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PRESENTATION AT THE AOPA’S 101ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, SEPT. 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010                                                                  

 

1 

 
OPEN  ACCESS 

 

AOPA’S 101 ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABSTRACTS, SEPTEMBER 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018 
 

ABSTRACT (POSTER PRESENTATION) 

ONLINE ACCESS TO RESEARCH PAPERS – CHANGES OVER TIME 

Julie Burke, Goeran Fiedler* 

Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.  

* Email: gfiedler@pitt.edu 

 

 

INTRODUCTION 

The successful implementation of Evidence Based 

Practice (EBP) depends significantly on practitioners’ 

access to relevant research articles. It has been argued 

that the time consuming nature of EBP is a major 

detriment to its acceptance and widespread use,1 and the 

logistical difficulties, like having to retrieve research 

publications of interest from the local university library, 

are likely to exacerbate this issue. In recognizing the 

associated adverse effects that this problem could present 

for knowledge generation and dissemination, the idea to 

make all research findings publicly available online led 

to the conception of the world wide web in the early 

1990s.2 However, many scientific journals that are slow 

to abandon their subscription-based business models 

hide their online content behind paywalls, charging 

article fees that are usually in the range between $20 and 

$40. Acknowledging the barriers to EBP that these fees 

can impose, we have previously compared different 

strategies for prosthetists and orthotists to maximize their 

free online access to relevant research literature. The 

respective data collection in the Spring of 2017 resulted 

in the finding that approximately 40% of search results 

in Google Scholar linked to freely available full papers, 

whereas the remaining 60% links offered only the 

abstract, but not the full paper, free-of-charge.3 In light 

of the ever progressing efforts to improve public 

availability of research, such as the open-access 

publishing movement or the respective requirements 

mandated by research funding agencies, we hypothesized 

that the ratio of freely available online articles is 

increasing over time, and we repeated our data collection 

one year after the initial study.  

METHODS 

A total of three literature searches on the website 

scholar.google.com were conducted, once in the Spring 

of 2017 and once more in the Spring of 2018. The search 

terms, exclusion of patents and citations, and the 

publication time frame (from 2007 to 3/27/2017) were 

kept consistent between the two data collections. The 

first   20   results  for  each   search   were   analyzed  to  

determine whether they contained a link that would allow 

full-paper access without charge. The number of such 

links were then compared across assessment times.  

RESULTS 

Figure 1 shows the differences between assessment 

times. Overall, 75% of the top search results in 2018 

contained links to freely accessible full papers. 

 
Figure 1:  Number of freely accessible research papers for 

three searches at scholar.google.com.  

DISCUSSION 

Our hypothesis was supported by the finding that open 

access to articles on Google Scholar almost doubled 

within one year. There are different possible explanations 

for this, including a change in composition of the top 20 

of the search rankings. As higher-impact articles are 

ranked higher in the search result listings, it is possible 

that articles that were cited relatively often over the past 

year have moved up and displaced other articles. This 

mechanism appears likely if it is assumed that articles 

that are freely accessible are read (and potentially cited) 

by more people than less easily accessible articles. 

Another factor at play may be an increased volume of 

full-paper articles that are being shared by their authors 

in online repositories, something that is often allowed 

with  some  restrictions  by  the  publishing  journal. The 

copyright rules on some materials may have been 

0

5

10

15

20

Pin and lock,
suction,

suspension,
prosthesis, elderly

Microprocessor,
knee, athletes

Diabetes,
prosthetic, liner,

ulcer

2017 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010
mailto:gfiedler@pitt.edu
https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010


 

 

Burke J, Fiedler G. ONLINE ACCESS TO RESEARCH PAPERS – CHANGES OVER TIME. CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, 2018, ABSTRACT, POSTER 
PRESENTATION AT THE AOPA’S 101ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, SEPT. 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010                                                                  

 

2 

 
OPEN  ACCESS 

 

AOPA’S 101 ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABSTRACTS, SEPTEMBER 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018 
 

ABSTRACT (POSTER PRESENTATION) 

changed as well. Only three literature searches and only 

20 search results for each search were analyzed for this 

study. This may limit the generalizability of findings 

somewhat. However, it is likely that respective searches 

for EBP purposes are inevitably limited in scope, and that 

our protocol is therefore representative of realistic 

situations. 

CONCLUSION 

The percentage of freely-accessible research papers that 

can be found among the top search results on Google 

Scholar has substantially increased over the past year. 

This may be due to a combination of more highly ranked 

papers becoming freely available and more freely 

available papers becoming highly ranked. 

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS 

Practitioners in the field of prosthetics and orthotics often 

depend on freely accessible research papers to conduct 

EBP. The here described trend is beneficial in this 

context.  

REFERENCES 

1. Andrysek J, Christensen J and Dupuis A. Prosthetics and 

orthotics international. 2011; 35: 30-8. 

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309364610389

353 

2. Leiner BM, Cerf VG, Clark DD, et al. ACM SIGCOMM 

Computer Communication Review. 2009; 39: 22-31. 

http://www.isoc.org/oti/printversions/0797prleiner.html  

3. Burke J and Fiedler G. 44th Annual AAOP Meeting and 

Scientific Symposium. New Orleans, LA 2018. 

 

 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32010
http://www.isoc.org/oti/printversions/0797prleiner.html

