Introduction
A research project often begins with an idea. But there's some
distance to travel between having a research idea and arriving at your
research question.
Research builds on past research. It is not something done in isolation. Only by learning about what has already been done do we come to learn about the gaps and opportunities. Otherwise, we may repeat something that's already been done, and this wouldn't be of interest to any serious journal. (Intentionally repeating a previous study is all right if the goal is to try to replicate that study.)
So at the outset, you need to find and read published research papers to understand what has been done so far in your field of research. This is a critical preparatory step and it is often called "literature survey", "literature search", or "literature review".
Before you can read and discuss papers, you need to first find relevant papers.
"What can I do to access published research papers?"
This question is often on the minds of developing country researchers. Try selecting all the appropriate options from the list below.
Research builds on past research. It is not something done in isolation. Only by learning about what has already been done do we come to learn about the gaps and opportunities. Otherwise, we may repeat something that's already been done, and this wouldn't be of interest to any serious journal. (Intentionally repeating a previous study is all right if the goal is to try to replicate that study.)
So at the outset, you need to find and read published research papers to understand what has been done so far in your field of research. This is a critical preparatory step and it is often called "literature survey", "literature search", or "literature review".
Before you can read and discuss papers, you need to first find relevant papers.
Accessing papers
Question
This question is often on the minds of developing country researchers. Try selecting all the appropriate options from the list below.
This
question is often on the minds of developing country researchers. Try
selecting all the appropriate options from the list below.
Answers
6. If I've been given
any authentication details by my librarian or institution, I should
make sure that I am using this when searching for published research
Options 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 are correct
Academic databases
Options 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 are correct
Academic databases
There are some freely available academic databases which anyone in the world can use. Of these, Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) is
among the most popular. Google Scholar indexes a wide range of journals
across all academic fields, and it has the simplicity and power of the
regular Google.
PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) is another popular free database that indexes high quality journals in the health and life sciences. Medical researchers tend to use PubMed as a first-line resource, regardless of the availability of other databases.
There are a number of databases that are available through subscription, such as Scopus and Web of Science, and these are sold to institutions.
A detailed list of academic databases is on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines
Speak with a librarian at your institution to find out if you have access to any subscription databases. If not, use Google Scholar, PubMed, and other freely available databases. You can access a vast amount of research literature through these free databases alone.
PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) is another popular free database that indexes high quality journals in the health and life sciences. Medical researchers tend to use PubMed as a first-line resource, regardless of the availability of other databases.
There are a number of databases that are available through subscription, such as Scopus and Web of Science, and these are sold to institutions.
A detailed list of academic databases is on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines
Speak with a librarian at your institution to find out if you have access to any subscription databases. If not, use Google Scholar, PubMed, and other freely available databases. You can access a vast amount of research literature through these free databases alone.
Using academic databases
As mentioned in the previous page, Google Scholar and PubMed are two useful academic databases that are freely available.
To make the most of academic databases and obtain the most relevant papers, you need to think beyond typing key words to get results. Academic databases have many features that you can use to increase the effectiveness of your search. To learn about these features, look for tutorials on using a particular database.
For example, a detailed tutorial on using Google Scholar is available here: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html
And a tutorial on using PubMed is here: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmedtutorial/cover.html
Both the tutorials linked above are official tutorials, produced by the maintainers of the respective databases. They contain many useful tips on how to make the most of the databases, well beyond simple searching with key words.
If you're going to use any of these or other academic databases regularly, make sure you go through the tutorials!
Finally, take a look at this article written by a leading biologist on using Google Scholar in scholarly workflows: http://googlescholar.blogspot.in/2014/10/using-google-scholar-in-scholarly.html
What do you think you can do if you face this situation?
To make the most of academic databases and obtain the most relevant papers, you need to think beyond typing key words to get results. Academic databases have many features that you can use to increase the effectiveness of your search. To learn about these features, look for tutorials on using a particular database.
For example, a detailed tutorial on using Google Scholar is available here: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html
And a tutorial on using PubMed is here: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmedtutorial/cover.html
Both the tutorials linked above are official tutorials, produced by the maintainers of the respective databases. They contain many useful tips on how to make the most of the databases, well beyond simple searching with key words.
If you're going to use any of these or other academic databases regularly, make sure you go through the tutorials!
Finally, take a look at this article written by a leading biologist on using Google Scholar in scholarly workflows: http://googlescholar.blogspot.in/2014/10/using-google-scholar-in-scholarly.html
Focusing on review articles
When you are ready to start using a database, start by searching for a recent review article in your field.
A review article, especially if it was published in the last year or two, can save you a lot of time by summarizing the current state of the science (including all the references you should look up) as well as research gaps.
Some databases like PubMed give you an option to restrict the search results to review articles. Or you can simply type the word "review" after your search terms, and the database should return the relevant review articles in your area.
You can click the link to any paper to see that paper, and you will usually find it within the website of the journal in which it was published. (Papers published a long time back may not be available digitally, in which case you may see only a citation and not a link.)
At this point, you may find that you can read the title and abstract, but not the full paper. You may be asked to login with a subscriber account or pay some money to download the full pape
A review article, especially if it was published in the last year or two, can save you a lot of time by summarizing the current state of the science (including all the references you should look up) as well as research gaps.
Some databases like PubMed give you an option to restrict the search results to review articles. Or you can simply type the word "review" after your search terms, and the database should return the relevant review articles in your area.
From databases to journals and papers
Question
When you carry out a search on an academic database, you'll be presented with a list of papers that are related to the key words and any filtering criteria you have specified.You can click the link to any paper to see that paper, and you will usually find it within the website of the journal in which it was published. (Papers published a long time back may not be available digitally, in which case you may see only a citation and not a link.)
