Title:
Public Use of Open Access Research: Evidence from the National Academies and Harvard DASH Repository
Public Use of Open Access Research: Evidence from the National Academies and Harvard DASH Repository
Author(s)
Doshi, Ameet
Advisor(s)
Hicks, Diana
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Abstract
Once only available to those with university or scientific affiliations, the peer-reviewed literature is increasingly globally accessible to anyone with internet access. Over the past 20 years, this “open access” (OA) movement has transformed publishing business models,
and changed the ways scholars use and cite research. However, given this unprecedented level of access to scientific and technical information, do non-researchers, or lay persons, who are not steeped in the foundational knowledge of a field use this information?
Specialist knowledge requires effort by the general public to understand (Epstein, 1996; Savolainen, 1995; Shen, 1975). What motivates people to overcome obstacles to find and
synthesize scholarly research into their everyday lives? The proposed research seeks to better understand this phenomenon in an emerging era of open access to science. There is an increase in government mandates to make publicly-funded research open (for example:
NIH Open Access policy, OSTP Public Access Plan, EU Plan S). These mandates implicitly and explicitly assume that non-researchers desire access to, and can make productive use of, scientific literature. Thus, the question of how the public uses open access scholarship is a policy relevant inquiry worthy of study. As more journals offer (sometimes costly) OA options for publication in response to institutional mandates we can anticipate continued
growth of openly accessible peer-reviewed science. Yet evidence is lacking about why non-researchers seek, read and integrate OA into their lives. Generally, there is a need to better understand open access use from the public’s perspective. This is a policy relevant area of inquiry since federal and international mandates are changing the way research is published, ostensibly to expand access to a wider array of society. Yet very little empirical
work exists to understand if, and why, non-researchers use open access research. My thesis aims to fill this gap.
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Date Issued
2023-08-09
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Dissertation