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JSTOR Daily is an online publication that contextualizes current events with scholarship. All of our stories contain links to publicly accessible research on JSTOR. We’re proud to publish articles based in fact and grounded by careful research and to provide free access to that research for all of our readers.

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Explore millions of high-quality primary sources and images from around the world, including artworks, maps, photographs, and more.

Explore migration issues through a variety of media types

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• Part of Cato Institute (Aug. 3, 2021)
• Part of University of California Press
• Part of Open: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
• Part of Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2012)
• Part of R Street Institute (Nov. 1, 2020)
• Part of Leuven University Press
• Part of UN Secretary-General Papers: Ban Ki-moon (2007-2016)
• Part of Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 12, No. 4 (August 2018)
• Part of Leveraging Lives: Serbia and Illegal Tunisian Migration to Europe, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Mar. 1, 2023)
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The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.

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Free Full Text Biomedical Literature: Finding free full text online

• Finding free full text online
• What to do when you can't find free full text
• Before you leave Yale

Find free full text with browser extensions

• Get the Open Access Button This open source project links you to free, legal, full text articles. You can search from their website or through their API, but their browser extension is the most convenient. When you're on the page of a paywalled article, click the extension and it will look for an open access version of the article. And if it can't find one, it makes it easy to request a copy from the author.
• Get Unpaywall The browser extension Unpaywall, for Firefox and Chrome, adds a green tab beside research articles that you can read for free.

Free full text in Google and Google Scholar

Google and Google Scholar both include lots of material and use algorithms that are constantly being adjusted to highlight the "most relevant" results. Expect good recall, low precision, and little quality control.

When you search in Google Scholar, you'll see links labeled [PDF] to the right of search results. This connects you to full text from many resources: PubMed Central, ResearchGate, Academica.edu, or institutional repositories.

Do the same search in Google Scholar and Google, and you'll get different results. You can limit your Google results to PDFs by adding  filetype:pdf to your search string; this can help you track down full text of articles, reports, and white papers.

• Google advanced search
• Google Scholar

Free full text in PubMed and PubMed Central

PubMed and PubMed Central are both free databases that you can search with high precision. To check which database you're using, look in the top left corner. Even though they look similar, there's an important difference! PubMed is a database of  citations ; PubMed Central is a database of  articles .

It's almost always better to look for articles about your topic in PubMed, which is much bigger and updated more quickly. We recommend searching PubMed Central in one particular situation: if you need to search for keywords in the full text of articles.

PubMed has a free full text filter on the results page. Look on the left, under text availability , and click on  free full text . The results set for your search will get smaller, but all the remaining articles are easily available in free full text. Just click on the article title to get to the article page, then look for the full text link on the right.That full text link will bring you to the article's full text, maybe in PubMed Central or maybe somewhere else.

• PubMed Central

Other resources for free full text

• HINARI Are you affiliated with an educational or health care institution in a low-income country? Talk to your organization about registering for HINARI to get free access to literature from many scholarly publishers.
• Open Access Dissertations and Theses Use OATD to search almost four million theses and dissertations -- all open access. If you've been using Proquest Dissertations and Theses as a Yale affiliate, try this out.
• Open Science Framework Preprints "Preprints" are typically complete and public versions of articles before they have gone through peer review. Biomedical funders including the NIH and the Wellcome Trust have encouraged researchers to cite preprints as interim research products.
• Sci-Hub: an ethical conundrum You've probably heard about Sci-Hub, an online collection of article PDFs. Before you decide to use Sci-Hub, you should read about the ethical conflicts of their approach; you can start with the coverage in Science, linked above. Librarians don't endorse copyright infringement -- that's why we have recommended all these other pathways to free full text.

You found it, but should you use it? Critical appraisal

• Evidence-Based Medicine Worksheets Use these handy worksheets from Dana Biomedical Library at Dartmouth to appraise randomized control trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, practice guidelines, studies of diagnostic tests, prognosis studies, etiology studies, and qualitative studies. Don't outsource your critical thinking to journal editors and peer reviewers!
• Next: What to do when you can't find free full text >>
• Last Updated: May 17, 2021 10:42 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/freefulltext

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• Research Skills Blog

5 free and legal ways to get the full text of research articles

By Carol Hollier on 07-Apr-2021 13:23:17

1.  Use your library if you have one !

If you are affiliated with a university, you probably have free library access to the full text of millions of research articles.   The library will have subscribed to these journals on your behalf. The smartest thing you can do for accessing research articles is familiarize yourself with your own library.

• If you search a database your library will link from the records to the full text if they have it—all you need to do is click through the links.
• When they do not have a copy of an article, a university library can get it for you from another library. This inter-library loan service is usually free to users.
• Your library might use a browser extension like Lean Library or LibKey Nomad to link you to the library subscription or open access full text from wherever you are on the internet.
• Google Scholar lets you configure your account to get links straight to your library’s subscription copy of an article.  But remember--side-by-side to library subscriptions for legitimate research, Google Scholar includes links to articles published in predatory and unreliable journals that would be unwise to credit in your own work.  Learn more about predatory journals.

If you are not affiliated with a university library, there are still ways you can successfully—and legally—get the full text of research articles.

2.  Open Access browser extensions  

More and more research is published Open Access as governments around the world are mandating that research paid for by taxpayer money be freely available to those taxpayers.

Browser extensions have been created to make it easy to spot when the full text of an article is free.   Some of the best are CORE Discovery , Unpaywall and Open Access Button .

Learn more about difference between discovery and access and why it matters for good research: Where to search - Best Practice for Literature Searching - LibGuides at IFIS

3. Google Scholar

You can search the article title inside quotation marks on Google Scholar to see if a link to a copy of the article appears.   If it does, be sure to pay attention to what version of the article you are linking to, to be sure you are getting what you think you’re getting.  These links can lead to an article's published version of record, a manuscript version, or to a thesis or conference proceeding with the same title and author as the article you expected to find.   

4.  Researcher platforms

 A Google Scholar search might lead you to a researcher platform like Academia.edu or ResearchGate .   There, if you set up an account, you can sometimes download or request a copy of the text.  Again, pay attention to which version of the text you get!

5.  Write to the author

If you can’t get a copy by other means, you can write to an article’s corresponding author and (politely!) ask them to send you a copy. Their contact information, usually an email address, will be listed in the information you find about the article, either in a database record for the article or on the publishing journal’s page for it. Many authors are happy to share a copy of their work.

Three bonus ways that might work depending on where you live:

1.  A nearby university library might offer access to articles even if you do not work or study there.

Members of the public are sometimes allowed access to university journal subscriptions through visitor access or a walk-in user service. You usually need to use the collections from a dedicated computer terminal located in a library and may need to make an appointment before you go. Do your research before showing up to make sure you bring the correct documents and equipment (like a flash drive) along.

2.  Try your public library

In some countries, public libraries partner with publishers to give the public access to research articles.   In the UK, for instance, many public libraries participate in the Access to Research scheme, which gives members of the public on-site access to over 30 million academic articles. Contact your local public library to learn what is available to you.

3.  Research4Life

In other countries, your institution might have access to a massive collection of research articles and databases through the publisher/library/United Nations agency initiative Research4Life . Check to see if you already have access, and if not, if your institution might be eligible to join. Membership is only available on an organizational or institutional level.  

Remember —even though you now have a lot of strategies for finding the full text of articles, research should never be led by the articles you can access most easily.

Good research is driven by first figuring out what articles are most relevant to your question and then getting the full text of what you need. One of the best ways to do this is to use a good discipline-specific database, like FSTA for the sciences of food and health.  

Learn more about difference between discovery and access and why it matters for good research:

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Libraries | Research Guides

Open access and free scholarly resources.

• Social Sciences
• Primary Sources
• Dissertations
• Cambridge University Press Open Access Open access journals from Cambridge University Press.
• Digital Commons Network The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
• Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals.
• JSTOR: Open Access Journals Growing collection of Open Access journals cover topical areas in sustainability and security studies, and offer broad coverage in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
• LOADB: Listing of Open Access Databases The objective of Listing of Open Access DataBases (LOADB) is to create a web-enabled, linked, classified and categorized collection of Open Access Databases which one can access from a single portal. Although initial focus is on science and technology subjects, the ultimate aim is to include all subject areas.
• Open Library of Humanities Open Library of Humanities journal publishes internationally-leading, rigorous and peer-reviewed scholarship across the humanities disciplines: from classics, theology and philosophy, to modern languages and literatures, film and media studies, anthropology, political theory and sociology.
• Project Muse Open Access Journals Open Access journal content from Project Muse.
• Sage Open Access Open access journals published by SAGE. All articles published in the journals provide worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on publication under a creative commons license.
• SciELO Scholarly literature in sciences, social sciences, arts & humanities published in open access journals from Latin American, Portugal, Spain and South Africa
• SpringerOpen: Journals Includes Springer’s portfolio of 160+ peer-reviewed fully open access journals across all areas of science.
• Directory of Open Access Books A directory of academic, peer reviewed open access books.
• Hathi Trust Digital Library This link opens in a new window A partnership of more than sixty major research institutions with Google, the Hathi Trust Digital Library includes all the book images from these libraries that have been digitized by Google. Only out-of-copyright images (generally pre-1923) can be displayed, or others where the permission of the copyright holder has been obtained, though both in-copyright and out-of-copyright materials can be searched. Out-of-copyright books can be downloaded by Northwestern users who register with the site.
• Internet Archive: eBooks and Texts The Internet Archive and Open Library offers over 8,000,000 fully accessible public domain eBooks. This includes a special modern collection of over 500,000 eBooks for users with print disabilities, and a very interesting curated, modern collection for the world at large.
• JSTOR: Open Access Books 7,000+ Open Access ebooks from 90 publishers, including Brill, Cornell University Press, De Gruyter, and University of California Press, are now available at no cost to libraries or users.
• Luminos Luminos is University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.
• MIT Open Access Books Open access titles from MIT
• Open Book Publishers Open books in humanities and social sciences.
• Open Textbook Library Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
• OAPEN: Open Access Publishing in European Networks The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of open access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.
• Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg offers over 50,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online.
• Project Muse Open Access Books Open Access books from Project Muse
• TOME The Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses have launched an initiative to increase access to humanities and social sciences scholarship.
• University of Michigan Press Open Access Open access books available through the University of Michigan Press.
• WorldCat.org WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. more... less... You can search for popular books, music CDs and videos—all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. You can also discover many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks. You may also find article citations with links to their full text; authoritative research materials, such as documents and photos of local or historic significance; and digital versions of rare items that aren't available to the public. Because WorldCat libraries serve diverse communities in dozens of countries, resources are available in many languages.
• Next: Humanities >>
• Last Updated: Jul 2, 2024 9:26 AM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/freescholarlyresources

Finding Open Access - Free Journals: Free Journal Article Databases

Free journal article databases.

• Citations and Bibliographies

Finding open access (free) journals

This LibGuide provides a list with active links to assist in finding open access (free) journals.

Options for finding reliable full text journal articles.

Other good sources for journals, newspapers, and more available for free on the Internet:

Google Scholar - A search engine for scholarly publications from peer-reviewed journals, professional societies, books, theses, and other sources.

Highwire Press - Offers free articles in biological, physical and social sciences and medicine. The site includes a search engine. Highwire has also put together a list of links to other large archives of scientific resources (highwire.stanford.edu/lists/largest.dtl)

Public Library of Science - A nonprofit scientific/medical organization making articles available for free.

BioMed Central - Publishes a number of journals that are available as open access, including Environmental Health and Journal of Biology. Others are available free to registered users.

OAIster - Indexes over three million digitized resources worldwide and can be limited to text, images, audio, or video files.

The Directory of Open Access Journals - Includes articles from more that 700 titles from around the world. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, Fishery Bulletin, Journal of Construction Education, and Biopolicy are just a few of the titles included.

