Use Of Free Resources Research Articles

Evaluating the Impact of Open Educational Resources: A Case Study

This paper presents a case study of the replacement of a textbook with free to use materials in a class on Human Factors and Ergonomics. Data on exam grades, course grades, and student opinions over a total of five semesters are reported, before and after the implementation. The results show that class performance remained similar before and after. The use of free resources has not appeared to negatively affect learning outcomes. Advantages and challenges to the development and use of free materials are discussed.

In a world of Amazon, is it time to rethink ILL?

Purpose – This paper aims to evaluate the use of alternative methods compared to traditional interlibrary loan (ILL) processes. Design/methodology/approach – ILL departments around the world were surveyed about their policies and procedures for obtaining materials for their users. Findings – The survey results indicated that alternative methods are predominantly a fringe activity, while most materials are still obtained through traditional ILL processes. There continues to be a great deal of room for exploration of purchasing, renting and the use of free resources to fill ILL requests. Originality/value – This article shows that there continues to be a great deal of room for exploration of purchasing, renting and the use of free resources to fill ILL requests.

Cataloging free e‐resources: is it worth the investment?

PurposeThis paper seeks to demonstrate the value of adding links to freely available web content to the library catalog (OPAC). This aims to answer the research question: “Is there value to cataloging freely available Internet resources in the OPAC?”Design/methodology/approachUsing a URL redirection system for tracking user access to freely available web publications, three years of click‐through use statistics were gathered by placing redirect URLs in the 856 field, tabulating the use data by project category, and redirecting the user to the desired resource.FindingsUsage statistics over three years show that cataloging free resources is well worth the effort.Originality/valueThis is the first study to track use of free resources by click‐throughs to the OPAC.

Investigating Novel Interventions for ASD: On Swimming With Dolphins

Abstract Evidence-based practice seems daunting for many busy clinicians; in fact, true critical reviews are time-intensive and costly. Yet, we are bombarded daily with intervention ideas, and for no disorder do the novel ideas come so frequently as for autism spectrum disorders. In this brief example, use of ordinary Internet resources was employed to investigate a popular, if unusual, treatment for ASD: dolphin therapy. The exercise demonstrates that judicious use of free resources can provide helpful clinical guidance.

The use of free resources in a subscription-based digital library: a case study of the North Carolina AHEC Digital Library

BackgroundThe North Carolina (NC) Area Health Education Center's (AHEC) Digital Library (ADL) is a web portal designed to meet the information needs of health professionals across the state by pulling together a set of resources from numerous different sources and linking a pool of users to only the resources for which they have eligibility. Although the ADL was designed with the primary purpose of linking health care professionals to a set of licensed resources, the ADL also contains a significant number of links to free resources. These resources are available to any ADL member logging into their ADL account and to guest visitors to the ADL. While there are regular assessments of the subscription resources in the ADL as to utility and frequency of use, up until this point there has been no systematic analysis of the use of the overall set of free resources. It was decided to undertake an examination of the usage of ADL free resources over a 6-month period to analyze the utility of these resources to both ADL members and guests.MethodsEach time a resource is accessed through the ADL, it is logged in a table. This study used a SQL query to pull every free resource accessed between November 1, 2005 and April 30, 2006. An additional query also pulled the user information for each free resource accessed. Once the queries of the database were complete, the results were imported into an Excel spreadsheet and analyzed using basic descriptive statistics.ResultsThe vast majority of resource use through the ADL is to licensed resources. There are 2056 free resource URLs in the ADL, to which 1351 were linked out, meaning there was at least one link out to 65% of the free resources. The single most popular free resource was PubMed with 4803 link outs or nearly 20% of the total link outs to free resources. The breakdown of free resource use by different use groups indicates that the highest percentage of use of free resources was by guests followed by institutional affiliates and AHEC Faculty/Staff. The next 3 highest user groups accessing free resources are: paid members, preceptors, and residents.ConclusionThe only free resource capturing a significant number of link outs is the free link to PubMed. This reflects the importance placed on traditional medical literature searching by the ADL clinical user base. Institutional affiliates access free resources through the ADL with the second highest frequency of all the user groups. Finally, in analyzing use of free resources, it is important to note the overall limitations of this survey. While link outs are excellent indicators of frequency of use they do not provide any information about the ultimate usefulness of the resource being accessed. Further studies would need to examine not only the quantitative use of resources, but also their qualitative importance to the user.

The use of free resources in a subscription-based digital library: a case study of the North Carolina AHEC Digital Library

The use of free resources in a subscription-based digital library: a case study of the North Carolina AHEC Digital Library