At this point, you may find that you can read the title and abstract, but not the full paper. You may be asked to login with a subscriber account or pay some money to download the full pape
What do you think you can do if you face this situation?
Answers
4. Just pay the amount asked for
Options 2 and 3 are the best
Options 2 and 3 are the best
No access problem?
When you're doing a literature survey, you may find that you can
access the full texts of some journal papers without explicitly logging
in and without having to pay. This is of course very convenient!
If you can access the full text of a paper, it could be because of any of these reasons:
If you can access the full text of a paper, it could be because of any of these reasons:
- The paper is available because of open access. Either the journal in which it's been published is an open access journal, or this specific paper is available in open access form. Open access papers can be accessed without any authentication or sign-in procedures. Later in this course, you'll learn more about open access.
- The paper is in a subscription journal, but you have access to this journal and you're signed in with the right credentials.
- You have accessed an archived copy of the paper on the author's personal website or elsewhere (for example, on a research sharing platform such as Mendeley or ResearchGate).
Special access provisions
Journal subscriptions can be expensive for universities. And there
are thousands of journals around the world that use a subscription
model.
Some universities have large budgets and they can subscribe to most or all of the journals that their researchers might need access to.
In developing countries, universities often have limited budgets. But there's good news: some non-profit organisations and universities are working to address the problem of research access.
INASP, the organisation that has developed this e-learning course, have an initiative aimed at improving research access. We work closely with librarians in some developing countries to help them negotiate with publishers for steeply discounted access to journal collections.
Research4Life is another organisation working in the area of research access. They are well known for their access programmes HINARI, AGORA, OARE, and ARDI. By participating in these programmes, institutions in eligible developing countries can get free access to a vast amount of research literature.
You may also be able to access resources available at other institutional libraries through inter-library loans.
Visit inasp.info and research4life.org to learn more. And speak with your librarian to find out if your institution works with any of these access programmes or if there are any inter-library loan arrangements.
Finally, note that "availability does not equal access". See this article for an excellent perspective on this issue.
Before the digital age, when journals were available mostly in the
printed form, researchers would pick up an issue of a journal and go
through it to look for articles of interest. Or they would browse
periodicals that indexed the table of contents from the latest issues of
select journals.
Nowadays, you can access publications directly through academic databases that index thousands of journals! You don't have to go through one journal at a time.
Still, you need to know which are the most well-established journals in your field. It's a good idea to browse these journals regularly - whether online or in printed form - if you have access. This way, you'll come to know about the cutting-edge work being carried out. This could be useful knowledge even if it's not directly related to your own research agenda.
Do you know which key journals you should be reading regularly to be up to date in your field?
This is something you could discuss with your colleagues or on online networks such as the AuthorAID discussion list (http://dgroups.org/groups/authoraiddiscussion) and ResearchGate (http://researchgate.net/).
Some universities have large budgets and they can subscribe to most or all of the journals that their researchers might need access to.
In developing countries, universities often have limited budgets. But there's good news: some non-profit organisations and universities are working to address the problem of research access.
INASP, the organisation that has developed this e-learning course, have an initiative aimed at improving research access. We work closely with librarians in some developing countries to help them negotiate with publishers for steeply discounted access to journal collections.
Research4Life is another organisation working in the area of research access. They are well known for their access programmes HINARI, AGORA, OARE, and ARDI. By participating in these programmes, institutions in eligible developing countries can get free access to a vast amount of research literature.
You may also be able to access resources available at other institutional libraries through inter-library loans.
Visit inasp.info and research4life.org to learn more. And speak with your librarian to find out if your institution works with any of these access programmes or if there are any inter-library loan arrangements.
Finally, note that "availability does not equal access". See this article for an excellent perspective on this issue.
Knowing which journals to read
Nowadays, you can access publications directly through academic databases that index thousands of journals! You don't have to go through one journal at a time.
Still, you need to know which are the most well-established journals in your field. It's a good idea to browse these journals regularly - whether online or in printed form - if you have access. This way, you'll come to know about the cutting-edge work being carried out. This could be useful knowledge even if it's not directly related to your own research agenda.
Do you know which key journals you should be reading regularly to be up to date in your field?
This is something you could discuss with your colleagues or on online networks such as the AuthorAID discussion list (http://dgroups.org/groups/authoraiddiscussion) and ResearchGate (http://researchgate.net/).
End matter
This lesson has been developed by
INASP, an international development charity in the UK, as an extension
of the work carried out by the AuthorAID team. Visit inasp.info and authoraid.info to learn about our work.
This lesson was authored and developed by Ravi Murugesan, an INASP Associate. The content was reviewed by Dr Barbara Gastel, also an INASP Associate, and Dr Anne Riederer, an environmental health scientist and technical advisor to Blacksmith Institute. Parts of this lesson were based on material in AuthorAID workshops facilitated by Dr Gastel.
We have used a free and open source e-learning authoring tool called eXeLearning (http://exelearning.net/?lang=en) to create this lesson.
This lesson was last updated on 26 May 2015.
Licensing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
This lesson was authored and developed by Ravi Murugesan, an INASP Associate. The content was reviewed by Dr Barbara Gastel, also an INASP Associate, and Dr Anne Riederer, an environmental health scientist and technical advisor to Blacksmith Institute. Parts of this lesson were based on material in AuthorAID workshops facilitated by Dr Gastel.
We have used a free and open source e-learning authoring tool called eXeLearning (http://exelearning.net/?lang=en) to create this lesson.
This lesson was last updated on 26 May 2015.
Licensing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
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