Scitopia - A federated (“one-stop-shopping”) search portal for publications of a number of professional societies in the areas of science and technology. Over three million documents, including patents and government publications, can be found here.

Scientific Journals International - A Publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, health, education, and social sciences. Links to online issues are included.

Encyclopedia of Life - A collaborative initiative to collect information on every species on earth. Contributing organizations include Smithsonian Institution, Royal Botanic Garden, and American Museum of Natural History.

Internet Public Library - “Information you can trust” with subject indexes, newspapers, magazines, special collections, and more.

WorldCat - Sometimes called the catalog of catalogs, WorldCat lets you search through library holdings from thousands of libraries around the world. Search for everything from books, articles, CDs, DVDs, audio files, and more. This is a great resource for locating material that can be obtained through Interlibrary Loan if it is not available on the Internet.

WolframAlpha - A Wolfram Research resource, this "computational knowledge engine" can answer a wide variety of questions and provide information on various topics. Subjects covered include mathematics, statistics and data analysis, chemistry, engineering, and earth sciences among many more.

• Next: Citations and Bibliographies >>
• Last Updated: Jul 19, 2021 10:20 AM
• URL: https://libguides.esf.edu/freejournals

21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

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Written by  Scribendi

Has this ever happened to you? While looking for websites for research, you come across a research paper site that claims to connect academics to a peer-reviewed article database for free.

Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service. After the umpteenth time being duped, you begin to wonder if there's even such a thing as free journal articles.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't provide access to many free article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative work.

Below, we discuss why peer-reviewed articles are superior and list out the best free article databases to use in 2024.

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Why peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are more authoritative.

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to pass those publication costs on to the reader.

Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding, and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of legitimate oa journals.

 There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

Mission statement —The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their website.

Publication history —Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

Editorial board —Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their credentials?

Indexing —Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

Peer review —What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the process for a reliable assessment of quality?

Impact factor —What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

Contact information —Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

Turnaround —If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

Editorial board —Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

Indexing —Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

Peer review —Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify keywords.

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic, often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND between two keywords in your search if you need both keywords to be in your results (or, if you are looking to exclude certain keywords, to exclude these words from the results).

Consider Different Avenues

If you're not having luck using keywords in your search for free articles, you may still be able to find what you're looking for by changing your tactics. Casting a wider net sometimes yields positive results, so it may be helpful to try searching by subject if keywords aren't getting you anywhere.

You can search for a specific publisher to see if they have OA publications in the academic journal database. And, if you know more precisely what you're looking for, you can search for the title of the article or the author's name.

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

Ensuring that sources are both credible and reliable is crucial to academic research. Use these strategies to help evaluate the usefulness of scholarly sources:

• Peer Review : Look for articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles are typically vetted by experts in the field, ensuring the accuracy of the research findings.

Tip: To determine whether an article has undergone rigorous peer review, review the journal's editorial policies, which are often available on the journal's website. Look for information about the peer-review process, including the criteria for selecting reviewers, the process for handling conflicts of interest, and any transparency measures in place.

• Publisher Reputation : Consider the reputation of the publisher. Established publishers, such as well-known academic journals, are more likely to adhere to high editorial standards and publishing ethics.
• Author Credentials : Evaluate the credentials and expertise of the authors. Check their affiliations, academic credentials, and past publications to assess their authority in the field.
• Citations and References : Examine the citations and references provided in the article. A well-researched article will cite credible sources to support its arguments and findings. Verify the accuracy of the cited sources and ensure they are from reputable sources.
• Publication Date : Consider the publication date of the article. While older articles may still be relevant, particularly in certain fields, it is best to prioritize recent publications for up-to-date research and findings.
• Journal Impact Factor : Assess the journal's impact factor or other metrics that indicate its influence and reputation within the academic community. Higher impact factor journals are generally considered more prestigious and reliable. 

Tip: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), produced by Clarivate Analytics, is a widely used source for impact factor data. You can access JCR through academic libraries or directly from the Clarivate Analytics website if you have a subscription.

• Peer Recommendations : Seek recommendations from peers, mentors, or professors in your field. They can provide valuable insights and guidance on reputable sources and journals within your area of study.
• Cross-Verification : Cross-verify the information presented in the article with other credible sources. Compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions with similar studies to ensure consistency and reliability.

By employing these strategies, researchers can confidently evaluate the credibility and reliability of scholarly sources, ensuring the integrity of their research contributions in an ever-evolving landscape.

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

Navigating OA journals, research article databases, and academic websites trying to find high-quality sources for your research can really make your head spin. What constitutes a reliable database? What is a useful resource for your discipline and research topic? How can you find and access full-text, peer-reviewed articles?

Fortunately, we're here to help. Having covered some of the ins and outs of peer review, OA journals, and how to search for articles, we have compiled a list of the top 21 free online journals and the best research databases. This list of databases is a great resource to help you navigate the wide world of academic research.

These databases provide a variety of free sources, from abstracts and citations to full-text, peer-reviewed OA journals. With databases covering specific areas of research and interdisciplinary databases that provide a variety of material, these are some of our favorite free databases, and they're totally legit!

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of OA research. CORE has the largest collection of OA articles available. It allows users to search more than 219 million OA articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, or to a PDF available for download, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

CORE's mission statement is a simple and straightforward commitment to offering OA articles to anyone, anywhere in the world. They also host communities that are available for researchers to join and an ambassador community to enhance their services globally. In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

CORE's user interface is easy to use and navigate. Search results can be sorted based on relevance or recency, and you can search for relevant content directly from the results screen.

Collection : 219,537,133 OA articles

Other Services : Additional services are available from CORE, with extras that are geared toward researchers, repositories, and businesses. There are tools for accessing raw data, including an API that provides direct access to data, datasets that are available for download, and FastSync for syncing data content from the CORE database.

CORE has a recommender plug-in that suggests relevant OA content in the database while conducting a search and a discovery feature that helps you discover OA versions of paywalled articles. Other features include tools for managing content, such as a dashboard for managing repository output and the Repository Edition service to enhance discoverability.

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : Yes

Advanced Search Options : Language, author, journal, publisher, repository, DOI, year

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers OA to more than 74 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from." Search results can be exported for easy integration with reference management systems.

You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

Collection : 74,560,631

Other Services : None

Advanced Search Options :   Content type, source, author, journal, discipline

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 17,193 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language."

Information about the journal is available with each search result. Abstracts are also available in a collapsible format directly from the search screen. The scholarly article website is somewhat simple, but it is easy to navigate. There are 16 principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing that clearly outline DOAJ policies and standards.

Collection : 6,817,242

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, journal, year

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the Institution of Education Sciences allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only. You can also search only peer-reviewed sources.

The service primarily indexes journals, gray literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed. ERIC's selection policy is available as a PDF on their website.

The ERIC website has an extensive FAQ section to address user questions. This includes categories like general questions, peer review, and ERIC content. There are also tips for advanced searches, as well as general guidance on the best way to search the database. ERIC is an excellent database for content specific to education.

Collection : 1,292,897

Advanced Search Options : Boolean

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive is run by Cornell University Library and curated by volunteer moderators, and it now offers OA to more than one million e-prints.

There are advisory committees for all eight subjects available on the database. With a stated commitment to an "emphasis on openness, collaboration, and scholarship," the arXiv e-Print Archive is an excellent STEM resource.

The interface is not as user-friendly as some of the other databases available, and the website hosts a blog to provide news and updates, but it is otherwise a straightforward math and science resource. There are simple and advanced search options, and, in addition to conducting searches for specific topics and articles, users can browse content by subject. The arXiv e-Print Archive clearly states that they do not peer review the e-prints in the database.

Collection : 1,983,891

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : No

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, date, title, author, abstract, DOI

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database.

The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers. There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but, because most of the papers on the site are free access, it's not often that you encounter a paywall. There is currently no option to search for only peer-reviewed articles.

You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world. SSRN is "passionately committed to increasing inclusion, diversity and equity in scholarly research," and they encourage and discuss the use of inclusive language in scholarship whenever possible.

Collection : 1,058,739 abstracts; 915,452 articles

Advanced Search Options : Term, author, date, network

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of OA science. Publishing 12 OA journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of OA, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

PLOS outlines four fundamental goals that guide the organization: break boundaries, empower researchers, redefine quality, and open science. All PLOS journals are peer-reviewed, and all 12 journals uphold rigorous ethical standards for research, publication, and scientific reporting.

PLOS does not offer advanced search options. Content is organized by topic into research communities that users can browse through, in addition to options to search for both articles and journals. The PLOS website also has resources for peer reviewers, including guidance on becoming a reviewer and on how to best participate in the peer review process.

Collection : 12 journals

Advanced Search Options : None

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding free OA journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through OA repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards. Inclusion criteria for the database include requirements for OA content, global access, and categorically appropriate content, in addition to various other quality assurance measures. OpenDOAR has metadata, data, content, preservation, and submission policies for repositories, in addition to two OA policy statements regarding minimum and optimum recommendations.

This database allows users to browse and search repositories, which can then be selected, and articles and data can be accessed from the repository directly. As a repository database, much of the content on the site is geared toward the support of repositories and OA standards.

Collection : 5,768 repositories

Other Services : OpenDOAR offers a variety of additional services. Given the nature of the platform, services are primarily aimed at repositories and institutions, and there is a marked focus on OA in general. Sherpa services are OA archiving tools for authors and institutions.

They also offer various resources for OA support and compliance regarding standards and policies. The publication router matches publications and publishers with appropriate repositories.

There are also services and resources from JISC for repositories for cost management, discoverability, research impact, and interoperability, including ORCID consortium membership information. Additionally, a repository self-assessment tool is available for members.

Advanced Search Options :   Name, organization name, repository type, software name, content type, subject, country, region

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is OA, and you can filter your search accordingly.

BASE has rigorous inclusion requirements for content providers regarding quality and relevance, and they maintain a list of content providers for the sake of transparency, which can be easily found on their website. BASE has a fairly elegant interface. Search results can be organized by author, title, or date.

From the search results, items can be selected and exported, added to favorites, emailed, and searched in Google Scholar. There are basic and advanced search features, with the advanced search offering numerous options for refining search criteria. There is also a feature on the website that saves recent searches without additional steps from the user.

Collection : 276,019,066 documents; 9,286 content providers

Advanced Search Options :   Author, subject, year, content provider, language, document type, access, terms of reuse

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to access thousands of free and OA articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

DCL also offers the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons, an image database, and a keyword thesaurus for enhanced search parameters. The repository includes books, book chapters, conference papers, journal articles, surveys, theses and dissertations, and working papers. DCL advanced search features drop-down menus of search types with built-in Boolean search options.

Searches can be sorted by relevance, title, date, or submission date in ascending or descending order. Abstracts are included in selected search results, with access to full texts available, and citations can be exported from the same page. Additionally, the image database search includes tips for better search results.

Collection : 10,784

Advanced Search Options :   Author, date, title, subject, sector, region, conference

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a useful free online research database for academics in a variety of disciplines.

All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, which are organized by category and include information about history, geography, transportation, and much more. The World Factbook can be searched by country or region, and there is also information about the world's oceans.

This site contains resources related to the CIA as an organization rather than being a scientific journal database specifically. The site has a user interface that is easy to navigate. The site also provides a section for updates regarding changes to what information is available and how it is organized, making it easier to interact with the information you are searching for.

Collection : 266 countries

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts its status as the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of OA journals and papers." Their focus is on helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research. In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals increase their exposure to boost readership.

Paperity has journal articles for every discipline, and the database offers more than a dozen advanced search options, including the length of the paper and the number of authors. There is even an option to include, exclude, or exclusively search gray papers.

Paperity is available for mobile, with both a mobile site and the Paperity Reader, an app that is available for both Android and Apple users. The database is also available on social media. You can interact with Paperity via Twitter and Facebook, and links to their social media are available on their homepage, including their Twitter feed.

