Hinari access to Research in Health Programme Health Information Resources on the Internet

HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme
Health Information Resources on the Internet
(Advanced Course: Module 4)
Table of Contents:
Free Health Resources on the Internet
E-Journal Sources
Managing Internet Resources
Health Information on the Internet
There are numerous invaluable health information resources available on the WWW that fall into the general categories previously mentioned (gateways, databases, search engines). This is a vast topic that, in this section, only will be addressed in a limited way. Examples of the types of information on the WWW are listed below:
Agency Sources
Databases, Search Engines & Gateways
E-journal Sources
Subject Sources
Free e-journal Options
Besides the HINARI program, there are a number of useful e-journal gateways that contain access to freely available full text articles on the WWW. In the following example, you will access freemedicaljournals.com, BioMed Central, PubMed Central and Highwire Press. You will view these in the following exercise.
Exercise 1
Connect to the Internet and open your internet browser.
Type or copy/paste http://www.freemedicaljournals.com into the address box, click on “GO” or hit the Return key.
Freemedicaljournals.com lists journals that make content freely available either initially when published or between one month and two years after publication date.
How many journals are listed in this gateway?
How is the access to the journals organized?
Type or copy/paste http://www.biomedcentral.com into the address box, click on “GO” or hit the Return key.
This links to BioMed Central, an open access publisher; published articles are freely available on the Internet as the author pays BioMed Central to publish them.
How is the access to the journals organized?
What broad subject area would be most useful to you?
Can an author submit a manuscript through this website?
Type or copy/paste http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/ into the address box, click on “GO” or hit the Return key.
This links to PubMed Central, a free archive of biomedical and life sciences articles deposited in this repository
Who is the sponsor of this digital archive?
Go to the full list of journals. What are the principal ‘free access’ time periods listed?
How could you use this resource?
From the HINARI Contents page, go to the Free Collections drop down menu and click on Highwire Free to Developing Economies orType in or copy/paste http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/devecon.dtl into the address box, click on “GO” or hit the Return key.
You will be redirected to the Free Access to Developing Economies list. The Highwire Press website has opened a list of journals that you will be able to use for free as it is based on the IP address of the computer.
What HighWire Press journals would be of interest to you and why?
Which of the following HighWire Press journals are accessible to HINARI participants? From the HINARI Contents page, check the Journal Collection – View Complete List of Journals listing
American Journal of Epidemiology
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
Molecular Pathology
Science ((American Association for the Advancement of Science)
The Internet also hosts many publisher sites for which you have to subscribe or pay a fee in order to access published information. These include electronic journals, reference collections, databases and electronic text books.
In order to have a better understanding of the extent of relevant information on the Internet, we have developed a series of exercises using the ‘Essential Health Links’ - as a tool for identifying the Internet based resources.
Access to numerous Grey Literature Sites – via the Essential Health Links (EHL) gateway
Note: In the EHL Gateway, you will need to scroll down the Table of Contents to the various sub-sections (General Health Resources, Library and Publishing Resources, Specific Health Resources) – to complete the specific assignments. Do not search for these resources in the EHL Gateway Search tool
Exercise 2
Go to the Essential Health Links gateway – www.healthnet.org/essential-links/ (or go directly to the Health Sciences Online website at hso.info )
From the ‘General Health Resources’ section of the table of contents, go to ‘Medical Education and Clinical Sites’. Click on the Health Sciences Online.
Complete a keyword search for a subject of interest to you.
What search did you complete?
Note the number of links for your search.
In the left column, look at the ‘Refine Resource Type’ option. List three options that would be useful to you and why.
Return to the ‘Essential Health Links’ table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Exercise 3
From the Specific Health Resources section table of contents/Essential Health Links Gateway, go to Eye Health sub-page. Review all the annotated sites on this page. If this sub-page is not relevant for you or at your institution, you may choose another subject area.
