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Introduction: Previous research examined the sharing of non-open access journal articles on a medical web site. This paper examines the sharing of institutions’ access codes to non-open access journal databases on the same web site. Method: A 6-month snapshot of the forum postings was analysed to determine the number of access codes shared, the number and geographical locations of the institutions affected. Results: Total access codes shared: 491; total institutions affected: 248 in 40 countries. Discussion and Conclusions: Similar to the previous research, the ethics of such sharing must be considered, especially as ethics is so prominent in medical practice. A major issue, however, concerns security: a large amount of the access was obtained because of extremely poor security at the institutions. This also raises questions regarding the security of other online systems at these institutions. For journal publishers, new models of access to medical and other journals are urgently required.
Ken Masters (Wed,) studied this question.