Collection : 8,837,396

Advanced Search Options : Title, abstract, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, year of publication, number of characters, number of authors, DOI, author, affiliation, language, country, region, continent, gray papers

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. dblp was founded in 1993, though until 2010 it was a university-specific database at the University of Trier in Germany. It is currently maintained by the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics.

Although it provides access to both OA articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only OA articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science. dblp entries are color-coded based on the type of item.

dblp has an extensive FAQ section, so questions that might arise about topics like the database itself, navigating the website, or the data on dblp, in addition to several other topics, are likely to be answered. The website also hosts a blog and has a section devoted to website statistics.

Collection : 5,884,702

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for OA material only. Their literature search is performed across multiple international databases.

EconBiz has an incredibly useful research skills section, with resources such as Guided Walk, a service to help students and researchers navigate searches, evaluate sources, and correctly cite references; the Research Guide EconDesk, a help desk to answer specific questions and provide advice to aid in literature searches; and the Academic Career Kit for what they refer to as Early Career Researchers.

Other helpful resources include personal literature lists, a calendar of events for relevant calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, and an economics terminology thesaurus to help in finding keywords for searches. To stay up-to-date with EconBiz, you can sign up for their newsletter.

Collection : 1,075,219

Advanced Search Options :   Title, subject, author, institution, ISBN/ISSN, journal, publisher, language, OA only

15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides OA research from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals. While originally focused on resources related to the physical sciences, math, and engineering, BioMed Central has branched out to include journals that cover a broader range of disciplines, with the aim of providing a single platform that provides OA articles for a variety of research needs. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

BioMed Central has a commitment to peer-reviewed sources and to the peer review process itself, continually seeking to help and improve the peer review process. They're "committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Additionally, the website includes resources to assist and support editors as part of their commitment to providing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA articles.

Collection : 507,212

Other Services : BMC administers the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry. While initially designed for registering clinical trials, since its creation in 2000, the registry has broadened its scope to include other health studies as well.

The registry is recognized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and it meets the requirements established by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The study records included in the registry are all searchable and free to access. The ISRCTN registry "supports transparency in clinical research, helps reduce selective reporting of results and ensures an unbiased and complete evidence base."

Advanced Search Options :   Author, title, journal, list

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are free to access or OA. Covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Search features are enhanced by Google, but searches are filtered through their index of repositories. JURN seeks to reach a wide audience, with their search engine tailored to researchers from "university lecturers and students seeking a strong search tool for OA content" and "advanced and ambitious students, age 14-18" to "amateur historians and biographers" and "unemployed and retired lecturers."

That being said, JURN is very upfront about its limitations. They admit to not being a good resource for educational studies, social studies, or psychology, and conference archives are generally not included due to frequently unstable URLs.

Collection : 5,064 indexed journals

Other Services : JURN has a browser add-on called UserScript. This add-on allows users to integrate the JURN database directly into Google Search. When performing a search through Google, the add-on creates a link that sends the search directly to JURN CSE. JURN CSE is a search service that is hosted by Google.

Clicking the link from the Google Search bar will run your search through the JURN database from the Google homepage. There is also an interface for a DuckDuckGo search box; while this search engine has an emphasis on user privacy, for smaller sites that may be indexed by JURN, DuckDuckGo may not provide the same depth of results.

Advanced Search Options :   Google search modifiers

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, OA scientific research data. Launched in 2009, it is run by a not-for-profit membership organization, with a community of institutional and publisher members for whom their services have been designed. Members include institutions such as Stanford, UCLA, and Yale, as well as publishers like Oxford University Press and Wiley.

Dryad aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access for the search and discovery of data. Their user experience is geared toward easy self-depositing, supports Creative Commons licensing, and provides DOIs for all their content.

Note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad.  When searching datasets, they are accompanied by author information and abstracts for the associated studies, and citation information is provided for easy attribution.

Collection : 44,458

Advanced Search Options : No

Run by the British Library, the E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) allows you to search over 500,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. All of the doctoral theses available on EThOS have been awarded by higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website. More than half of the records in the database provide access to full-text theses.

EThOS notes that they do not hold all records for all institutions, but they strive to index as many doctoral theses as possible, and the database is constantly expanding, with approximately 3,000 new records added and 2,000 new full-text theses available every month. The availability of full-text theses is dependent on multiple factors, including their availability in the institutional repository and the level of repository development.

Collection : 500,000+

Advanced Search Options : Abstract, author's first name, author's last name, awarding body, current institution, EThOS ID, year, language, qualifications, research supervisor, sponsor/funder, keyword, title

PubMed is a research platform well-known in the fields of science and medicine. It was created and developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It has been available since 1996 and offers access to "more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."

While PubMed does not provide full-text articles directly, and many full-text articles may be behind paywalls or require subscriptions to access them, when articles are available from free sources, such as through PubMed Central (PMC), those links are provided with the citations and abstracts that PubMed does provide.

PMC, which was established in 2000 by the NLM, is a free full-text archive that includes more than 6,000,000 records. PubMed records link directly to corresponding PMC results. PMC content is provided by publishers and other content owners, digitization projects, and authors directly.

Collection : 33,000,000+

Advanced Search Options : Author's first name, author's last name, identifier, corporation, date completed, date created, date entered, date modified, date published, MeSH, book, conflict of interest statement, EC/RN number, editor, filter, grant number, page number, pharmacological action, volume, publication type, publisher, secondary source ID, text, title, abstract, transliterated title

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar defines itself not just as a research database but also as a "search and discovery tool." Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms.

Through this singular application of machine learning, Semantic Scholar expands search results to include topic overviews based on your search terms, with the option to create an alert for or further explore the topic. It also provides links to related topics.

In addition, search results produce "TLDR" summaries in order to provide concise overviews of articles and enhance your research by helping you to navigate quickly and easily through the available literature to find the most relevant information. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results.

Collection : 203,379,033

Other Services : Semantic Scholar supports multiple popular browsers. Content can be accessed through both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Additionally, Semantic Scholar provides browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, so AI-powered scholarly search results are never more than a click away. The mobile interface includes an option for Semantic Swipe, a new way of interacting with your research results.

There are also beta features that can be accessed as part of the Beta Program, which will provide you with features that are being actively developed and require user feedback for further improvement.

Advanced Search Options : Field of study, date range, publication type, author, journal, conference, PDF

Zenodo, powered by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), was launched in 2013. Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." Zenodo accepts all research from every discipline in any file format.

However, Zenodo also curates uploads and promotes peer-reviewed material that is available through OA. A DOI is assigned to everything that is uploaded to Zenodo, making research easily findable and citable. You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download OA documents directly from the site.

While there are closed access and restricted access items in the database, the vast majority of research is OA material. Search results can be filtered by access type, making it easy to view the free articles available in the database.

Collection : 2,220,000+

Advanced Search Options : Access, file type, keywords

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

How to find peer-reviewed articles.

There are a lot of free scholarly articles available from various sources. The internet is a big place. So how do you go about finding peer-reviewed articles when conducting your research? It's important to make sure you are using reputable sources.

The first source of the article is the person or people who wrote it. Checking out the author can give you some initial insight into how much you can trust what you’re reading. Looking into the publication information of your sources can also indicate whether the article is reliable.

Aspects of the article, such as subject and audience, tone, and format, are other things you can look at when evaluating whether the article you're using is valid, reputable, peer-reviewed material. So, let's break that down into various components so you can assess your research to ensure that you're using quality articles and conducting solid research.

Check the Author

Peer-reviewed articles are written by experts or scholars with experience in the field or discipline they're writing about. The research in a peer-reviewed article has to pass a rigorous evaluation process, so it's a foregone conclusion that the author(s) of a peer-reviewed article should have experience or training related to that research.

When evaluating an article, take a look at the author's information. What credentials does the author have to indicate that their research has scholarly weight behind it? Finding out what type of degree the author has—and what that degree is in—can provide insight into what kind of authority the author is on the subject.

Something else that might lend credence to the author's scholarly role is their professional affiliation. A look at what organization or institution they are affiliated with can tell you a lot about their experience or expertise. Where were they trained, and who is verifying their research?

Identify Subject and Audience

The ultimate goal of a study is to answer a question. Scholarly articles are also written for scholarly audiences, especially articles that have gone through the peer review process. This means that the author is trying to reach experts, researchers, academics, and students in the field or topic the research is based on.

Think about the question the author is trying to answer by conducting this research, why, and for whom. What is the subject of the article? What question has it set out to answer? What is the purpose of finding the information? Is the purpose of the article of importance to other scholars? Is it original content?

Research should also be approached analytically. Is the methodology sound? Is the author using an analytical approach to evaluate the data that they have obtained? Are the conclusions they've reached substantiated by their data and analysis? Answering these questions can reveal a lot about the article's validity.

Format Matters

Reliable articles from peer-reviewed sources have certain format elements to be aware of. The first is an abstract. An abstract is a short summary or overview of the article. Does the article have an abstract? It's unlikely that you're reading a peer-reviewed article if it doesn't. Peer-reviewed journals will also have a word count range. If an article seems far too short or incredibly long, that may be reason to doubt it.

Another feature of reliable articles is the sections the information is divided into. Peer-reviewed research articles will have clear, concise sections that appropriately organize the information. This might include a literature review, methodology, results (in the case of research articles), and a conclusion.

One of the most important sections is the references or bibliography. This is where the researcher lists all the sources of their information. A peer-reviewed source will have a comprehensive reference section.

An article that has been written to reach an academic community will have an academic tone. The language that is used, and the way this language is used, is important to consider. If the article is riddled with grammatical errors, confusing syntax, and casual language, it almost definitely didn't make it through the peer review process.

Also consider the use of terminology. Every discipline is going to have standard terminology or jargon that can be used and understood by other academics in the discipline. The language in a peer-reviewed article is going to reflect that.

If the author is going out of their way to explain simple terms, or terms that are standard to the field or discipline, it's unlikely that the article has been peer reviewed, as this is something that the author would be asked to address during the review process.

Publication

The source of the article will be a very good indicator of the likelihood that it was peer reviewed. Where was the article published? Was it published alongside other academic articles in the same discipline? Is it a legitimate and reputable scholarly publication?

A trade publication or newspaper might be legitimate or reputable, but it is not a scholarly source, and it will not have been subject to the peer review process. Scholarly journals are the best resource for peer-reviewed articles, but it's important to remember that not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed.

It's helpful to look at a scholarly source's website, as peer-reviewed journals will have a clear indication of the peer review process. University libraries, institutional repositories, and reliable databases (and now you have a list of legit ones) can also help provide insight into whether an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Research is a lot of work. Even with high standards and good intentions, it's easy to make mistakes. Perhaps you searched for access to scientific journals for free and found the perfect peer-reviewed sources, but you forgot to document everything, and your references are a mess. Or, you only searched for free online articles and missed out on a ground-breaking study that was behind a paywall.

Whether your research is for a degree or to get published or to satisfy your own inquisitive nature, or all of the above, you want all that work to produce quality results. You want your research to be thorough and accurate.

To have any hope of contributing to the literature on your research topic, your results need to be high quality. You might not be able to avoid every potential mistake, but here are some that are both common and easy to avoid.

Sticking to One Source

One of the hallmarks of good research is a healthy reference section. Using a variety of sources gives you a better answer to your question. Even if all of the literature is in agreement, looking at various aspects of the topic may provide you with an entirely different picture than you would have if you looked at your research question from only one angle.

Not Documenting Every Fact

As you conduct your research, do yourself a favor and write everything down. Everything you include in your paper or article that you got from another source is going to need to be added to your references and cited.

It's important, especially if your aim is to conduct ethical, high-quality research, that all of your research has proper attribution. If you don't document as you go, you could end up making a lot of work for yourself if the information you don't write down is something that later, as you write your paper, you really need.

