Knowledge of Shahid Beheshti Dental School Faculty Members about Open Access Electronic Journals

Objectives Considering the gap of information about the perspectives of faculty members regarding the available online scientific resources, this study aimed to assess the knowledge of Shahid Beheshti Dental School faculty members about open access (OA) electronic journals.Materials and Methods In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, a questionnaire was used to collect information of 68 faculty members of Shahid Beheshti Dental School in 2013–2014. The questionnaire asked for demographic information and contained questions regarding the level of knowledge, use of electronic databases, etc. To assess internal consistency of the questionnaire, in a pilot study, Cronbach’s alpha was considered to be 0.89. Content validity was assessed to determine the validity of the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS and descriptive statistics, such as percentage, mean, and standard deviation and non-parametric tests, such as binomial, Friedman, Kruskal Wallis, and Mann–Whitney tests.Results The mean (±standard deviation) score of acquaintance with OA electronic journals, the mean score of using these journals and the mean score of attitude of faculty members toward these journals were 3.45 ± 0.7, 2.76 ± 0.88 and 3.13 ± 0.4, respectively.Conclusion Level of acquaintance of faculty members with OA journals was moderate while their usage was lower than moderate. Their attitude was also moderate. Faculty members must be informed and instructed to use OA journals more frequently.