IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0129708.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In an Age of Open Access to Research Policies: Physician and Public Health NGO Staff Research Use and Policy Awareness

Author

Listed:
  • Laura L Moorhead
  • Cheryl Holzmeyer
  • Lauren A Maggio
  • Ryan M Steinberg
  • John Willinsky

Abstract

Introduction: Through funding agency and publisher policies, an increasing proportion of the health sciences literature is being made open access. Such an increase in access raises questions about the awareness and potential utilization of this literature by those working in health fields. Methods: A sample of physicians (N=336) and public health non-governmental organization (NGO) staff (N=92) were provided with relatively complete access to the research literature indexed in PubMed, as well as access to the point-of-care service UpToDate, for up to one year, with their usage monitored through the tracking of web-log data. The physicians also participated in a one-month trial of relatively complete or limited access. Results: The study found that participants' research interests were not satisfied by article abstracts alone nor, in the case of the physicians, by a clinical summary service such as UpToDate. On average, a third of the physicians viewed research a little more frequently than once a week, while two-thirds of the public health NGO staff viewed more than three articles a week. Those articles were published since the 2008 adoption of the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as prior to 2008 and during the maximum 12-month embargo period. A portion of the articles in each period was already open access, but complete access encouraged a viewing of more research articles. Conclusion: Those working in health fields will utilize more research in the course of their work as a result of (a) increasing open access to research, (b) improving awareness of and preparation for this access, and (c) adjusting public and open access policies to maximize the extent of potential access, through reduction in embargo periods and access to pre-policy literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura L Moorhead & Cheryl Holzmeyer & Lauren A Maggio & Ryan M Steinberg & John Willinsky, 2015. "In an Age of Open Access to Research Policies: Physician and Public Health NGO Staff Research Use and Policy Awareness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0129708
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129708
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129708
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129708&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0129708?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bo-Christer Björk & Patrik Welling & Mikael Laakso & Peter Majlender & Turid Hedlund & Guðni Guðnason, 2010. "Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(6), pages 1-9, June.
    2. Olalekan A Uthman & Charles I Okwundu & Charles S Wiysonge & Taryn Young & Aileen Clarke, 2013. "Citation Classics in Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Who Wrote the Top 100 Most Cited Articles?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-1, October.
    3. Carroll-Scott, A. & Toy, P. & Wyn, R. & Zane, J.I. & Wallace, S.P., 2012. "Results from the data & democracy initiative to enhance community-based organization data and research capacity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(7), pages 1384-1391.
    4. Richard Van Noorden, 2014. "Funders punish open-access dodgers," Nature, Nature, vol. 508(7495), pages 161-161, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniela Filippo & Jorge Mañana-Rodriguez, 2022. "The practical implementation of open access policies and mandates in Spanish public universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7147-7167, December.
    2. Stephen Pinfield & Christine Middleton, 2016. "Researchers’ Adoption of an Institutional Central Fund for Open-Access Article-Processing Charges," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(1), pages 21582440156, January.
    3. Diego A Forero & Sandra Lopez-Leon & Yeimy González-Giraldo & Pantelis G Bagos, 2019. "Ten simple rules for carrying out and writing meta-analyses," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-7, May.
    4. Justus Haucap & Nima Moshgbar & W. Benedikt Schmal, 2021. "The impact of the German 'DEAL' on competition in the academic publishing market," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2027-2049, December.
    5. Kovács, Kármen, 2017. "A nyílt hozzáférésű publikálás finanszírozási kérdései [The financial issues of open-access scholarly publishing]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 185-207.
    6. Liu, Meijun & Hu, Xiao & Wang, Yuandi & Shi, Dongbo, 2018. "Survive or perish: Investigating the life cycle of academic journals from 1950 to 2013 using survival analysis methods," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 344-364.
    7. Sheila Keay & Zvonimir Poljak & Mackenzie Klapwyk & Annette O’Connor & Robert M Friendship & Terri L O’Sullivan & Jan M Sargeant, 2020. "Influenza A virus vaccine research conducted in swine from 1990 to May 2018: A scoping review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-27, July.
    8. Vivek Kumar Singh & Rajesh Piryani & Satya Swarup Srichandan, 2020. "The case of significant variations in gold–green and black open access: evidence from Indian research output," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 515-531, July.
    9. Daim, Tugrul U. & Yoon, Byung-Sung & Lindenberg, John & Grizzi, Robert & Estep, Judith & Oliver, Terry, 2018. "Strategic roadmapping of robotics technologies for the power industry: A multicriteria technology assessment," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 49-66.
    10. Joseph Staudt, 2020. "Mandating access: assessing the NIH’s public access policy," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 35(102), pages 269-304.
    11. Patricia Alonso-Álvarez & Pablo Sastrón-Toledo & Jorge Mañana-Rodriguez, 2024. "The cost of open access: comparing public projects’ budgets and article processing charges expenditure," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(10), pages 6149-6166, October.
    12. Juan-Carlos Valderrama-Zurián & Remedios Aguilar-Moya & Juan Gorraiz, 2019. "On the bibliometric nature of a foreseeable relationship: open access and education," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1031-1057, September.
    13. Maja Jokić & Andrea Mervar & Stjepan Mateljan, 2018. "Scientific potential of European fully open access journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1373-1394, March.
    14. Jonathan Wheeler & Ngoc-Minh Pham & Kenning Arlitsch & Justin D. Shanks, 2022. "Impact factions: assessing the citation impact of different types of open access repositories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4977-5003, August.
    15. Wenqiang Fan, 2015. "Contribution of the institutional repositories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the webometric indicators of their home institutions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1889-1909, December.
    16. Jinhyo Joseph Yun & Zheng Liu & Euiseob Jeong & Sangwoo Kim & Kyunghun Kim, 2022. "The Difference in Open Innovation between Open Access and Closed Access, According to the Change of Collective Intelligence and Knowledge Amount," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, February.
    17. Thomas Eger & Marc Scheufen & Daniel Meierrieks, 2015. "The determinants of open access publishing: survey evidence from Germany," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 475-503, June.
    18. Michael Taylor, 2020. "An altmetric attention advantage for open access books in the humanities and social sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2523-2543, December.
    19. Laura Bowering Mullen, 2024. "Open Access, Scholarly Communication, and Open Science in Psychology: An Overview for Researchers," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1_suppl), pages 21582440231, April.
    20. Roberta Ruggieri & Fabrizio Pecoraro & Daniela Luzi, 2021. "An intersectional approach to analyse gender productivity and open access: a bibliometric analysis of the Italian National Research Council," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1647-1673, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0129708. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.