TY - JOUR
T1 - Worldwide inequality in access to full text scientific articles
T2 - The example of ophthalmology
AU - Boudry, Christophe
AU - Alvarez-Muñoz, Patricio
AU - Arencibia-Jorge, Ricardo
AU - Ayena, Didier
AU - Brouwer, Niels J.
AU - Chaudhuri, Zia
AU - Chawner, Brenda
AU - Epee, Emilienne
AU - Erraïs, Khalil
AU - Fotouhi, Akbar
AU - Gharaibeh, Almutez M.
AU - Hassanein, Dina H.
AU - Herwig-Carl, Martina C.
AU - Howard, Katherine
AU - Wa Kaimbo, Dieudonne Kaimbo
AU - Laughrea, Patricia Ann
AU - Lopez, Fernando A.
AU - Machin-Mastromatteo, Juan D.
AU - Malerbi, Fernando K.
AU - Ndiaye, Papa Amadou
AU - Noor, Nina A.
AU - Pacheco-Mendoza, Josmel
AU - Papastefanou, Vasilios P.
AU - Shah, Mufarriq
AU - Shields, Carol L.
AU - Wang, Ya Xing
AU - Yartsev, Vasily
AU - Mouriaux, Frederic
PY - 2019/10/30
Y1 - 2019/10/30
N2 - Background: The problem of access to medical information, particularly in low-income countries, has been under discussion for many years. Although a number of developments have occurred in the last decade (e.g., the open access (OA) movement and the website Sci-Hub), everyone agrees that these difficulties still persist very widely, mainly due to the fact that paywalls still limit access to approximately 75% of scholarly documents. In this study, we compare the accessibility of recent full text articles in the field of ophthalmology in 27 established institutions located worldwide. Methods: A total of 200 references from articles were retrieved using the PubMed database. Each article was individually checked for OA. Full texts of non-OA (i.e., “paywalled articles”) were examined to determine whether they were available using institutional and Hinari access in each institution studied, using “alternative ways” (i.e., PubMed Central, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Online Reprint Request), and using the website Sci-Hub. Results: The number of full texts of “paywalled articles” available using institutional and Hinari access showed strong heterogeneity, scattered between 0% full texts to 94.8% (mean = 46.8%; SD = 31.5; median = 51.3%). We found that complementary use of “alternative ways” and Sci-Hub leads to 95.5% of full text “paywalled articles,” and also divides by 14 the average extra costs needed to obtain all full texts on publishers’ websites using pay-per-view. Conclusions: The scant number of available full text “paywalled articles” in most institutions studied encourages researchers in the field of ophthalmology to use Sci-Hub to search for scientific information. The scientific community and decision-makers must unite and strengthen their efforts to find solutions to improve access to scientific literature worldwide and avoid an implosion of the scientific publishing model. This study is not an endorsement for using Sci-Hub. The authors, their institutions, and publishers accept no responsibility on behalf of readers.
AB - Background: The problem of access to medical information, particularly in low-income countries, has been under discussion for many years. Although a number of developments have occurred in the last decade (e.g., the open access (OA) movement and the website Sci-Hub), everyone agrees that these difficulties still persist very widely, mainly due to the fact that paywalls still limit access to approximately 75% of scholarly documents. In this study, we compare the accessibility of recent full text articles in the field of ophthalmology in 27 established institutions located worldwide. Methods: A total of 200 references from articles were retrieved using the PubMed database. Each article was individually checked for OA. Full texts of non-OA (i.e., “paywalled articles”) were examined to determine whether they were available using institutional and Hinari access in each institution studied, using “alternative ways” (i.e., PubMed Central, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Online Reprint Request), and using the website Sci-Hub. Results: The number of full texts of “paywalled articles” available using institutional and Hinari access showed strong heterogeneity, scattered between 0% full texts to 94.8% (mean = 46.8%; SD = 31.5; median = 51.3%). We found that complementary use of “alternative ways” and Sci-Hub leads to 95.5% of full text “paywalled articles,” and also divides by 14 the average extra costs needed to obtain all full texts on publishers’ websites using pay-per-view. Conclusions: The scant number of available full text “paywalled articles” in most institutions studied encourages researchers in the field of ophthalmology to use Sci-Hub to search for scientific information. The scientific community and decision-makers must unite and strengthen their efforts to find solutions to improve access to scientific literature worldwide and avoid an implosion of the scientific publishing model. This study is not an endorsement for using Sci-Hub. The authors, their institutions, and publishers accept no responsibility on behalf of readers.
KW - science publishing
KW - Sci-Hub
KW - Paywall
KW - Bibliodiversity
KW - PubMed Central
KW - ResearchGate
KW - Google Scholar
KW - Open access
KW - access to literature
KW - articles
KW - Opthalmology
KW - pay-per-view
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074271965&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7717/peerj.7850
DO - 10.7717/peerj.7850
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074271965
SN - 2167-8359
VL - 2019
JO - PeerJ
JF - PeerJ
IS - 10
M1 - e7850
ER -