Using Outdated Materials

Academia is an ever-changing landscape. What was true in your academic discipline or area of research ten years ago may have since been disproven. If fifteen studies have come out since the article that you're using was published, it's more than a little likely that you're going to be basing your research on flawed or dated information.

If the information you're basing your research on isn't as up-to-date as possible, your research won't be of quality or able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny. You don't want all of your hard work to be for naught.

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

OA is a great resource for conducting academic research. There are high-quality journal articles available through OA, and that can be very helpful for your research. But, just because you have access to free articles, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to be found behind a paywall.

Just as dismissing high-quality peer-reviewed articles because they are OA would be limiting, not exploring any paid content at all is equally short-sighted. If you're seeking to conduct thorough and comprehensive research, exploring all of your options for quality sources is going to be to your benefit.

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Research is an art form, and it involves a delicate balance of information. If you conduct your research using only broad search terms, you won't be able to answer your research question well, or you'll find that your research provides information that is closely related to your topic but, ultimately, your findings are vague and unsubstantiated.

On the other hand, if you delve deeply into your research topic with specific searches and turn up too many sources, you might have a lot of information that is adjacent to your topic but without focus and perhaps not entirely relevant. It's important to answer your research question concisely but thoroughly.

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

Different types of scholarly articles have different purposes. An original research article, also called an empirical article, is the product of a study or an experiment. This type of article seeks to answer a question or fill a gap in the existing literature.

Research articles will have a methodology, results, and a discussion of the findings of the experiment or research and typically a conclusion.

Review articles overview the current literature and research and provide a summary of what the existing research indicates or has concluded. This type of study will have a section for the literature review, as well as a discussion of the findings of that review. Review articles will have a particularly extensive reference or bibliography section.

Theoretical articles draw on existing literature to create new theories or conclusions, or look at current theories from a different perspective, to contribute to the foundational knowledge of the field of study.

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

Use the right academic journal database for your search, be that interdisciplinary or specific to your field. Or both!

If it's an option, set the search results to return only peer-reviewed sources.

Start by using search terms that are relevant to your topic without being overly specific.

Try synonyms, especially if your keywords aren't returning the desired results.

Even if you've found some good articles, try searching using different terms.

Explore the advanced search features of the database(s).

Learn to use Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or narrow your results.

Once you've gotten some good results from a more general search, try narrowing your search.

Read through abstracts when trying to find articles relevant to your research.

Keep track of your research and use citation tools. It'll make life easier when it comes time to compile your references.

7 Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do i get articles for free.

Free articles can be found through free online academic journals, OA databases, or other databases that include OA journals and articles. These resources allow you to access free papers online so you can conduct your research without getting stuck behind a paywall.

Academics don't receive payment for the articles they contribute to journals. There are often, in fact, publication fees that scholars pay in order to publish. This is one of the funding structures that allows OA journals to provide free content so that you don't have to pay fees or subscription costs to access journal articles.

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

Journal articles can be found in databases and institutional repositories that can be accessed at university libraries. However, online research databases that contain OA articles are the best resource for getting free access to journal articles that are available online.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the best to use for academic research, and there are a number of databases where you can find peer-reviewed OA journal articles. Once you've found a useful article, you can look through the references for the articles the author used to conduct their research, and you can then search online databases for those articles, too.

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in reputable scholarly peer-reviewed journals. High-quality journals and journal articles can be found online using academic search engines and free research databases. These resources are excellent for finding OA articles, including peer-reviewed articles.

OA articles are articles that can be accessed for free. While some scholarly search engines and databases include articles that aren't peer reviewed, there are also some that provide only peer-reviewed articles, and databases that include non-peer-reviewed articles often have advanced search features that enable you to select "peer review only." The database will return results that are exclusively peer-reviewed content.

4. What Are Research Databases?

A research database is a list of journals, articles, datasets, and/or abstracts that allows you to easily search for scholarly and academic resources and conduct research online. There are databases that are interdisciplinary and cover a variety of topics.

For example, Paperity might be a great resource for a chemist as well as a linguist, and there are databases that are more specific to a certain field. So, while ERIC might be one of the best educational databases available for OA content, it's not going to be one of the best databases for finding research in the field of microbiology.

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

There are interdisciplinary research databases that provide articles in a variety of fields, as well as research databases that provide articles that cater to specific disciplines. Additionally, a journal repository or index can be a helpful resource for finding articles in a specific field.

When searching an interdisciplinary database, there are frequently advanced search features that allow you to narrow the search results down so that they are specific to your field. Selecting "psychology" in the advanced search features will return psychology journal articles in your search results. You can also try databases that are specific to your field.

If you're searching for law journal articles, many law reviews are OA. If you don't know of any databases specific to history, visiting a journal repository or index and searching "history academic journals" can return a list of journals specific to history and provide you with a place to begin your research.

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

The short answer is yes, peer-reviewed articles are more legitimate resources for academic research. The peer review process provides legitimacy, as it is a rigorous review of the content of an article that is performed by scholars and academics who are experts in their field of study. The review provides an evaluation of the quality and credibility of the article.

Non-peer-reviewed articles are not subject to a review process and do not undergo the same level of scrutiny. This means that non-peer-reviewed articles are unlikely, or at least not as likely, to meet the same standards that peer-reviewed articles do.

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

Yes! As with anything, some databases are going to be better for certain requirements than others. But, a scholarly article database being free is not a reason in itself to question its legitimacy.

Free scholarly article databases can provide access to abstracts, scholarly article websites, journal repositories, and high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. The internet has a lot of information, and it's often challenging to figure out what information is reliable. 

Research databases and article directories are great resources to help you conduct your research. Our list of the best research paper websites is sure to provide you with sources that are totally legit.

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More information on open access resources can also be found on the Guide links below:

• Grey Literature For open access theses and dissertations and conference proceedings explore our Grey Literature guide.
• Open Access For directories of open access journal /books and educational resources explore our Open Access guide.

Evaluate the resource for accuracy and credibility

If your resources are not retrieved from the library's databases, then closer scrutiny of the resource is required. The suggestions below will help you decide about the credibility of resource you found online and if you would want to use it in your paper.

Check if the article is published in a peer reviewed journal by checking these resources

• The journal's website: verify if it is a peer reviewed journal from the About pages

Use the following modules and checklists to evaluate the resources you found:

• Evaluating Information This module from Credo Research Skills, covers the basics of evaluating resources for authority, accuracy, and other criteria.
• Health Research Readiness: Module D Evaluating information Covers how to evaluate resources, including spotting predatory publishers and evaluating self-styled "experts".
• Dependability checklist A checklist from Deakin University to help critically evaluate the credibility of a resource.
• JBI critical appraisal tools JBI checklists assist in assessing the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published studies and opinion.

Ask a librarian if you are still unsure!

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• Int J Trichology
• v.3(2); Jul-Dec 2011

“Free Full Text Articles”: Where to Search for Them?

Ashish singh.

Consultant Dermatologist, Parkinsganj, Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Manish Singh

1 Department of Neurosurgery, JIPMER, Pondicherry, India

Ajai Kumar Singh

2 Department of Neurology, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Vibhooti Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Deepti Singh

3 Consultant Psychiatrist, Parkinsganj, Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Pratibha Singh

4 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, JIPMER, Pondicherry, India

Abhishek Sharma

5 Department of Surgical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Delhi, India

References form the backbone of any medical literature. Presently, because of high inflation, it is very difficult for any library/organization/college to purchase all journals. The condition is even worse for an individual person, such as private practitioners. The solution lies in the free availability of full-text articles. Here, the authors share their experiences about the accessibility of free full-text articles.

INTRODUCTION

Presently, in India nearly 314 medical colleges are providing undergraduate medical education in the form of MBBS, 163 colleges are providing doctor of medicine in diploma in Dermatology,Venereology and Leprosy (DVL), and 84 colleges are providing diploma in DVL.[ 1 – 3 ] In addition to this, 27 hospitals are providing diplomate of national board in diploma in Venereology and Dermatology.[ 4 ] On comparing this data with number of research articles published, the latter stands in a mediocre situation. One of the important cause responsible for the relatively less number of research publication is unavailability of free full-text articles. Research works, published by most of the journals, are paid. Many of the undergraduates or postgraduate students may not be able to purchase these high-cost journals or articles. In addition to this, many researchers may not be willing to spend money on journals. These are some of the situations where free full-text articles come for rescue, but many of the beginners may not be familiar about how to search these articles. In addition, free full-text articles are the first choice for many of the postgraduate students for their dissertation.

HOW TO APPROACH

In addition to journals which are fully Open Access, there are few other journals which operate through subscriptions as mainstream journals do, but which offer open access to the electronic versions of their articles after a delay of usually a year, or selectively for individual articles, provided the authors have paid an additional charge to “open up” the articles.[ 5 ]

Free full-text articles can be approached in the following ways.

Medknow Publications

Medknow Publications publish nearly 150 journals. They provide free access to the electronic editions of their journals.[ 6 ] Researchers just have to open the site www.medknow.com , fill the key word they require, and search. Alternatively, they can visit the search option, available in most of their journals site through www.journalonweb.com , fill the key word, and search across multiple journals. At times, this site alone provides sufficient number of references required for the purpose. The important dermatological journals published by Medknow Publications are Indian Dermatology Online Journal, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, Indian Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS, International Journal of Trichology, and Journal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery.[ 7 ]

PubMed Central and PubMed

PubMed Central is the United States National Library of Medicine's digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature which provides free access to the full text of articles.[ 8 ] To search for free full-text articles on PubMed Central, one has to visit the site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ , write the topic/author/journal title, and search across all articles.

PubMed is a database of citations and abstracts for articles from thousands of journals. PubMed does not include full-text journal articles.[ 9 ] It includes links to full-text articles at many journal web sites as well as to most of the articles in PubMed Central.[ 10 ] Here, articles can be searched on the site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed . Search can be restricted to contents free on web by using filter your results and clicking free full text.[ 11 ]

Directory of Open Access Journals

The directory aims to cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.[ 12 ] It provides articles from 439 medicinal journals. Among them, 21 are from dermatology.[ 13 ] It includes Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia, BMC Dermatology, Case Reports in Dermatology, Clinical Dermatology, Clinical Medicine Insights: Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Dermatología Peruana, Dermatology Online Journal,th Dermatology Reports, Dermatology Research and Practice, Egyptian Dermatology Online Journal, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, The Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology Research, Journal of the Egyptian Women's Dermatologic Society, Open Dermatology Journal, Revista Argentina de Dermatología, Surgical and Cosmetic Dermatology, Turk Dermatoloji Dergisi, Turkderm.[ 14 ] The disadvantage of directory of open access journals is that few of these journals are in languages other than English. Here, articles can be searched on the site http://www.doaj.org .

Electronic Resources in Medicine Consortium and National Medical Library

Electronic Resources in Medicine Consortium (ERMED) and National Medical Library (NML) are an excellent platform for obtaining free of cost recent journal articles for its member colleges. There is no membership fees charged from the Government Medical Colleges and institutions. The private colleges and institutions have to make payment per site price for e-sources purchased by the consortium in every calendar year.[ 15 ] Membership of the college can be checked from the site http://www.nmlermed.in/members.htm or volunteers can contact their library to check the membership and to get the user name and password of the site www.ermed.jccc.in allotted to their college.[ 16 ] In 2009, the number of ERMED members increased from 40 to 72 Government Medical Colleges/Institutes across the country.[ 17 ] At present, it covers nearly 32 journals of dermatology. It includes Acta Dermatoveneorologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica, Advances in Skin and Wound Care, American Journal of Clinical Dermatology, American Journal of Dermatopathology, Archives of Dermatological Research, Archives of Dermatology,, Asian Journal of Dermatology, BMC Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Clinical Dermatology, Contact Dermatitis, Dermatologic Surgery, Dermatology, Dermatology Nursing, Dermatology Online Journal, Dermatology Times, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, International Journal of Dermatology, Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, Medicine, Open Dermatology Journal, Pediatric Dermatology, Rosacea Review, Skin and Allergy News, Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, Turkdem-Archives of the Turkish Dermatology and Venerology and Turkish Journal of Dermatology.[ 18 ]

Journal articles related to the topic can be searched easily after signing in at the site www.ermed.jccc.in , followed by clicking search database.

