Location
Price, UT
Start Date
5-13-2025 11:00 AM
End Date
5-13-2025 11:50 AM
Description
Leaders and practitioners have a responsibility to utilize reputable, up-to-date research to inform their work in communities. However, peer-reviewed literature is often hidden behind paywalls, with an average cost of $30-$50 per article. An increase in predatory publishing has also made it difficult for readers to decipher reliable articles from those that are of poor quality. Additionally, even when openly accessible to readers, peer-reviewed articles are generally written by academic researchers for other academic researchers, resulting in articles that are too dense both in length and readability. This workshop will equip participants with practical strategies for locating and identifying quality, open-access research, as well as knowledge and skills to dissect, interpret, and apply findings in their community contexts.
Led by academic librarians and researchers, this interactive session will identify free reputable sites with quality research at no cost to readers, including university repositories, government databases, and open-access journals. The presenters will demonstrate how to conduct an effective search using keywords, related terms, Boolean operators, and truncation symbols, depending on the search engine or site used. Participants will learn how to initially evaluate the relevance and quality of articles before investing time in fully reviewing them. Finally, the session will introduce efficient techniques for dissecting and digesting articles to understand key findings, implications, and limitations.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
From Paywalls to Practice: Accessing and Using Evidence for Community Impact
Price, UT
Leaders and practitioners have a responsibility to utilize reputable, up-to-date research to inform their work in communities. However, peer-reviewed literature is often hidden behind paywalls, with an average cost of $30-$50 per article. An increase in predatory publishing has also made it difficult for readers to decipher reliable articles from those that are of poor quality. Additionally, even when openly accessible to readers, peer-reviewed articles are generally written by academic researchers for other academic researchers, resulting in articles that are too dense both in length and readability. This workshop will equip participants with practical strategies for locating and identifying quality, open-access research, as well as knowledge and skills to dissect, interpret, and apply findings in their community contexts.
Led by academic librarians and researchers, this interactive session will identify free reputable sites with quality research at no cost to readers, including university repositories, government databases, and open-access journals. The presenters will demonstrate how to conduct an effective search using keywords, related terms, Boolean operators, and truncation symbols, depending on the search engine or site used. Participants will learn how to initially evaluate the relevance and quality of articles before investing time in fully reviewing them. Finally, the session will introduce efficient techniques for dissecting and digesting articles to understand key findings, implications, and limitations.