmetrics, rather, corresponds to the status of “additional metrics”. At the same time, the altmetrics’ potential can be implemented in the process of developing scientific communication. The research results are important for understanding approaches to evaluating scientific results.