Access denied

Worldwide inequality in access to full text scientific articles: the example of ophthalmology

Background

The problem of access to medical information, particularly in low-income countries, has been under discussion for many years. Although a number of developments have occurred in the last decade (e.g., the open access (OA) movement and the website Sci-Hub), everyone agrees that these difficulties still persist very widely, mainly due to the fact that paywalls still limit access to approximately 75% of scholarly documents. In this study, we compare the accessibility of recent full text articles in the field of ophthalmology in 27 established institutions located worldwide.

Methods

A total of 200 references from articles were retrieved using the PubMed database. Each article was individually checked for OA. Full texts of non-OA (i.e., “paywalled articles”) were examined to determine whether they were available using institutional and Hinari access in each institution studied, using “alternative ways” (i.e., PubMed Central, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Online Reprint Request), and using the website Sci-Hub.

Results

The number of full texts of “paywalled articles” available using institutional and Hinari access showed strong heterogeneity, scattered between 0% full texts to 94.8% (mean = 46.8%; SD = 31.5; median = 51.3%). We found that complementary use of “alternative ways” and Sci-Hub leads to 95.5% of full text “paywalled articles,” and also divides by 14 the average extra costs needed to obtain all full texts on publishers’ websites using pay-per-view.

Conclusions

The scant number of available full text “paywalled articles” in most institutions studied encourages researchers in the field of ophthalmology to use Sci-Hub to search for scientific information. The scientific community and decision-makers must unite and strengthen their efforts to find solutions to improve access to scientific literature worldwide and avoid an implosion of the scientific publishing model. This study is not an endorsement for using Sci-Hub. The authors, their institutions, and publishers accept no responsibility on behalf of readers.

Improving Publication Quality and Quantity for Acute Care Authors From Low- and Middle-Income Settings

STUDY OBJECTIVE

Researchers from low- and middle-income countries have limited access to publishing and editing resources. This study describes a journal-initiated platform to improve publication quantity and quality in Sub-Saharan Africa emergency care research: Author Assist.

METHODS

This is a descriptive report of a quality improvement project of referrals to the African Journal of Emergency Medicine's (AfJEM's) Author Assist program between January 2011 and December 2015. After either pre- or post-peer review rejection, authors are matched to an experienced volunteer assistant to revise and resubmit their article in a process that blinds handling editors and reviewers, but not the editor in chief, to participation. Participant data were collected from an Author Assist coordination database and linked to Scopus (Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and the journal's online submission platform.

RESULTS

Of the 47 articles referred for Author Assist, 12 (26%) were originally rejected in the pre-peer review stage and 35 (74%) after peer review. Twenty-eight (60%) authors offered Author Assist enrolled. Of the 14 resubmissions during the study period, 12 (86%) were accepted for publication. For comparison, 37 of 40 regular revisions (93%) (without assistance) were accepted for publication during the same period.

CONCLUSION

Author Assist reversed 1 in 4 rejection decisions through a process that unavoidably but minimally biases peer review. Of the few free publication-improvement services targeting researchers in low- and middle-income countries, AfJEM's Author Assist is the only journal-led initiative, and the only one specific to emergency medicine. To continue to refine the design of the program, we recommend further qualitative research exploring author decisions to pursue or forgo enrollment in Author Assist and research examining author and assistant experiences once enrolled.