DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7g984
title: Data from: In an age of open access to research policies: physician and public health NGO staff research use and policy awareness

description: Introduction: Through funding agency and publisher policies, an increasing
 proportion of the health sciences literature is being made open access.
 Such an increase in access raises questions about the awareness and
 potential utilization of this literature by those working in health
 fields. Methods: A sample of physicians (N=336) and public health
 non-governmental organization (NGO) staff (N=92) were provided with
 relatively complete access to the research literature indexed in PubMed,
 as well as access to the point-of-care service UpToDate, for up to one
 year, with their usage monitored through the tracking of web-log data. The
 physicians also participated in a one-month trial of relatively complete
 or limited access. Results: The study found that participants'
 research interests were not satisfied by article abstracts alone nor, in
 the case of the physicians, by a clinical summary service such as
 UpToDate. On average, a third of the physicians viewed research a little
 more frequently than once a week, while two-thirds of the public health
 NGO staff viewed more than three articles a week. Those articles were
 published since the 2008 adoption of the NIH Public Access Policy, as well
 as prior to 2008 and during the maximum 12-month embargo period. A portion
 of the articles in each period was already open access, but complete
 access encouraged a viewing of more research articles. Conclusion: Those
 working in health fields will utilize more research in the course of their
 work as a result of (a) increasing open access to research, (b) improving
 awareness of and preparation for this access, and (c) adjusting public and
 open access policies to maximize the extent of potential access, through
 reduction in embargo periods and access to pre-policy literature.
description: ReadMeFile_013015ReadMe file, including a description of all files and variable definitions (codebook).md_ngo_policy_awareness_anonCleaned dataset. Participant questions to “Before participating in this study, had you heard of the NIH Public Access Policy?” See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).final_analysis_1_28_15_llmStata .do file for analysing data. Highlights code and process for generating tables and figures in manuscript. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook). Also, see manuscript.md_ngo_long_anonCleaned dataset, long dataset by frequency at participant level data. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).md_ngo_wide_days_anonCleaned dataset, for generating weekly running average. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).md_ngo_wide_month_anonCleaned dataset, for generating monthly running average. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).md_ngo_wide_anonCleaned dataset, wide dataset by participant level data. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).md_ngo_raw_anonRaw dataset, uncleaned. Note: There are some duplication of observations in the raw file. These can be noted as all variables for the observations are identical. The “cleaned” files remove these duplicates. See ReadMeFile_013015 for more information, including variable definitions (codebook).