Which database repository (e.g. ACM, IEEE, Web of Science, Elsvier, Science Direct , Scopus etc) should be used for systematic literature review?
How can we eliminate the threat to read the same paper exist in different database? I have an observation that there are many papers exist in IEEE and ACM and similarly web of science index many IEEE and ACM papers.
So what database or indexing should we prefer while doing the systematic literature review?
If you want to be truly systematic, you should generally never rely on searching a single database for literature. No single database is likely to contain all relevant references, so supplementary search is pretty much required.1,3
The problem of retrieving duplicate citations is of course an issue, but that's generally just something you have to deal with if you want to be truly systematic! I've found the texbook by Gough et al to be a good introduction to how to do systematic search, you might want to have a read of that.2
1 Chris Cooper, Andrew Booth, Jo Varley-Campbell, Nicky Britten, and Ruth Garside. 2018. Defining the process to literature searching in systematic reviews: a literature review of guidance and supporting studies. BMC Medical Research Methodology 18, 1 (2018), 85.
2 David Gough, Sandy Oliver, and James Thomas (eds.). 2017. An Introduction to Systematic Reviews (2nd ed.). Sage, London, UK.
3 Diana Papaioannou, Anthea Sutton, Christopher Carroll, Andrew Booth, and Ruth Wong. 2010. Literature searching for social science systematic reviews: consideration of a range of search techniques. Health Information and Libraries Journal 27, 2 (2010), 114-122.
Depend of the discipline and topic of research, but always it is recommended to use different databases - commercial and open access too.
Hi,
It depends on your subject of research, but it is a well known fact that you do not get 100% results by searching one source. My suggestion is to search a subscription database (World of Science), a digital library (like ACM), and a search engine (like Google Scholar). In this way you can improve the chances for best search results.
Try to use multiple indexes. Web of science, scopus .. . Use reference management tool like Mendeley.
Thank you so much everyone for your detailed answer with references.
@ Avishag, the problem with a search engine like Google Scholar is that you can't do an expert search like the one recommended for a systematic review. In a Plos article on the subject, GS missed important documents in more than 80%. GS is not a structured database.
Christophe Sabatier Sir what is your opinion for selection of databases while doing SLR?
@Syed, it depends on the subject matter. In biomedicine, Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Library in particular should be favoured. Specific databases can be used according to their relevance to the field studied.
Christophe Sabatier I totally agree. Any suggestions for SLR related to Software Engineering domain?
Hi! Concerning the question which search systems best fit for a systematic review I can contribute a paper we just recently published. It analyses 28 search engines and bibliographic databases on their suitability for systematic reviews: Article Which Academic Search Systems are Suitable for Systematic Re...
Hope this helps!
This depends on the specific subject, but will be useful create alerts in all mentioned databases.
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