Free and open access to research sources

Academic research on the internet

The internet has brought numerous advantages to the academic environment. It facilitated the contact between researchers and the partnership between research institutions, the exchange of sources and materials. In addition, thanks to it, several research publications are freely available for online access. We have free access to several conference proceedings, papers and entire journals.

However, not everything followed this course of free sharing in the world of research. Some of the most respected and renowned journals are still paid access. There are cases in which costs are prohibitive for research fellows (the ones who need the most this type of material). Others are restricted to institutional subscriptions, in which the university or research center must adhere to and invest in the access base to be able to read the material.

Paid access to online publications is still a barrier to research. And with physical access to libraries and bookstores restricted by the pandemic, the internet is even more an extremely important source of qualified information. So, in case you need this material and have not been able to find it – even on portals that question this type of restricted access – there is still hope.

Federated Academic Community (CAFe)

You may have heard of the CAPES Journal Portal. This site gathers several databases – which are tools for searching and filtering articles published in certain journals, by theme, author, among others. Each database gives access to a set of journals, and offers different search criteria.

The CAPES Journal Portal allows you to find, in turn, the main bases (such as Scopus, Emerald, Web Of Science, etc.). These databases work in a similar way to Google Scholar, in which search terms are inserted and links and publication data are offered. But primary access to them is still restricted to some content and metadata from publications, such as abstracts, keywords, authors. The text of the paper or book, in fact, is still paid for on many of these bases.

For this reason, the tool of the Federated Academic Community (CAFe) developed by the National Research Network (RNP) is an important support for research.

CAFe – Federated Academic Community is an initiative sponsored by RNP, which defines it as “An identity federation that brings together Brazilian teaching and research institutions. Through CAFe, a user keeps all their information at the home institution and can access services offered by the institutions participating in the federation.”

One of these services is full access to the functionalities of the bases of the Journal Portal – including the full content of the articles that would be paid access. RNP provides here the tutorial on how to login.

How to find research material in the bases?

As the use of these databases is not always intuitive and simple for those who are starting research, the Portal de Periodicos, in partnership with databases, offers courses to optimize search results. Remember some tips:

Logical operators:

AND – retrieves documents that contain both search terms. For example: (jurisdiction) AND (internet).

OR – retrieves  documents that contain one of the search terms. For example: (internet) OR (network).

In order to increase the incidence of works, considering the variations of the chosen words, some special characters can be used:

• Asterisk (*): replaces 0 or more characters in a word, allowing words with different endings to be included in the search result. For example: process * finds process and process.
• Question mark (?): Replaces a single character anywhere in a word. For example: it? Tr? Nic * finds electronic and electronic.
• Quotation marks (“”): used to treat compound terms as one. For example: the search for (“internet bill of rights”) is different from the search for (internet AND bill AND of AND rights) or (internet bill of rights).

Thus, in addition to finding articles you were already looking for but access was restricted, these tools also help you find new and relevant material for your research.

Beyond research material

In times of countless difficulties in research activities, the internet can be a valuable tool, and knowing the features it offers to find and organize research material can be essential. And, in this logic of sharing experiences and difficulties faced by researchers during the pandemic, I invite you to check out the Café & Chat that we held in June 2020, “How has the pandemic changed scientific practice in technology and society?”

The views and opinions expressed in this blogpost are those of the author. 
Illustration by Freepik Stories.