Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

When I am looking for papers and reports to put on DocuTicker, I aim for variety, and I try to include documents that most people would not otherwise see. Let me introduce you to one of my favorite fishing holes; it’s been around for awhile, but there are some nifty features you might find especially useful.

Social Sciences–Research Repository
Source: Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc.
Social Science Research Network
“Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a world wide collaborative of leading scholars that is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research. It is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. Each of SSRN’s networks encourages the early distribution of research results by reviewing and publishing submitted abstracts and by soliciting abstracts of top quality research papers around the world…. The Abstract Database contains information on over 104,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers. The Electronic Paper collection currently contains over 76,600 downloadable electronic documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Our users are downloading over 120,000 full text papers each month.”

Currently, the site comprises a number of sub-networks, each directed by a notable academic or group of academics:
+ Accounting Research Network (ARN) — “…publishes quality research in accounting topics including financial accounting, managerial accounting and audit, tax and litigation.”
+ Economics Research Network (ERN) — “…publishes quality research in economics currently covering 44 subject areas.”
+ Financial Economics Network (FEN) — “…publishes quality research in financial economics including corporate finance, banking and financial institutions, capital markets, derivatives and real estate.”
+ Information Systems Network (ISN) — “…an on-line venue providing access to working papers, tables of contents of journals, and professional announcements of interest to the eBusiness and eCommerce community.”
+ Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) — “…publishes quality research related to law, economics, and business in 61 different subject areas.”
+ Marketing Research Network (MKTG) — “…an online venue providing access to working papers, tables of contents of journals, and professional announcements of interest to the Marketing community.”
+ Negotiations Research Network (NEG) — “…an online venue providing access to working papers and professional announcements of interest to the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution community.”
+ Social Insurance Research Network (SIRN) — “…publishes abstracts of research papers in all areas of social insurance: disability income and work injury compensation; health care delivery & financing; poverty, income distribution & income assistance; social security, pensions, & retirement issues; and unemployment insurance.”

Some of these sub-networks are also part of the Management Research Network (MRN), which “now consists of the Corporate Strategy & Business Policy Network, Information Systems & eBusiness Network, International Business Network, Management Network, Marketing Network, Negotiations & Dispute Resolution Network, Organizational Behavior Research Network, and Production & Operations Research Network.”

“The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 104,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 76,600 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.” SSRN works with the publishers of more than 700 scholarly journals and 140 research institutions to disseminate abstracts of forthcoming research and working papers. You can search the Abstract Database by keyword (in title, abstract or both) or author, and limit by date range via a dropdown menu. If there is an available full-text paper associated with an abstract, you can view download options by clicking on the “Document Delivery” link at the upper left part of the screen. All documents appear to be in PDF format.

OK…on to the cool stuff. On the SSRN Top Downloads page, you can view the top ten “All Time Hits” (from January 2, 1997 to the present) in one column and the top ten “Recent Hits” for the past 60 days. If you want to view the top downloads in each of the specialized networks, go to the journal browse page and click the “top” icon to the right of each network name. There are several links around the site that will take you to top authors and top institutions (in terms of papers downloaded).

Registration at the site is easy and free — basically, you just enter an e-mail address. It allows you to subscribe to both free and fee-based journals. (Note: you may be associated with an organization that has an institutional account, which means you don’t need an individual login and you may have access to fee-based journals.) When you’re browsing through the available options, journal titles in blue are free and those in orange are fee-based. You can store papers of interest in an online “briefcase”. You can also submit your own abstracts and papers. The site offers an extensive FAQ that includes information about how you can use the content you find in the database.

Here’s a nifty feature I like that isn’t real obvious to the casual user of this site. If you’re looking at an abstract and want to see other papers by a particular author, click on his or her name to bring up a page that contains a list of his or her publications ranked by order of the number of downloads. Along with contact information, you’ll see a familiar orange XML button. Yes! You can subscribe to an RSS feed for that author which will let you know when he or she has submitted new papers or revised existing ones. Is this cool or what?

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2005 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.