Bank Street Library Blog

Literature Reviews: PlumX Metrics

PlumX Metrics

If you are starting to collect items for a literature review, something you might want to consider is looking at how popular an article is in a databases. Looking through a list of results you may have noticed a PlumX icon (it looks a little bit like a stylized flower). If you click the icon, a pop-up window will appear with some data.

In the example below you will notice that the article has been cited by 36 authors, viewed 14,880 times in full text, saved by 1,725 people, and tweeted once. This item was published in 2012 so it’s been online a lot longer than second example.

Example 1

plumx metrics screenshot

Example 2

This example is more recent (2016), it’s an eBook, and has been cited once. When you visit this link  A Guide to Teaching Elementary Science you will see more information on how other readers have interacted with this book. Although it is of value to teachers in the classroom, it might not be useful for a literature review (if you are just looking at the metrics). If you have to make a choice, choose the first example.

plumx matrics screenshot
Conclusion

The database search I conducted was technology in elementary education. The result list contained 26,121  items. Although not all items have metrics, when they are available let then help you decide what to read and what to skip.