After reviewing the listed sites, click on 3-5 to view the full-text contents of sites with clinical information. Remember, you will need to return to the previous Eye Health sub-page to access other relevant sites.
After reviewing several sites, note the names of two sites and briefly describe why the clinical information would be useful.
Return to the Essential Health Links table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Exercise 4
From the ‘Specific Health Resources’ section table of contents, go to ‘Public Health’. You will see a series of sub-pages under this broad subject. Choose one of the Public Health sub-pages that interests you. Review all the annotated sites on this page. If this subject category is not useful to you or at your institution, you may choose another subject area. (e.g. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS).
After reviewing the listed sites in this Public Health sub-page, click on 3-5 links to view the full-text contents of these Internet based sites. Remember, you will need to return to the previous ‘Public Health/…’ sub-page to access other relevant sites.
After reviewing several sites, note the names of two sites and briefly describe why the contents would be useful.
Return to the ‘Essential Health Links’ table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Note: Within these ‘Specific Health Resources’ pages, you will find links to full text documents that are defined as ‘grey literature’ – examples include organizational reports or specific ‘clinical guidelines’. These types of material are not indexed in databases such as PubMed but can be invaluable sources of relevant information for students, clinicians and policy makers.
Exercise 5
From the ‘Specific Health Resources’ section table of contents, go to ‘Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases/Malaria’ sub-page. Review all the annotated sites on this page. If this sub-page is not relevant for you or at your institution, you may choose another one.
After reviewing the listed sites, click on 3-5 to view the full-text contents of sites with clinical information. Remember, you will need to return to the previous ‘Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases/Malaria’’ sub-page to access other relevant sites.
After reviewing several sites, note the names of two sites and briefly describe why the clinical information would be useful.
Return to the ‘Essential Health Links’ table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Exercise 6
From the ‘Specific Health Resources’ section table of contents, go to ‘HIV-AIDS/Diagnosis and Management’ sub-page. Review all the annotated sites on this page.
After reviewing the listed sites, click on 3-5 to view the full-text contents of these Internet based sites. Remember, you will need to return to the previous ‘HIV-AIDS/Diagnosis and Management’ sub-page to access other relevant sites.
After reviewing several sites, note the names of two sites that would be of use as clinical information at your institution and briefly describe why the contents would be useful.
Return to the ‘Essential Health Links’ table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Exercise 7
From the ‘Specific Health Resources’ section table of contents, go to ‘Reproductive Health/Gateways’. Then click on the link titled ‘POPLINE: Document Delivery Services’.
From this site, individuals in developing countries can request - free of charge - full-text reprints of most documents cited in POPLINE. Up to 15 requests per day can be emailed to POPLINE and the organization will send the reprints via airmail.
Review the list of topics and note which would be of use to your institution. If you wish, click on one of the topics, place specific documents in your shopping cart, return to the initial POPLINE page, click on the shopping cart icon and order up to 15 reprints.
Return to the ‘Essential Health Links’ table of contents page at http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/
Exercise 8
From the ‘Library and Publishing Support’ section table of contents, go to ‘Internet Skills for Health Information Users’. Review all the annotated sites on this page.
After reviewing the listed sites, click on 3-5 to view the full-text contents of these Internet based sites. Remember, you will need to return to the previous ‘Internet Skills for Health Information Users’ sub-page to access other relevant sites.
After reviewing several sites, note the names of two sites that would be of use to you and one site that would be relevant for training at your institution and briefly describe why the contents would be useful.
You now have completed all the exercises in Module 1.1-1.3! You may view other sections of the Essential Health Links gateway that are of interest to you.
3. More training resources
For further WWW resources on Internet or Searching Skills, return to the Essential Health Links ‘Internet Skills for Health Information Workers’ page:
http://www.healthnet.org/essential-links/internet-skills-health-information-users
Assignment
You now have completed Advanced Course Module 4 and finished 8 exercises. This has given you an overview of access to free e-journal sites on the Internet and numerous (grey literature) health-related Internet resources.
Updated 2014 07
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