Google, Google Scholar, and Yahoo

Google ( http://www.google.com ) and Yahoo search ( http://www.search.yahoo.com ) are two of the world's most hit web pages and two largest web-based search engines.[ 19 ] Usually these are the first search site for any scholar. They provide links for both paid and free articles. The disadvantage associated with these sites is that additionally they provide materials that may not give scholarly information. Many articles are repeated also. But the catch is that one article which is paid at one web link may be free at another web link. Google Scholar ( http://www.scholar.google.com ) provides a simple way to broadly search for the relevant scholarly literature and research.[ 19 ]

The Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library provides high-quality review articles. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews has an impact factor of 5.653 of 2009.[ 20 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/index.html .

Public Library of Science

Public library of science is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.[ 21 ] Everything published on this site is freely available throughout the world, for researchers to read, download, copy, distribute, and use.[ 22 ] Articles can be searched here on the site http://www.plos.org/search.php .

Free Medical Journals

Currently, total 2226 journals are available on this site.[ 23 ] Among them, nearly 30 are journals are related to dermatology and venereology and most of them are in English.[ 24 ] Some journals are available only a few months after the release. Journals can be searched on the site http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/fmj/DERMA.HTM .

It covers more than 125 medical journals and textbooks. After a simple, free registration, Medscape automatically delivers you the specialty site that best fits your profile.[ 25 ] After signing in at www.medscape.com , articles can be searched.

HighWire Press Stanford University

HighWire Press partners with independent scholarly publishers, societies, associations, and university presses to facilitate the digital dissemination of 1465 journals, reference works, books, and proceedings.[ 26 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://highwire.stanford.edu/ . It provides both free and paid articles.

Bioline International

Bioline International provides open access to peer reviewed bioscience journals published in developing countries.[ 27 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://www.bioline.org.br .

Indmed covers about 77 journals indexed from 1985 onwards. A portal medIND provides free full text access to 40 Indian medical journals.[ 28 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://medind.nic.in .

BioMed Central

BioMed Central is a Science, Technology, and Medicine publisher. All original research articles published by BioMed Central are made free and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication.[ 29 ] After free registration, journals can be searched over http://www.biomedcentral.com/browse/journals/ .

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research

Important dermatology journals in English included in this site are Acta Dermato-Venereologica, Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, Annals of Dermatology, Archives of Dermatology, Asian Journal of Dermatology, BMC Dermatology, Case Reports in Dermatology, Clinical Medicine Insights: Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Dermato-Endocrinology, Dermatology Online Journal, Dermatology Reports, Dermatology Research and Practice, Dermatology Times, European Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, International Journal of Trichology, Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology Research, Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, Journal of Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Journal of Skin Cancer, Journal of the Egyptian Women's Dermatologic Society, Leprosy Review, Open Dermatology Journal, Rosacea Review, Skin Therapy Letter, World Wide Wounds.[ 30 ] Journals can be seen on the site http://www.gfmer.ch/Medical_journals/Dermatology.htm .

The website of Italian Library Association

Here journals can be traced on the site http://www.aib.it/aib/commiss/cnur/peb/pebs.htm3 . This site provides both free and paid journal articles.

UK PubMed Central

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is a full-text article database that extends the functionality of the original PubMed Central (PMC) repository. UKPMC ( http://ukpmc.ac.uk ) has undergone considerable development since its inception in 2007 and now includes both a UKPMC and PubMed search, as well as access to other records such as Agricola, Patents, and recent biomedical theses. UKPMC also differs from PubMed/PMC in that the full text and abstract information can be searched in an integrated manner from one input box. All of the articles in UKPMC are “Free Access,” Not all content available in PMC is made available to UKPMC.[ 31 ]

The University of lowa libraries

Links to few free full-text articles are available at the site http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/eresources/genindexes.asp .

National library of medicine gateway

National library of medicine (NLM) is a user-friendly web-based system that searches not only MEDLINE but also several other NLM databases at the same time.[ 19 ] Articles can be searched here on http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd .

Medical Matrix

Medical Matrix ( http://www.medmatrix.org ) is a comprehensive guide to clinical medicine resources on the Internet.[ 19 ] Medical Matrix links to more than ten MEDLINE sites, including Gateway and PubMed and fee and open access sites.[ 19 ]

World Health Organization

Publications from World Health Organizations can be searched at the site http://www.who.int/publications/en/ .

British Medical Journal Group

Some low income and low middle income countries are entitled to free access of this site.[ 32 ] For other countries, all the articles are not free. Journals can be searched here at site http://group.bmj.com/products/journals/ . This site includes Journal of Sexually Transmitted Infections.

British medical journal (BMJ) Open is an online-only, open access general medical journal, publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas.[ 33 ] The journal publishes all research study types, from study protocols to phase I trials to meta-analyses.[ 33 ] Articles can be searched at http://bmjopen.bmj.com/ .

Elsevier Journals

Few journals published by Elsevier, provide free access to non subscribers, after a predefined period of time has elapsed following the final publication.[ 34 ] The list of journals can be seen on website http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/delayedaccess .

Free full-text articles play a pivotal role in updating the knowledge of physicians and researchers. They play important role in preparation of any manuscript or thesis, for the persons who cannot subscribe to these articles due to any reason. Authors believe that these articles will be useful for such persons. Authors request the readers to contribute any other link for free full-text articles they know.

Source of Support: Nil

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

• Harvard Library
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Beyond Harvard: Library Resources for HKS Alumni

• Free Resources
• Using the HKS Library as an Alum

Introduction

Hks library research guides, articles & books, policy research, open source software.

• Maximize Your Searching
• Other Libraries

License agreements and copyright laws prevent Harvard libraries from offering alumni complete access to online resources. There is, however, a large and growing body of resources available to everyone, thanks to library digitization projects, the open access movement, and other efforts.

Our 40+ expertly curated Research Guides are freely available online. These guides offer subject-specific resources on topics like:

• COVID-19 resources for social scientists
• Campaigns & Elections
• Human Rights
• National & International Security
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

If a resource listed in our guides doesn't specify "Harvard Login," it is likely freely available online.

Zotero is a free and open-source citation management software that allows you to manage your research materials, create bibliographies, format citations, take notes, and collaborate with others.

You can download Zotero even after graduation, and refer to Harvard Library's online guide for help.

All the content you've added to Zotero before graduation will stay in your account. Any new content you add after your HKS email becomes inactive will be subject to Zotero's 300MB free limit. You can purchase more storage online.

Make sure to change your email!

Your student HKS email account and address will remain active for one year after your status is officially changed to Graduate in Harvard's systems. Before this happens, add a personal email address to your Zotero account so you don't get locked out of your content.

Login to Zotero online .

Click on your username in the upper right corner, then select "Settings" from the drop-down.

Click on the "Account" tab.

Under "Add email address," add your personal email address.

Once your HKS email becomes inactive, delete that address from this page. Your personal email will become the primary one associated with your Zotero account.

Many online platforms provide free access to articles, citations, and even full-text books.

• Developing Nations Initiative List of free or low cost scholarly literature access programs for residents of developing countries. Eligibility criteria vary by program.
• Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) DASH is Harvard's central open-access repository. It hosts scholarly work by HKS affiliates including faculty, Centers, and students, and other Harvard community members.
• Digital Commons Network Access to 600,000 publications from almost 300 institutions. Search by keyword or topic.
• Digital Public Library of America Online books, maps, photos, and much more from libraries, archives, and museums, freely available to all.
• Directory of Open Access Books Voted one of the best free reference sites by an ALA reference librarian group, this site enables the user to find free, open access books online.
• Directory of Open Access Journals Directory of free, full text, scientific and scholarly journals. Currently contains over 7,500 titles.
• EconBiz Provides citations and some full-text access to articles on business, management, and economics topics in (mainly) scholarly journals; since EconBiz is edited in Germany, it offers excellent coverage of European publications.
• ERIC A wide variety of journal and non-journal literature in the field of education. Not all material is available in full text.
• Google Scholar Search scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including legal cases. Not all content in this search is freely available.
• HathiTrust A shared digital repository created by major research libraries. Features millions of digitized texts, some freely available in full-text, some limited to search-only.
• Internet Archive Digitized books, journals, audio, video, and more, all free. In addition to contemporary texts, includes a wealth of digitized historical material.
• Journalist's Resource A project of the Shorenstein Center, this site surfaces scholarly materials that may be relevant to media practitioners, bloggers, educators, students and general readers. Some of their articles outline how journalists can access academic research for free.
• National Academies Press Collection of over 5,000 academic titles available to read online at no cost.
• NBER: National Bureau of Economic Research Free access to working papers 18 months and older.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations Resource for locating open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. more... less... This is an index of over 1.6 million electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). To the extent possible, the index is limited to records of graduate-level theses that are freely available online.
• OpenDOAR OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Repositories can be located by subject and location. The site also links to a customized Google search of the open access repositories included in this directory.
• PolicyArchive An open access repository of public policy research by think tanks, NGOs, CRS, and university centers.
• Project Gutenberg Over 49,000 free books available in a variety of downloadable formats.
• PubMed Central (PMC) Repository of articles produced with the support of NIH research grants and made publically available within 12 months of publication. Not all material is available in full text.
• Rand Corporation Publications dating from 1946. Topics include criminal justice, national security, terrorism, international affairs, healthcare and energy.
• RePEc: Research Papers in Economics Provides links to working papers and journal articles in economics. Try the IDEAS service.
• SSRN: Social Science Research Network Contains working papers in social science, law and business/economics fields. Registration is required.
• Open Access Button

Think Tank Search

Think Tank Search searches the websites of institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, and non-governmental organizations. Inclusion is based upon the relevancy of subject area to HKS coursework and scholarship, the availability of the think tank’s research in full-text on the website, and the think tank’s reputation and influence upon policy making. The list represents a mixture of partisan and non-partisan think tanks.

Other Policy Resources

• Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks Collection of research from the world’s leading policy experts, think tanks, IGOs and NGOs. At last count it contains over 3 million publications from more than 24,000 organizations.
• Open Research Reports from JSTOR More than 39,000 research reports from over 140 policy institutes around the world are freely accessible to everyone on JSTOR. The open research reports are discoverable alongside journals, books, and primary sources, and are clearly labeled as their own content type.
• Find Policy A side project of Transparify, search think tank sites grouped by topic and location.
• Open Think Tank Directory A global collection of 2700 think tanks and related organisations.

Repository of think tank publications on EU affairs from the Library of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU.

Open source software is distributed with its source code, making it freely available for use. There are open-source alternatives to many of the commercial software tools Harvard licenses.

Adobe Creative Cloud Alternatives

Pdf editing (adobe acrobat dc).

• LibreOffice Draw

Visual Effects & Motion Graphics (Adobe After Effects)

• Synfig Studio

Digital Audio (Adobe Audition)

Vector graphics (adobe illustrator), desktop publishing (adobe indesign).

• Microsoft Publisher Not open source, but included in Office 365 subscriptions.

Transcoding (Adobe Media Encoder)

• MLT Framework
• FFmpeg Requires knowledge of command line interface.

Raster Graphics (Adobe Photoshop)

Video editing (adobe premiere pro), arcgis alternative.

• QGIS All the same functionality as ArcGIS in an open-source tool.

NVivo Alternatives

NVivo offers a free 14-day trial and 24-month subscriptions, with discounts available for students. Other free and less expensive options include:

• Dedoose Commercial alternative to NVivo. Offers 30-day trial then payments only per active month. Discounts available.
• qdap R package for qualitative data analysis.
• RQDA R package for qualitative data analysis.
• ELAN Originally developed for linguistics rather than qualitative social science research.
• Taguette Text tagging.

