Can the data collected through grey literature have weightage in comparison with other Research Articles?

 

Can the data collected through grey literature have weightage in comparison with other Research Articles?

 

Abstract

Grey literature comprises of the materials and the research produced in the form of conference proceedings, unpublished trial data, Government publications, working papers regulatory data by organizations outside the traditional, commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. These are the  types of document produced by governments, academic institutions, businesses and industries that are protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing bodyThis article examines if there is weightage for a research paper if the data is collected through grey literature. It is a mix bag of opinions that has been suggested from the literatures Grey literature cannot be totally ruled out for the want of authenticity nor can be it be fully accepted as a complete source for a better research article. Therefore, it can be considered that grey literature can be partly used because the authors or the organizations would have made their sincere efforts to compile the data. Therefore, it can be concluded that grey literature is not a bad idea for the want of relevant data.so the weightage of the research article may not be reduced. However it is always better to have a mix of grey literature and other related article from different journals so as to get a blended effect.

 

The History of Grey Literature

 (Mason) An article appearing in Information World Review calls grey literature "the unsung hero, the foot soldier, the foundation of the building" (IWR 1996); it is literature that is not usually attainable through conventional channels. In his informative book on grey literature, Charles P. Augur writes that this is not a new phenomenon of the late twentieth century but something considered a genre since at least the 1920s, particularly in Europe among the scientific circles (Augur 1989,7).The history of Grey Literature can be traced back to the 1970s. it began with the coincidence of the development of aeronautics and the aircraft industry and nowadays it is used tremendously on wide range of subjects. However, some authorities considered that these aeronautical publications were antedated and notably the professional papers of the United states Geological Survey, which began appearing in 1902, and the Technological papers of the National Bureau of Standards, which were issued from 1910 onward. Asia was under the operational control of the US Air Force until 1963, when its name was changed to the Defense Documentation. Reports literature and grey literature: some key features In 1940s it was discussed that the features of Reports literature as R&D work sponsored by government agencies, with heavy emphasis on defence, usually Bibliographic control format with two tire report numbers and accession numbers with well-established format by R&D Community containing comprehensive    abstracting journals While 1970s all types of literature not available through the book trade, including reports featured as Grey literature with printed works, typescripts, pamphlets microforms and electronic products enjoying growing publicity. Reports, in fact are characteristically the products of organizations and will vary widely in style and method of publications. They may vary from a few pages of technical notes to multi-colume workds describing the development of large projects. Many users would agree that a report is incapable of strict definition. The contents in the documents described as scientific, technical business or economic reports will be in accordance with whatever standards are followed by the issued body and clearly these will exhibit wide variations. Since, in general, reports are not subject to refereeing, it is no bad thing that some degree of uniformity of content if not quality is imposed by calling for certain features to appear in a report as a matter of course.

 

Introduction

‘Grey literature’ has recently been defined as the various types of document produced by governments, academic institutions, businesses and industries that are protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body. (Schöpfel, 2010) Basically, the term describes documents that may not have been published through conventional routes, and which may therefore be trickier to find and access. They can be thought to occupy a ‘grey area’ in comparison to traditional published material. Hartman (2006: 2) explains: Grey literature is particularly important in policy areas, where there are many issuing agencies such as think tanks, university-based research institutes, professional and trade organizations, advocacy groups, etc., all attempting to inform and influence the policy-making process.Over the years, grey literature has come to constitute a section of publications ranking in importance with journal, books, serials and specifications, this importance is now achieving the recognition it deserves and grey literature is no longer the cinderall of information sources. Any subjective feelings that grey literature is being used and quoted more and more are borne out by the  many independent reference to it and the emergence of databases devoted specifically to  standardizing its identification and improving its accessibility.“Grey Literature which  is taken from different sources and explained as a literature focusing on the policy areas, where there are many issuing agencies, university-based  institutes, professional and trade organisation.  It also discussed about Reliability and Validity. The purpose of review being to identify the what has already been investigated, what are the strengths and limitations of such research, highlighting the methodology and approach, tool and exploring the gaps in knowledge and plan or be innovative idea to carry further.The paper also speaks about the types of literature review: Narrative and Systematic approach. And also the methods of searching for literature which includes, manual searching, using paper-based journals, electronic database searching ,  using of Key  words, Boolean operators—experimenting with different combinations of words and developing , applying and revising  exclusion and inclusion criteriaThe types of reports include

