The Downside To Open Access Science

Research shows that as more scholarly and research journals are available online, researchers are citing fewer of them - and they are primarily newer papers. There's no question the Internet gives scientists and researchers instant access to a wealth of academic journals, a very good thing, but the impact hadn't been studied until recently. New research in Science says that scholars are actually citing fewer papers in their work, and the papers they do cite tend to be more recent publications. This trend may be limiting the creation of new ideas and theories. James Evans is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, who focuses on the nature of scholarly research. During a lecture on the influence of private industry money on research, a student instead asked how the growth of the Internet has shaped science. "I didn't have an immediate answer," Evans said. Read More...

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