Measuring the impact of R packages

In this poster, we describe a framework to measure the impact of R packages from an altmetrics perspective. This framework includes search statistics on Google, the number of downloads on CRAN (the official R package repository), the number of posts on Stack Overflow and the count of papers on the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals mentioning or citing the packages. These measures are normalized into monthly units. Six visualization packages were selected to test the method. Results are presented and discussed, particularly in light of the levels of engagement represented by these measures. The next steps of this project are also explained at the end of this poster proposal.