Tableau Alternatives

Tableau Desktop offers a free one-year license for students . Other alternatives include:

• Tableau Public
• Datawrapper Decent amount of features but visualizations are watermarked.
• Google Data Studio Primarily for building dashboards.

Screencasting

Text mining & natural language processing.

• Quanteda R package for textual analysis and natural language processing.
• Voyant Less powerful than Quanteda but easier to learn.
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Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

Free APA Journals ™ Articles

Recently published articles from subdisciplines of psychology covered by more than 90 APA Journals™ publications.

For additional free resources (such as article summaries, podcasts, and more), please visit the Highlights in Psychological Research page.

• Basic / Experimental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
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• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology, School Psychology, and Training
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• Moving While Black: Intergroup Attitudes Influence Judgments of Speed (PDF, 71KB) Journal of Experimental Psychology: General February 2016 by Andreana C. Kenrick, Stacey Sinclair, Jennifer Richeson, Sara C. Verosky, and Janetta Lun
• Recognition Without Awareness: Encoding and Retrieval Factors (PDF, 116KB) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition September 2015 by Fergus I. M. Craik, Nathan S. Rose, and Nigel Gopie
• The Tip-of-the-Tongue Heuristic: How Tip-of-the-Tongue States Confer Perceptibility on Inaccessible Words (PDF, 91KB) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition September 2015 by Anne M. Cleary and Alexander B. Claxton
• Cognitive Processes in the Breakfast Task: Planning and Monitoring (PDF, 146KB) Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale September 2015 by Nathan S. Rose, Lin Luo, Ellen Bialystok, Alexandra Hering, Karen Lau, and Fergus I. M. Craik
• Searching for Explanations: How the Internet Inflates Estimates of Internal Knowledge (PDF, 138KB) Journal of Experimental Psychology: General June 2015 by Matthew Fisher, Mariel K. Goddu, and Frank C. Keil
• Client Perceptions of Corrective Experiences in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: An Exploratory Pilot Study (PDF, 62KB) Journal of Psychotherapy Integration March 2017 by Jasmine Khattra, Lynne Angus, Henny Westra, Christianne Macaulay, Kathrin Moertl, and Michael Constantino
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Developmental Trajectories Related to Parental Expressed Emotion (PDF, 160KB) Journal of Abnormal Psychology February 2016 by Erica D. Musser, Sarah L. Karalunas, Nathan Dieckmann, Tara S. Peris, and Joel T. Nigg
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Research on aerodynamic characteristics of three offshore wind turbines based on large eddy simulation and actuator line model.

1. Introduction

2. numerical method, 3. verification and validation, 3.1. single turbine parameter settings, 3.2. results of the mesh independence test, 3.3. comparison and validation with existing literature results, 4. three-turbine array configuration, 4.1. three-turbine configuration and computational domain grid division under full wake cases, 4.2. cases of three turbines under staggered arrangement, 5. comparative analysis of three-turbine simulation results, 5.1. three turbines under full wake conditions, 5.1.1. comparison of aerodynamic performance results, 5.1.2. comparison of wake characteristics results, 5.1.3. unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of three turbines under full wake conditions, 5.2. three turbines under staggered cases, 5.2.1. comparison of aerodynamic performance results, 5.2.2. comparison of wake characteristics results, 5.2.3. unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of three turbines under staggered conditions, 6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest, abbreviations.

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Fu, C.; Zhang, Z.; Yu, M.; Zhou, D.; Zhu, H.; Duan, L.; Tu, J.; Han, Z. Research on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Three Offshore Wind Turbines Based on Large Eddy Simulation and Actuator Line Model. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024 , 12 , 1341. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081341

Fu C, Zhang Z, Yu M, Zhou D, Zhu H, Duan L, Tu J, Han Z. Research on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Three Offshore Wind Turbines Based on Large Eddy Simulation and Actuator Line Model. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering . 2024; 12(8):1341. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081341

Fu, Chen, Zhihao Zhang, Meixin Yu, Dai Zhou, Hongbo Zhu, Lei Duan, Jiahuang Tu, and Zhaolong Han. 2024. "Research on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Three Offshore Wind Turbines Based on Large Eddy Simulation and Actuator Line Model" Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 12, no. 8: 1341. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081341

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Evaluating barriers to reaching women with public health information in remote communities in Mali

• Robert T. Jones 1 , 2 ,
• Freya I. Spencer 1 ,
• Laura A. Paris 1 ,
• Diarra Soumaïla 3 ,
• Nanthilde Kamara 4 ,
• Alexandra Hiscox 1 &
• James G. Logan 1 , 2  

BMC Health Services Research volume  24 , Article number:  905 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Telecommunications offers an alternative or supplement to community-based interventions as a means of extending healthcare services and improving health outcomes in remote settings but can fail to reach target communities and achieve the desired impact if barriers to access are not overcome. We conducted seven focus group discussions and 26 interviews with community health workers, community leaders, and female members of the public who declared that they had or had not previously accessed free audio health messages provided via a mobile platform in two rural communities of Mali, Koulikoro and Bougouni. A content analysis showed that participants accessed and trusted health information from a range of sources, including radio, telephone and television, as well as town criers, local relays and community health centres. Barriers to access faced by women included economic factors, lack of network or electricity, and social factors such as illiteracy, cultural restrictions and being unaware of mobile communication. Through analysis and interpretation of the participants’ responses, we have made recommendations for future campaigns for the dissemination of health-related information for women in remote settings.

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Introduction

Community-based interventions offer a means of extending healthcare services and improving health outcomes, particularly in rural settings. The mainstays of these initiatives in Africa are community health workers (CHWs), trained lay people who live in the communities they serve and who provide a critical link with the primary healthcare system [ 1 ]. With appropriate support, CHWs are able to provide lifesaving prevention and treatment services for many conditions, direct patients and their families to appropriate sources of care, and build trust health services [ 2 ].

CHWs are well positioned to provide health-related information to those in their communities, but there are limitations to their effectiveness. Contextual, socioecological factors affect the engagement of CHWs, who may have limited training and lack the knowledge necessary to effectively perform their responsibilities [ 3 , 4 ]. These health workers may also face challenges balancing their duties with other workloads, difficulties accessing patients’ homes, or a lack of the resources needed to assist their communities [ 5 , 6 ]. There are also barriers to patients accessing the services provided by CHWs. For example, a study in Malawi reported that individuals with HIV and tuberculosis experienced stigma and discrimination in their communities because CHW visits were associated with the presence of an HIV patient [ 7 ].

We previously employed a telephone-based messaging campaign (which we refer to as the ‘3-2-1 service’) to reach individuals in remote communities of Mali with a series of messages promoting health-seeking behaviours related to malaria and COVID-19. [ 8 ]. Approximately 130,000 unique listeners accessed the service every month, dialling a free-phone number (3–2–1) to listen to pre-recorded messages. However, review of listener data found that only 17% of those accessing the messaging service were calling from phone numbers that were registered to women, suggesting that women did not receive the full benefits of accessing information that could help protect them and those in their care.

It is estimated that approximately 90% of people in Mali own a mobile phone and that ownership is slightly greater in rural areas than in urban areas; therefore, there are opportunities to use mobile communication to address health issues [ 9 , 10 ]. Mobile phones can be used for phone surveys, calls or Short Message Service (SMS)/text messages between clients and health practitioners, such as to remind people to attend medical appointments and take prescribed medication [ 11 , 12 ]. Informational messages can be developed for caregivers that provide guidance on disease prevention and illness management or that can encourage health seeking behaviours [ 13 , 14 ]. Indeed, the use of mobile wireless technologies for health, known as mobile health or mHealth, offers unique opportunities for service delivery. Whilst the innovative role that digital technologies can play in strengthening health systems are recognised, there is an important need to evaluate their contributing effects and ensure that investment in such programs do not inappropriately divert resources from alternative, non-digital approaches [ 15 ]. At present, high quality evidence on the effectiveness of such interventions remains limited [ 16 ].

Women are often the primary caregivers of their families and are responsible for the nutrition, health and well-being of their children and families. A recent scoping review identified poor access and utilisation of healthcare information by women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries and called for more primary studies to determine the accessibility, financial accessibility, connectivity, and challenges faced by women in these settings [ 17 ]. In this study, we employed in-depth interviews to investigate the reasons why women accessed or did not access a mobile messaging service in Mali. We also used in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with health workers and community leaders to explore barriers that might be faced by people trying to access health-related information and alternative means of reaching vulnerable populations.

Study setting

Participants in this study were recruited from rural communities in two Malian regions—Koulikoro, in the health district of Kati (region of Koulikoro), and Bougouni in the health district of Ouélessébougou (region of Sikasso). These regions have mean estimated International Wealth Index (IWI) [ 18 ] values ranging from 44.2 (Koulikoro) to 45.1 (Sikasso), compared to 68.8 in the capital region, Bamako [ 19 ]. The population densities in Koulikoro and Sikasso are 31.9 and 47.5 people per km 2 , respectively. Bamanankan is the most widely spoken language in Mali.

The Koulikoro region is Mali’s 2nd largest administrative region, bordering Guinea and Mauritania. It is a major area of agricultural production (cereals and peanut cotton) and livestock farming. There are several gold-panning sites in the region. The population is predominantly Bambara, Malinké and Peulh, all of whom are sedentary.

The Sikasso es region is Mali’s 3rd administrative region and borders Côte d’Ivoire. It is highly suitable for agriculture, and is the country’s second-largest cereal-producing area and leading cotton-producing region. It is also the country’s leading fruit (mango and citrus) and vegetable-producing region. Due to insecurity in the northern regions, and the south boasting abundant pasture and water for water animals, many breeders have migrated to the Sikasso region with their herds. Several gold mines are being exploited in the region, and industrial lithium and diamond infrastructures are under construction. There are also several gold panning sites. The region is mainly populated by Bambara, Sénoufo, Minianka and Peulh, all of whom are sedentary.

Individual interviews

In-depth interviews were held with 26 women living in areas previously targeted by the mobile messaging service. Participants were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, self-identified as women, resided in a rural area of Mali previously targeted by the 3-2-1 service and were able to confirm that they did or did not engage with the 3-2-1 service in the past. Purposive sampling was used to select individuals who had previously engaged with the 3-2-1 service and those who had not. The interviews were also held with health workers. The themes of the sessions are shown in Fig.  1 , and an interview guide is provided in the Supplementary Material. The question guide was developed following a preassessment and review of the protocol by the Ministry of Health. The interviews were conducted in French, a language spoken by all participants. On occasion, Dogon was spoken by individuals and so a collective agent who could speak Dogon, was present.

Discussion themes of interviews and focus group sessions

Focus group discussions

Seven focus group discussions were conducted with women who had not previously accessed the 3-2-1 service, CHWs and community leaders. CHWs of any gender were eligible if they had operated within rural communities for a period of more than 6 months. Community leaders were considered eligible if they were religious leaders, governmental officials or community/tribal chiefs. These groups were selected to obtain a well-rounded view of the challenges faced in rural settings and to obtain informed input from key groups within these communities in Mali. The question guides used in the sessions followed the same themes as those used in the in-depth interviews (Fig.  1 and Supplementary Material). Focus group discussions were held in French, a language spoken by all participants.

Participant recruitment

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. All interview and focus group discussions were recorded using an audio recorder and transcribed by a member of the field team. The transcripts were translated into English prior to analysis. The sessions took place in August and September 2023.

Thematic analysis

Open coding was performed in NVivo (V.14, QSR International). Theme generation followed Braun and Clarke’s six phases for thematic analysis [ 20 ]. A preliminary coding framework was established from the topic guide, but coding was mostly inductive by grouping prevalent response patterns into higher-order categories. The 32-item Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research tool was used to ensure that all key methodological issues were considered (COREQ checklist provided in the Supplementary Material).

