Table 2.
Websites hosting references and/or full-text articles included in this study
| Name of the platform | Type of website | Description or remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Publishers' websites | Full texts of paywalled articles on publishers' websites were searched using Laval University institutional access | |
| The Web of Science Core Collection | Subscription-based database | Provided by Clarivate Analytics (http://www.webofknowledge.com/) |
| Google Scholar | Free bibliographic database | Freely accessible, with an automated approach, indexing any seemingly academic document that its crawlers can find and access on the web, including those behind paywalls, through agreement with their publishers. (https://scholar.google.com) |
| Researchgate | Academic social network | Provides a platform for academic users to share publications. (https://www.researchgate.net/) |
| Dimensions | Free bibliographic database | Inter-linked research information system provided by Digital Science (https://www.dimensions.ai). Freely accessible, Dimensions database was chosen among the newer academic databases because it is one of the most serious contenders of the Web of Science database [26]. (https://app.dimensions.ai/discover/publication) |
| Scite | Free bibliographic database | A platform for discovering and evaluating scientific articles via citations. This website also checks for retractions on Crossref or PubMed and uses its own algorithms to detect retracted articles. (https://scite.ai/home) |
| Unpaywall | Free service to locate open-access articles | Locates open-access articles and presents paywalled papers that have been legally archived and are freely available to users on other websites. (https://unpaywall.org/) |
| Open Access Button | Free service to locate open-access articles | Aggregates sources from repositories and opens access to journals. (https://openaccessbutton.org) |
| Sci-Hub | Illegal service | Provides free-of-charge access to the academic literature, despite the continued presence of paywalls. It is considered as black (illegal) open access. Does not ask for consent from authors or publishers, and raises many legal and ethical questions [27]. Searches using Sci-hub were performed from France, from a non-university Internet access. The authors' universities or institutions were therefore not involved in the downloading of articles via Sci-Hub. |