Scientific Impact Assessment

Scientific Impact Assessment

Use this skill to measure the reach of a paper with citation, attention, and journal-level context.

Instructions

1. Prefer a DOI or OpenAlex work ID as input.
   • If you only have a title, use /crossref-lookup first to resolve a DOI before running this skill.
2. Use the bundled CLI:
   • In this repository: skills/scientific-impact-assessment/scripts/measure-impact
   • After installation: ~/.agents/skills/scientific-impact-assessment/scripts/measure-impact
3. OpenAlex is the default source for paper-level citation data.
   • The CLI retrieves cited_by_count, publication year, journal/source name, and citation history from OpenAlex.
4. Altmetric is optional and should be treated as conditional enrichment.
   • Current Altmetric documentation says an API key is required for Details Page API access.
   • If ALTMETRIC_API_KEY is not available, the CLI should report Altmetric as unavailable instead of failing.
5. Journal-level impact factors come from the curated references table in references/journal_metrics_2024.tsv.
   • These are curated public web values, mostly from official publisher pages.
   • The Science row uses a labeled third-party fallback because no public official AAAS JIF page was located during skill creation on March 19, 2026.
6. Keep paper-level and journal-level metrics separate in the final answer.
   • Do not present journal impact factor as a proxy for article quality.
   • Do not present Altmetric attention as equivalent to scholarly citation impact.
7. If the journal is not in the curated table, return the OpenAlex result anyway and say the journal-level reference lookup was not available.
8. Repeated OpenAlex lookups use a TTL-bound response cache and a cross-process pacing lock. Defaults are --cache-ttl 86400 and --min-interval 0.1; use --cache-dir or OPENALEX_CACHE_DIR for a project/site cache. Live reports record this request policy.

Quick Reference

Input Requirements

• Python 3
• One of:
  • --doi <doi>
  • --openalex-id <id>
• Optional:
  • --mailto <email> for OpenAlex polite-pool identification
  • ALTMETRIC_API_KEY loaded from a private environment file
  • --output <path>
  • --format json|text

Output

• OpenAlex-derived paper metadata including:
  • title
  • DOI
  • OpenAlex ID
  • publication year
  • citation count
  • citation history by year
  • journal/source name
• Altmetric summary when an API key is available and the record exists
• curated journal-level impact-factor context when the journal matches the bundled references table
• explicit status values when Altmetric or journal-level lookup is unavailable

Quality Gates

• The input is resolved to a DOI or OpenAlex work ID before lookup
• OpenAlex citation data is reported separately from journal-level metrics
• Altmetric is marked optional and unavailable when no API key is configured
• Journal impact factors are read from the bundled references table, not improvised from memory
• Any third-party journal metric source is labeled as such in the output
• Repeated OpenAlex requests record cache TTL and minimum interval; expired responses are refreshed under the pacing lock.

Examples

Example 1: DOI-based report

skills/scientific-impact-assessment/scripts/measure-impact \
  --doi 10.1038/nature12373 \
  --format text

Example 2: OpenAlex ID plus Altmetric

source ~/.secrets/altmetric.env
skills/scientific-impact-assessment/scripts/measure-impact \
  --openalex-id W2741809807 \
  --mailto you@example.org \
  --output impact-report.json

Troubleshooting

Issue: Altmetric is always unavailable.
Solution: Check whether ALTMETRIC_API_KEY is set. Current Altmetric docs require a key for all Details Page API endpoints.

Issue: The journal-level lookup is empty.
Solution: The journal is probably not in references/journal_metrics_2024.tsv yet. Return the OpenAlex paper metrics and add the journal later if you can source a public metric page.

Issue: Only a title is available.
Solution: Resolve the title to a DOI first with /crossref-lookup, then rerun this skill using the DOI for a deterministic lookup.

Related Skills

• /crossref-lookup — resolve DOIs before scoring impact
• /polars-dovmed — retrieve the full text that backs the impact claim