Twin challenges of Discovery and Access
Researchers around the globe are expected to keep themselves updated with all the latest research developments and publications in their areas of interest. For a researcher, timely and relevant research discovery is among the most challenging aspects of their daily work. However, finding the right paper is only half the battle won.
Often, researchers rely on an article’s open access availability. Keeping this in mind literature reading tools like R Discovery allow readers to search for articles by filtering open access publications. While this feature is useful for those who’re looking to read an entire article, we must remember that a large chunk of published research is still behind a paywall. For such papers, a researcher’s associated institute or university is the easiest way to obtain quick access.
For a scientist working on their university’s campus, accessing a paywalled journal article becomes fast and effortless if their institute subscribes to journals and publishers that students would need to refer to. The researcher may also get automatic access to an article because the publisher recognizes that the request came from the university’s IP address. However, researchers sometimes struggle to access the same articles when they step off campus and continue elsewhere, whether on their home computers, Wi-Fi at a coffee shop, or their mobile phones. Such restricted access can be frustrating and not feasible when trying to catch up on reading during holidays or learning remotely. Even though some universities offer access through an online portal, many paywalled articles do not have such an option. Moreover, following the steps to get remote access can easily become tedious and inefficient.
Institutional Access on R Discovery to make this process seamless
Researchers face a dual problem of discovery and access; with our latest app updates, R Discovery attempts to address both! Our ever-evolving AI engine provides the most relevant reading recommendations for researchers to pursue. Based on their preferences and app browsing behavior, the app will fine-tune the algorithm to make its recommendations even more relevant to you.
To ease challenges related to research access, R Discovery has more than 30 million indexed open text papers, making it the largest open text repository! Besides open access publications, users now also have the option to access a paper via their institutional subscription!
R Discovery has partnered with various initiatives (GetFTR, Libkey, Seamless Access) which aim at making this process more seamless for researchers. In just three simple steps, you can get full-text access to research papers through your institute! Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:
- Open your R Discovery app and head over to “Full Text settings” in your profile section.
- Type the name of your institute in the search bar and save your preferences.
- Your institute details have been noted! From now on, you can get the full-text version of a paper if it is available through your institute’s subscription. You can access such papers by entering your institute’s login credentials.
We hope that features such as these enable researchers like you to streamline your journey to research discovery and get quicker access to relevant research. So, if you haven’t yet updated to the latest version of the R Discovery app, please do so now to get access to the latest features.
If you’ve already used this feature, we’d love to know more about your experience! You can either write to us if you have any ideas to share or choose your preferred time to talk to us.
About the author
Aditya is a Lead Product Manager at Cactus Communications. He is leading efforts to internationalize R Discovery and scale seamless institutional access on the platform. Apart from his job, his passion lies in sports, movies and in travel!
