COMMENT | Today I focus on quite a dry topic - academic social networks, altmetrics, and scientometrics in the world of scholarly research and writing. However, it should be of interest to scholars, career academics, and the larger public.

Also, those among us who understand the subtle differences between "popularity" rankings, "research impact" (impact factor metrics of scholarly journals) and "relevance of research to society" would appreciate this column.

Malaysian universities are most pedantic about altmetrics. Altmetrics is a portmanteau for alternative metrics which uses online interactions to measure research and scholarly publications’ impact.

For example, our public university promotions rely heavily on these figures. Often, both academic and public perceptions of the quality of our scholars are conditioned by these metrics.

Furthermore, there is often a direct correlation between the “intellectual respect” that academic peers have for one another, and such data. This correlation contributes, in part, to the toxic...