A total of 26 in-depth interviews were held (Table  1 ). The age of the female participants who had previously accessed the 3-2-1 service ranged from 18 to 48 years. The age of the females who had not previously accessed the 3-2-1 service ranged from 18 to 35 years. The community health workers included four males and five females, with occupations including patient consultant, midwife, community health agent, vaccinating agent, director of the health centre and paediatric nurse. Seven focus group discussions were held and included a total of 56 participants, 32 of whom were female (Table  1 ). For brevity, quotes are coded: H = Health worker, L = Community leader, U = 3-2-1 User, NU = 3-2-1- Nonuser, I = Interview, FG = Focus group, followed by the session number. For example, Koulikoro-U-I-1 refers to interview session 1 held with a 3-2-1 service user in Koulikoro.

Responses to the interview transcripts were coded into the central themes of sources of health information, trust in these sources, barriers to accessing health information, and recommendations for improving access to health information (Fig.  2 ). Responses to questions exploring reasons for accessing or not accessing the 3-2-1 service and whether the service was useful were also coded.

Themes of the central research questions. (1) Which sources provide health information? (2) Which sources of health information do you trust? (3) What are the barriers to accessing health information? (4) What recommendations do you have for improving access to health information?

Sources of information

Participants described a range of sources of health information, which may be categorised as (1) health workers, (2) media, or (3) other personal communication (Fig.  2 ). Information from health workers was delivered via educational talks led by health workers or NGO agents during vaccination campaigns and prenatal visits or during consultations with health personnel. Community health workers or agents were also cited as a source of information disseminated during home visits, during women’s gatherings or upon request. The community health platform is a term used to describe any community service based in the village. It provides structure for CHWs as well as the service for community members (community relays, GSAN, mother and father educators), and was described as a focal point for health activities in the village, such as vaccination programmes or community nutrition support groups (known locally as ‘GSANs’).

Community radio stations were described as providing health shows, and television was also a frequent source of information for some participants. Participants also mentioned the telephone, including the Viamo 3-2-1 platform, messages from Orange Mali and its partners, and social networks. Like Viamo, Orange Mali can share information by SMS and has a programme called Senekela that is primarily aimed at providing farmers with information to improve their agricultural practices. The sources of information varied across participants, with some clearly preferring some sources and not utilising or valuing others. Community relays are typically a designated man and a women within a community, who facilitate health actions such as vaccination, mass distribution of medicines and referrals of patients to a higher level. Those in very remote settings said that community relays or nurses do not visit them and that they have no television or radio. For them, the telephone is the main source of information.

“I get [information] from my telephone. We don’t have a television. That’s why we are using a phone to listen to the service ” (Koulikoro-U-I-1). “Telephone is my source of health information. Telephone is more practical . (Bougouni-U-I-3.) “Local relays share information they get with all the community members. Few people listen to the radio. Few people have television sets , too. So , local relays remain the principal source of information for the community ” (Koulikoro-L-FG-2). “People get information about health from the traditional town criers who use drums to share the information. Also , some people get information from the local relays and radio , and others from television” (Koulikoro-H-FG-1).

Trust in information sources

Trust was discussed with reference to sources of health-related information. Participant responses indicated that they had confidence in information coming from the three categories mentioned above (health workers, media, and other personal communication). Many participants trusted information received directly from people working in the health sector, including doctors, community health agents and other health personnel. Other participants indicated that there was trust in people known within the community, but this opinion was shared more by community leaders and those working in the health sector.

“In this rural community , people trust information delivered from health agents directly. Villagers believe more in the health agents than [information] shared on social networks. Also , they believe in what the town criers share because it comes from the village authorities” (Koulikoro-H-FG-1). “I trust doctors. You feel healthy when you listen to doctors” (Bougouni-NU-I-4). “They believe in the community health centre agents because the agents are in contact with them. They know how to sensitize them. It is the health agents who treat them when they get sick. Many villagers are healthy because of them. Health is their job” (Koulikoro-H-FG-1).

Some members of communities expressed that they found television and radio to be reliable sources, and for some, this was because the information they shared came from doctors or was widely shared.

“We believe in radio because their information comes from doctors. We believe in our local doctors” (Bougouni-L-FG-1). “I believe in the health information shared on the radio by doctors ” (Bougouni-H-FG-1).

Despite the range of trusted sources, some participants indicated that some may be less reliable than others and, in particular, focused on false information spread on social networks. There was evidence of misinformation in some of the responses given by the participants. When asked what she knew about malaria, one participant stated:

“I know that when you eat a meal with much oil , cucumber , or watermelon a lot , you can catch it” (Koulikoro-NU-I-4). “They must trust the health information of the community health centres. But , they also trust other sources like fake news on social media on health information” (Koulikoro-H-I-4). “Some rumours on social media and some influential people giving wrong information to the community members. They frighten them , telling them they will die or get ill if they do this treatment… That’s why some people reject vaccination” (Koulikoro-H-I-4).

Usefulness of mobile messaging services

Although one person said that it is easier to access information on the radio (Bougouni-H-I-2), all those who were aware of the 3-2-1 service and had used it found that the health information provided was useful. Content was provided in their local language rather than in French and was described as having a large amount of relevant health information. Some also indicated that they had experienced a change in behaviour following listening to the messages. A point made in the interviews was that messaging via mobile phones gives people the flexibility to listen to information when they have time.

“I have learned about the symptoms of malaria. People must go to the health centre to treat it. We used to treat it at the traditional healers , but today more people go to the health centre” (Koulikoro-U-I-3). “Sharing health information on phones is more accessible to people than other ways… You can call the service anytime for health information with phones. But , on televisions and radios , there is a time set for health information. You can miss it sometime” (Bougouni-L-FG-1).

Reasons for not accessing the 3-2-1 service

The majority of participants who had not previously accessed the 3-2-1 service stated that there were not aware of its availability. However, lack of mobile network coverage was mentioned by some participants, principally by those who indicated that they live in a particularly remote region. Others also stated that they do not have a telephone or that their phone was broken. Three participants also mentioned that they do not have electricity.

“We don’t have electricity here. Many people don’t know about the service here” (Koulikoro-U-I-3). “I don’t think network coverage will be an obstacle. There is network coverage almost everywhere today. In the area of Ouelessebougou , about 44 villages , there is network coverage” (Bougouni-H-I-1).

Although the 3-2-1 service is available for free, a minimum balance of at least 100 West African CFA franc (approximately $0.16) is required on the mobile telephone in order to access the 3-2-1 messages. This restriction was also mentioned by several participants, as was confusion about whether the service consumed mobile credit.

“The health information on Viamo [3-2-1] service is essential for people in remote places who don’t have access to information. In those places , people live in poor conditions. They can’t afford a phone balance. They can’t have access to balance in some villages” (Koulikoro-H-I-4). “Many people will call the service when it is free because they don’t always have money to buy a balance. Because some people can’t access the service when they are out of balance three days later , they stop calling it. They think it is consuming” (Bougouni-U-I-4).

Access to health information

The interview and focus group sessions provided insight into obstacles to disseminating health-related information within the participants’ communities. Responses fell into the categories of (1) access to media, (2) distance and infrastructure, (3) economic factors, (4) social factors, and (5) lack of data sharing (Fig.  2 ). Young people were frequently identified as groups that would have less access to information because they have less autonomy and do not have a radio, telephone or television, but women and working men were also mentioned, as were elderly people who may stay at home and not travel to health centres. When asked what group of people do not have phones and who might be missed by information shared by mobile messaging, they responded:

“Females , because they can’t keep a phone” (Bougouni-H-I-4). “Many young people don’t get health information because they don’t have phones ” (Bougouni-U-I-1).

These views about limited access to phones were not held by all and were contradicted by a number of individuals in interviews and focus groups who said that mobile phones were a source of information. Indeed, one participant confirmed:

“Most of the women here have phones” (Bougouni-NU-I-1).

​ Economic factors were raised, with many participants stating that issues with insufficient time or money prevented them from receiving health information.

“Lack of money is the principal reason. They all say they go to the health centre late because of money issues to buy the medicaments… When he can’t afford it , they go to traditional healers” (Bougouni-H-I-4). “Some farmers don’t access health information. They are always busy working on farms” (Bougouni-H-FG-1).

Religious and cultural factors were discussed as potential obstacles to accessing health-related information, particularly the control of information by husbands. One health worker also indicated that men are overlooked as targets for health information.

“[Men] aren’t targets of the health policy. We work with women a lot in the field of health ” (Bougouni-H-I-1). “Some husbands don’t support their wives in getting health information…Some husbands don’t want their wives to listen to family planning information because it is taboo. They think that family planning is against the teaching of religions” (Koulikoro-H-I-4). “Some elders don’t let young people listen to some health issues” (Bougouni-H-I-3).

Finally, some indicated that it was not access to information that was the problem but rather to people who were not listening or who misunderstood.

“Accessing health information is not a challenge , but understanding is. The community members believe in the health information from people they know. They won’t trust a stranger” (Koulikoro-H-I-2).

Recommendations for improving access to health information

The interviews and focus group discussions provided an opportunity to explore, with target communities as well as their leaders and those working in the health sector, how future efforts could be focused on improving access to health information (Fig.  2 ).

The interviewers guided participants to respond to the question of how to improve uptake of the 3-2-1 messaging service, and responses typically focused on the need to let people know about it or sensitise them to its importance.

“You should teach people how to call the service. They don’t know how it works. They will use it if they know how it works because more people have telephones ” (Bougouni-L-FG-1). “I suggest informing people about the service on TV and the radio. Many people don’t know about the service. As health workers , we should be the first to know about it , but many don’t” (Bougouni-H-I-2). “Many women listen to “Baroni” [radio show]. They are very interested in it. It is amusing for them. You can also broadcast the Service health information before “Baroni” starts” (Bougouni-H-I-1).

Due to the possibility of fake news or misinformation, participants indicated that it is important that mobile communication receive the support of local health agents. This involvement of local and trusted individuals was expressed for information sharing more broadly, not just for informing people about mobile messaging services.

“Radio broadcast information only. They don’t get in touch with villagers. So , villagers cannot believe them more than the health agents” (Koulikoro-H-FG-1). “You need to spread the information about the service so that many people can learn about it. Meet them and talk to them like you are doing it now. When ten people know about it , they will inform many people” (Koulikoro-L-FG-1). “I am a vaccination agent. I go from village to village for vaccination campaigns. Before I go , local relays tell the community about my arrival , but some families tell me that they haven’t got the information about it. Local relays should work hard to share health information with all the community members. They should go to mosques and everywhere to inform the community” (Bougouni-H-FG-1).

Many participants indicated that they or others in their community like to access information on phones and would dial in if there was not a need for a balance. Some said that when they do not have a balance, they will miss the information, and others were concerned that the service gradually used their credit.

“I advise sharing health information on phones. They are efficient tools for sharing health information. You can move with them and use them everywhere” (Bougouni-NU-FG-1). “Many people will call the service if CFA 100 is not a requirement. Before I lost my phone , I used to listen to it with a balance of CFA 100. But I couldn’t three days later without a balance in my account” (Koulikoro-U-I-3). “You should negotiate with your mobile phone operator partner to make it free from charges for villagers. They can’t afford it” (Koulikoro-H-FG-1).

Telephones were considered personal devices, and few thought it was practical to borrow a device from someone other than their husband. Instead, they suggested sharing through other sources of media or personal communication. Finally, there were greater structural issues that some participants indicated must be addressed to improve access to information, including addressing illiteracy and network coverage.

“Women are more interested in entertainment and fun activities. You can attract them by organizing fun activities that incorporate health information. Entertainment or amusement when broadcasting the information about the service can help draw the attention of many women” (Koulikoro-L-FG-1). “I suggest radio or television. Those who don’t have a phone can go and watch television or listen to the radio to people possessing them. Telephones are personal devices , but radio and television are not in Siby” (Koulikoro-L-FG-1). “There is a high illiteracy rate here. I receive many messages myself , but I can’t read them. Women need to learn how to read and write to use the service” (Bougouni-L-FG-1).

