I (Jason) presented TI at the SPARC Open Access Meeting in Kansas City last week. It was an interesting event, with a mix of in-the-trenches librarians, publishers, institutional repository folk, and business people representing the growing range of  products and services springing up around Open Science. I found the engagement and growth of this latter group encouraging, since it’s where we see TI ending up.

There was ample skepticism about TI: bit publisher reps were very interested, but non-committal, giving the sense that they want to see a more stable legal/org entity before they take the SaaS plunge. Many librarians had initial “it’s a toy, my faculty care only for IF” reactions, although these tended to thaw after more explanation. Both reactions underscore for me the importance of 1) establishing a trustworthy legal identity for TI and 2) continuing to do outreach and research around the idea of altmetrics in general.

There was a lot of encouraging enthusiasm, as well. The TI poster was mobbed. Several repositories expressed heavy interest in embedding TI stats, and some libraries were interested in contributing plugins. Was great to hear folks say “someone isfinallydoing this…it’s just what we’ve been wanting!”

Another highlight was a great chat with John Wilbanks; the more I hear him talk, the more his open-sci insight and knowledge impresses me. Turns out he’s been keeping well abreast of TI and altmetrics, and has good things to say about total-impact’s future prospects, which was great to hear. I also got a chance to talk with smart folks from the Kauffman Foundation at a dinner they set up; they had thoughtful things to say about the Value Of Entrepreneurship, and why a for-profit startup could be the best structure for even a mission-driven project like us.

So, overall an educational and useful event. Thanks to SPARC for putting it on!