ScienceDirect

By Lauren Carson

Overview

ScienceDirect is a platform for conducting scientific, technical, and medical research. Operating as a single database, the website provides access to peer-reviewed journals, articles, and books that cover a wide range of scientific topics. These topics are broken down into four categories: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences, Health Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities. 

Given the breadth of these categories, it is likely that you will find relevant information for your SYS paper on ScienceDirect even if your chosen topic is not outwardly scientific. You may begin using ScienceDirect by following the link here.

Note that both research and review articles are provided on this platform. Research articles are primary sources that address a particular research problem. They are usually written by the people who conducted the research. Review articles are secondary sources that provide broader surveys of the existing research on a topic. Review articles are a good place to start to get a sense of the cumulative research in your area of interest.

Do I need to register for an account?

While it is to your advantage to register for ScienceDirect with your UH email, it is not essential. ScienceDirect provides over 600 peer-reviewed journals with 1.4 million articles free to the public. These sources are labeled “open access,” meaning anyone can access them. However, if you register with your UH email you will be able to access a greater quantity of exclusive content. A registered ScienceDirect user receives access to 2,650 peer-reviewed journals, 43,000 eBooks, and more than 19 million articles and book chapters. 

There is no charge for this additional content, since the University of Hawaii pays for student use of the platform. If unregistered, only “open access” content is free. Accessible articles and book chapters are downloadable in PDF format and are easily shareable through the “share” function located beneath the title of the publication. 

Researching on ScienceDirect

There are several ways to go about your research on ScienceDirect. You may perform a search using either the (1) Default Search Boxes, (2) Advanced Search, or (3) Topic Categories. 

The Default Search Boxes are located at the top of the home page. There, you may search by terms, journal or book title, or author name. The term search is a great place to begin if you do not have any journals or authors in mind. This search finds articles containing the entered terms and accepts Boolean search strings.

After performing a search using the default boxes, you may sort your results by relevance or date. You may also refine your results via the toolbar on the left-hand side of the “results” page. You may refine by the journals to which your institution subscribes, year, article type, publication title, subject area, language, or access type (open access, contains open access, or subscribed). 

Depending on your search, you may receive “Suggested Topics” on the right-hand side of the screen. Based on your search, ScienceDirect generates relevant suggested topics and creates a page dedicated to relevant information on that topic. This feature can be a useful tool for expanding the depth of your research. 

The link to the Advanced Search is located below the default search boxes and allows you to perform a narrower original search than the Default Search Boxes. In addition to searching for specific terms, title, and author, you may look for results within a specific year range, keywords within an abstract, volume, issue, or page number, or even search for a publication by its ISSN or ISBN.

The Topic Categories can be found by scrolling down on the home page. Each of the four main scientific categories is broken down into “domains.” For example, “Life Sciences” is broken down into five domains: Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology, Environmental Science, Immunology and Microbiology, and Neuroscience. 

Clicking on any of these domains will link you to all the publications within that domain and allows for even further refinement via “subdomains” (e.g., forestry is a subdomain of agricultural and biological sciences). After performing a search using the topic categories, you may refine your results by publication type (i.e., journal, book, textbook, etc.) and access type.

Using your account

If you choose to register for an account with ScienceDirect using your UH email, you will enjoy personalized account features. Log in to your account while researching and ScienceDirect will keep a record of your search history and reading history—both of which become downloadable as a .CSV spreadsheet.

Most uniquely, ScienceDirect generates a list of personalized recommendations for you once you have spent some time researching your topic on their platform. By clicking on your initials in the top right-hand corner of the screen, a dropdown menu will appear that includes “My recommendations.” This link will take you to a computer-generated list of recommended articles and book chapters based on your recent searches. 

The dropdown menu is also where you can change your password, view your privacy settings, and access your search history or reading history.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of ScienceDirect? 

The platform is easy to use, contains a wide range of substantive material, and is free to both students and the public (albeit with different levels of access). Many of the peer-reviewed journals and books provided are well-regarded and contain content that is ripe for use in a SYS paper. ScienceDirect has a decent mobile interface if you need to perform research on-the-go.

The primary disadvantage of ScienceDirect is that certain books and journals are deceptively excluded, despite registering with a UH email address. This may happen if UH does not subscribe to the journal, book, or subset of material. 

Questions

ScienceDirect provides a series of online video tutorials to dispel any confusion you may have during your research. These tutorials provide a visual guide to navigating the site and to using your account’s personalized features . If you encounter any more serious problems while using ScienceDirect, you can visit their Help Center, which provides a detailed FAQ as well as options for further assistance via email, chat, or phone. 

Links to the online video tutorials as well as the Help Center can be found at the bottom of the ScienceDirect home page.