The use of mobile phones to distribute public health messages represents an exciting opportunity for educating and helping the public to ensure that they are taking appropriate steps to protect themselves and those in their care. Advantages in remote settings, such as those investigated in this study, are that the messages can reach people with low literacy, who may be far from traditional health services, and who have limited economic resources [ 21 , 22 ]. However, it remains a challenge to reach both men and women equally using this innovative approach [ 23 ]. Analysis of data gathered from our previous mobile messaging campaign in Mali indicated that a large proportion of handsets used to access messages were registered to men, although the data gathered did not make it possible to determine whether females might have called the messaging service on a male-registered device. A 2015 survey indicated that ownership of at least one mobile phone in Mali is marginally greater in females (74%) than in males (72%) [ 10 ], and our more recent work in Malawi showed a 50:50 male: female ratio when users of the 3-2-1 service were asked to self-report their gender (A. Hiscox, personal communication).

Previous research has shown that mobile communication can be a valuable tool for supporting disease control and has an impact on adherence to treatments [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. A study in Ghana reported a six-fold increase in uptake at a drop-in centre one month after the launch of a hotline for answering questions and encouraging users to seek care [ 27 ], and in Uganda, the number of people taking an HIV test doubled the week after a test campaign to 8,000 users began [ 28 ]. Methods to determine whether participants have gained knowledge via engagement with an mHealth programme include surveys and text-based quizzes, but knowledge does not necessarily translate into altered habits, and methods to determine whether users have followed guidance, such as to wash their hands, take a drug treatment or conduct a self-breast examination, are typically based on self-reported data [ 29 , 30 ]. It can be much more challenging to independently assess changes in behaviour, so these reports from Ghana and Uganda, and others of increased attendance at health services are encouraging [ 31 ].

However, more evaluations of current interventions need to be conducted to strengthen the evidence base for the value of mHealth services, and there is particularly weak evidence concerning scalability and sustainability [ 32 , 33 ]. In addition, despite the number of mHealth studies reported, there remains insufficient investigation into best strategies for engagement [ 34 ]. Prior to scaling-up initiatives from pilot studies, it is important to understand how best to reach users, maximize engagement and avoid attrition.

Participants in Mali explained that they currently access information through literacy classes, women’s organisations and other gatherings. To promote the health of women, community mobilisation through group activities has been shown to be effective in a range of low and middle-income settings [ 35 ]. Mobilisation activities require group participation, so when attendance is poor, fewer community members will be exposed to new information or behaviour change communication. Previous focus groups have identified a range of factors that might prevent people from attending community engagement events, such as the need to prioritise farming activities [ 36 ], and the responses people gave in our study relating to time pressures suggest that similar issues would be faced in Mali. Although informal information sharing is expected to occur, when group members pass on to others health information they have received, particularly in more rural areas with greater social cohesion [ 37 , 38 ], social structures and power dynamics could affect this communication. It is important that women are reached directly to ensure fidelity in the messages they receive [ 39 ].

Tools to disseminate public health information or improve health-seeking behaviours directly include the adoption of radio education, TV and newspaper advertisements, talk shows and documentary series, live concerts, and musical shows [ 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Interviews held in other sub-Saharan Africa countries have previously found participants accessing a range of sources for health information and identified infrastructural barriers such as poor roads and lack of electricity [ 43 , 44 ]. While some participants in our study indicated that mobile network coverage remained an issue in their community, others disagreed and did not consider this to be a barrier to mobile communication. Instead, a cultural barrier to information access was described: several participants indicated that certain health subjects were not discussed with particular groups. This challenge has been described previously from studies in Mali [ 45 ], and raises the importance of sensitisation and the need to overcome taboos or cultural restrictions that might prevent individuals from receiving information that is important to their health.

Town criers or relays were cited as a source of trusted information by community leaders, health workers and members of the community, because they were known to people in their locality. Voluntary community relays have become important components of African community health policy, but previous research in Mali has suggested that people carrying out the role of relays encountered difficulties in devoting sufficient time to this activity and had to make economic compromises through a lack of remuneration [ 46 ]. Challenges related to illiteracy have also been discussed as limitations to their impact, despite a requirement for community relays to be literate [ 47 ]. Furthermore, it has been suggested that nonrenewal of volunteer agents seriously threatens the longevity of the system [ 46 ], implying that community relays might not be a sustainable source of information sharing in the future.

Based on the findings of the content analysis, our recommendation for a future health information campaign is to utilise a mobile messaging platform such as the 3-2-1 service that is advertised alongside popular local radio shows as well as promoted locally by health workers, town criers, relays and local authorities to inform those who might otherwise be unaware. The trust of communities in doctors and health workers should also be leveraged. At face-to-face appointments, doctors, nurses, midwives, other health professionals or CHWs could inform people about the service and encourage them to use it, particularly with their partners or in groups, and then those individuals would have access to health information at intervening times. The use of telecoms for communication of health information could be particularly beneficial for taboo topics where relays or other forms of face-to-face communication might not reach the desired audience. Opportunities to incentivise or reimburse health professionals and CHWs should be considered, as well as opportunities to raise awareness with them at routine training or requalification sessions and any programmes that they might be involved with at NGOs or as part of academic research projects. The messaging service can make the jobs of health professionals easier by providing health information and encouraging health-seeking behaviour before illness becomes too severe. Finally, it is important that the messages be broadcast in regional languages, that they receive approval from the Ministry of Health or local authorities, and that they align with the advice of local doctors. Content should be easy to understand but also entertaining, to the extent that it can be listened to in women’s groups, literacy classes and other gatherings.

Our vision is to improve the lives and health of underserved communities around the world. Our recommended programme, which makes use of both a mobile messaging platform and personal contact with known and trusted individuals, could immediately be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and other diseases cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and widespread suffering in rural communities [ 48 , 49 ], and then adapted for other regions. When literacy is higher, the incorporation of chatbot features could improve accessibility and education [ 50 ] and support referrals to local clinics and reminders to take medication for those managing chronic diseases. Expansion may allow for features similar to those offered by the NHS 111 in the United Kingdom or HealthDirect Australia [ 51 , 52 ], further extending the reach of the health system and reducing pressure on local services.

Study limitations

The interviews were led by a consultant engaged by Viamo Mali, whose line of questioning or undocumented emphasis may have influenced the responses of some participants. Furthermore, a considerable proportion of participants were community leaders and health workers whose opinions were valuable but may have been biased and altered the balance of responses given. All community leaders were male, representative of the gender of leaders in the study area, but their views on barriers to reaching women may not have represented the views of women, particularly for taboo topics.

Our study identified that participants access and trust a range of sources of information, including local health workers and the media. However, economic and social factors continue to limit the ability of women in remote communities to receive information relevant to their health. We recommend that future campaigns are built on mobile communication, but leverage personal contact with local trusted sources and promotion through popular radio programmes to extend healthcare services and improve health outcomes in remote areas.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study is included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Bayer Foundation for the support of this work. We are grateful to Dr. Sarah Marks for her review of the study protocol, the LSHTM Research Ethics Committee and all participants who participated in this study.

This work was funded through a donation to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine from the Bayer Foundation.

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RTJ, AH and JGL conceived the study. LP was responsible for obtaining ethical approval and study design. FS was responsible for communication between partners and overseeing the research. NK was the local lead in Mali, and SD was a consultant responsible for local data collection. RTJ conducted the analysis of the data and was a major contributor for the writing of this manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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The study protocol was approved by the LSHTM Research Ethics Committee (reference number 28207). In country ethical approval was obtained from UniYersite des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako (USTTB) in Mali. Consent to participate in local interviews and group discussions was obtained for all participants from the local consultant upon recruitment using participant information sheets and consent forms designed for this study.

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• 26 July 2024

Seventh patient ‘cured’ of HIV: why scientists are excited

• Smriti Mallapaty

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Mutations in the gene that encodes a receptor called CCR5 can stop HIV (blue) entering immune cells. Credit: NIAID/National Institutes of Health/SPL

A 60-year-old man in Germany has become at least the seventh person with HIV to be announced free of the virus after receiving a stem-cell transplant 1 . But the man, who has been virus-free for close to six years, is only the second person to receive stem cells that are not resistant to the virus.

“I am quite surprised that it worked,” says Ravindra Gupta, a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, who led a team that treated one of the other people who is now free of HIV 2 , 3 . “It’s a big deal.”

The first person found to be HIV-free after a bone-marrow transplant to treat blood cancer 4 was Timothy Ray Brown , who is known as the Berlin patient. Brown and a handful of others received special donor stem cells 2 , 3 . These carried a mutation in the gene that encodes a receptor called CCR5, which is used by most HIV virus strains to enter immune cells. To many scientists, these cases suggested that CCR5 was the best target for an HIV cure .

The latest case — presented at the 25th International AIDS Conference in Munich, Germany, this week — turns that on its head. The patient, referred to as the next Berlin patient, received stem cells from a donor who only had one copy of the mutated gene, which means their cells do express CCR5, but at lower levels than usual.

The case sends a clear message that finding a cure for HIV is “not all about CCR5”, says infectious-disease physician Sharon Lewin, who heads The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia.

Ultimately, the findings widen the donor pool for stem-cell transplants, a risky procedure offered to people with leukaemia but unlikely to be rolled out for most individuals with HIV. Roughly 1% of people of European descent carry mutations in both copies of the CCR5 gene, but some 10% of people with such ancestry have one mutated copy 5 .

The case “broadens the horizon of what might be possible” for treating HIV, says Sara Weibel, a physician-scientist who studies HIV at the University of California, San Diego. Some 40 million people are living with HIV globally.

Six years HIV-free

The next Berlin patient was diagnosed with HIV in 2009. He developed a type of blood and bone-marrow cancer known as acute myeloid leukaemia in 2015. His doctors could not find a matching stem-cell donor who had mutations in both copies of the CCR5 gene. But they found a female donor who had one mutated copy, similar to the patient. The next Berlin patient received the stem-cell transplant in 2015.

“The cancer treatment went very well,” says Christian Gaebler, a physician-scientist and immunologist at the Charité — Berlin University Medicine, who presented the work. Within a month, the patient’s bone-marrow stem cells had been replaced with the donor’s. The patient stopped taking antiretroviral drugs, which suppress HIV, in 2018. And now, almost six years later, researchers can’t find evidence of HIV replicating in the patient.

Shrunken reservoir

Previous attempts to transplant stem cells from donors with regular CCR5 genes have seen the virus reappear weeks to months after the people with HIV stopped taking antiretroviral therapy, in all but one person 6 . In 2023, Asier Sáez-Cirión, an HIV researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, presented data on an individual called the Geneva patient, who had been without antiretroviral therapy for 18 months 7 . Sáez-Cirión says the person remains free of the virus, about 32 months later.

Researchers are now trying to work out why these two transplants succeeded when others have failed.

They propose several mechanisms. First, antiretroviral treatment causes the amount of virus in the body to drop considerably. And chemotherapy before the stem-cell transplant kills many of the host’s immune cells, which is where residual HIV lurks . Transplanted donor cells might then mark leftover host cells as foreign and destroy them, together with any virus residing in them. The rapid and complete replacement of the host’s bone-marrow stem cells with those of the donor’s might also contribute to the swift eradication. “If you can shrink the reservoir enough, you can cure people,” says Lewin.

The fact that both the next Berlin patient and his stem cell donor had one CCR5 gene copy with a mutation could have created an extra barrier to the virus entering cells, says Gaebler.

The case also has implications for therapies currently in early-stage clinical trials, in which the CCR5 receptor is sliced out of a person’s own cells using CRISPR–Cas9 and other gene-editing techniques , says Lewin. Even if these therapies don’t get to every single cell, they could still have an impact, she says.

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How to cite ChatGPT

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We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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