Research Impact Metrics

PlumX Metrics provide insights into the ways people interact with individual pieces of research output (articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and many more) in the online environment. Examples include research being mentioned in the news or included in a policy citation. Collectively known as PlumX Metrics, these metrics are divided into five categories to help make sense of the huge amounts of data involved and to enable analysis by comparing like with like.

PlumX gathers and brings together appropriate research metrics for all types of scholarly research output. The metrics are organised into 5 separate categories:

• Citations - This is a category that contains both traditional citation indexes such as Scopus, as well as citations that help indicate societal impact such as Clinical or Policy Citations.

  Examples: citation indexes, patent citations, clinical citations, policy citations

• Usage - A way to signal if anyone is reading the articles or otherwise using the research. Usage is the number one statistic researchers want to know after citations.

  Examples: clicks, downloads, views, library holdings, video plays

• Captures - Indicates that someone wants to come back to the work. Captures can be a leading indicator of future citations.

  Examples: bookmarks, code forks, favorites, readers, watchers

• Mentions - Measurement of activities such as news articles or blog posts about research. Mentions is a way to tell that people are truly engaging with the research.

  Examples: blog posts, comments, reviews, Wikipedia references, news media

• Social Media - This category includes the shares, likes, etc. that reference the research. Social Media can help measure “buzz” and attention. Social media can also be a good measure of how well a particular piece of research has been promoted.

  Examples: shares, likes, comments

PlumX Metrics can be found in the following databases;