The research life cycle and innovation through grey literature in nanotechnology in Korea

The research life cycle of nanotechnology (NT) and its innovation through grey literature in the form of technical reports in Korea. The changes in the numbers of publications of grey literature and white literature in NT show the process of innovation, as technical reports and journal articles contain research results. Numbers of publications of Korean technical reports on National Discovery for Science Leaders (NDSL) and journal articles on Web of Science Science Citation Index Expended (WoS (SCIE)) are compared year by year. In general, the technical reports were produced at an earlier date than journal articles on the Web of Science. Grey literature contains creative ideas and research output, and reflects the early stage of nanotechnology and thus provides a means of tracing innovation in a specific field of science and technology in Korea

Effect of OpenAPI, NDSL Open Service (NOS) on Sharing Technical Reports in Korea

This is a case study on sharing technical reports through Open Application Programming Interface (API) in Korea. In 2009, KISTI implemented an OpenAPI called NDSL Open Service (NOS) to increase sharing of national R&D research results among users through major portals, institutes, and universities in Korea. NOS participants can access the technical reports from their website directly instead of having to use the NDSL platform. Technical report usage has increased dramatically since the implementation of NOS. This study analyzes the effect of NOS on the national R&D technical report usage by examining the changes in the amount of usage and the number of participating organizations in NOS. The number of universities, institutes, and portals using NOS and the usage statistics for technical reports through NOS was examined from 2009 to 2012. The results revealed that the number of participating organizations in NOS increased 191% from 23 in 2009 to 67 in 2012. The amount of usage of technical reports through the NOS has increased 83% since its implementation over the previous usages by the NDSL portal alone. Thus, National R&D technical reports are being shared among users through various portals, universities, research institutes, and companies through NOS. NOS has contributed to populating grey literature repositories in Korea. Through NOS, Korean R&D research results as a national knowledge asset can be utilized by a vast number of users for creating new studies and avoiding duplication of research