1.     The individual author’s preprint, which may end up as a journal article;

2.     The corporate proposal report, aimed at a prospective customer

3.     The institutional report, the purpose of which is budget justification and image enhancement:

4.     The contract progress report, the most popular species of technical report in circulations, primarily aimed at the sponsor, but also available to an extensive group of interested persons;

5.     The final report on a technical contract effort, generally the most valuable species in the collection, hall marked by considerable editorial effort;

6.     The separate topic technical report, very close to the journal article and the legitimate target of journal editors;

7.     The book in report form, typically a review or state-of-the-art survey;

8.     The committee report, the report series descriptions of which follow widely varying codes.

 

This mixture of documents truly recognizable as reports with documents less obviously so, presents few problems to the user in the course of consulting a major reports series file, but readers unfamiliar with the wide coverage of reports literature could be excused for looking elsewhere for information on conferences, standards or bibliographies.

 

 

Reliability and Validity

Did you know? ‘Reliability’ and ‘validity’ ? These words are often used in the context of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of research processes, and you are likely to come across some discussion of them (and related issues) when reading about research methodology. In very broad terms: • Reliability refers to the extent to which methods or findings are likely to yield similar results if the study, research, experiment or investigation were to be repeated in similar circumstances, using similar methods of investigation. • Validity refers to the extent to which the research methods and instruments measure what they claim or set out to measure. An assessment of validity would also involve consideration of whether the results of a research process have been skewed or contaminated by additional (and sometimes unforeseen or unanticipated) factors in the research field and/or process.

• To establish what has already been investigated – therefore, researchers are far less likely to ‘re-invent the wheel’ by simply repeating things which have already been done before. •

To establish what methods and methodologies have already been used in the topic area – this guides the researcher(s) in considering the most appropriate methods for their research investigation and highlights the affordances and limitations of particular methodological perspectives.

• To establish what worked in terms of the research process – the literature should flag up both the strengths and limitations of previous research tools/approaches and alert the researcher to potential challenges that may be associated with such resources.

 • To identify and build on the gaps in knowledge – conducting a literature review should provide a degree of confirmation that what the researcher is planning to do is original, innovative and/or useful in some way

narrative literature reviews

 • systematic literature reviews

Search methods Searching for literature can involve multiple methods, such as:

 • manual searching – searching by hand using paper-based journals

• electronic database searching – making use of multiple ways of searching fields and records

• keyword searches – experimenting with different combinations of words

 • boolean operators – using special Boolean terms to alter the scope of the search

• developing, applying and revising exclusion and inclusion criteria.

Devising appraisal criteria For their worked example of a systematic review on older people’s views of hospital discharge, Fisher et al. (2006) identify four markers that they used in assessing the quality of the papers that they accumulated through their searching process. These were: 1. Strength of the research design – how appropriate was the design for addressing the research questions that were identified? 2. Centrality of older people’s views – this criterion reflects that aim of the study, which was to identify ‘older people’s own views and concepts, expressed in their own words, in accounts structured as they wished’ (2006: 26).

3. Quality of analysis and reporting – was there sufficient depth and detail included in the papers to suggest confidence in the findings that were presented? 4. Generalisability – did the papers contain information in relation to the contextual factors which might impact on the study findings, and ‘permit some generalisation beyond the immediate context in which the data were collected’ (2006: 25)

Challenges of Grey Literature

Regardless of how change threatens hierarchical structures, resistance can be summarized as fear: The fear of eroding the foundation of libraries being warehouses for materials serving generations; The fear of a concept of authority, having to redefine documents, like the collection development policies that have been true for decades; The fear to organize information in new ways; The fear that such information will require greater reference and curatorial support; The fear to introduce how information with no price tag on it can have incredibly high value placed upon it; The fear of losing a competitive edge to a peer institution; And, the fear of losing control and seeing new relationships emerge between library staffs and their methods of obtaining and using their collections, and the different relationships now required by users with technical support staff and other new by-products of institutional reorganization and creative staffing models. The great challenge for  the author in the use  of grey literature  is the authenticity of the data.

 

Conclusion: A small attempt made to  understand about the   history of grey literature and its contribution to  gain weightage to the research article  has given an insight as to that the  various types of document produced by governments, academic institutions, businesses and industries that are protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body. It is the documents available for capturing any relevant data compiled by any individuals, organisations in their conference proceedings or any regulatory authorities, or even  any working papers. If any information gathered from these sources for the preparation of a research article may have weightage depending upon the reputation of the organisation, sources quoted by the authors in their compilation, date of issue of such data etc.