Peer Review

Geriatric Psychiatry Open Access Journal

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Dec 31, 2021 by Psychology

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

The Journal of Gerontology & Geriatric Research is an Open Access journal with resources available for the general public. It contains freely available, open-access journal articles relevant to the field of aging and gerontology.

Type of Material:

Reference Material, Collection, Journal Articles

Recommended Uses:

The articles could be referenced in a variety of courses that address aging and older adulthood. Based on a review of selected articles from current and previous issues, this particular resource would be a useful addition for faculty teaching classes in developmental psychology, adult development and aging, gerontology, and nursing and health care.
An excellent application of this site would be to include it as a resource for researching content, such as for student research papers and projects.

Technical Requirements:

A basic web browser is required, and two reviewers successfully used multiple browsers. Some articles open as PDF files, and a software program such as Adobe Reader may be needed to view the content.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

The journal focuses on Geriatric Psychiatry – “a subspecialty of psychiatry dealing with the study, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders in humans with old age.”

The journal provides students with access to one of the most quickly expanding areas of research today. This is helpful for any class that includes issues of aging.
The journal provides a wide array of research articles relating to aging across the physical, social, cognitive, and psychosocial domains and will therefore be useful in many arenas.

Target Student Population:

College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

The site is easy to maneuver; however, experience with research in aging and a background in developmental psychology would make the content presented in these journal articles more informative and applicable. Likewise, a basic understanding of research methodology may assist students with understanding the quantitative and qualitative methods used in these studies.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

An excellent and broad range of topics related to aging are included in the site. For example, the articles range from short communications regarding the causes of wrinkles to in-depth research papers on anesthesia, dentistry, and nursing with older adults.

Concerns:

The reviewers noted occasional typographical errors in journal article titles.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Articles are clearly marked as commentary, research article, short communication, or editorial note.
Overall, the ability to use these articles for both individual-level and group-oriented assignments is quite high.

Concerns:

While the archives are easy to find, site visitors need to know the terms they are searching to make a search effective.
While the navigation menus in the left-hand and center frames are useful, it does not appear that a page-level search option is available. This may limit the overall utility of this tool for students and faculty.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

Overall, this collection of journal articles is easy to navigate and content opens as expected.

It is possible to search the site by single terms or phrases. As a visitor types in the search box, suggestions pop up. If the visitor scrolls down and clicks under Relevant Topics, a description of the general area, a High Impact list of articles, and links to Conference Proceedings appear.

Concerns:

It would be helpful to be able to search by a combination of terms/phrases (e.g., a Boolean search) to make searches more efficient. The Relevant Topics section at the bottom of the page incorporates a useful organization; however, it directs users to specific articles - this is helpful for new users, but advanced users may struggle to find articles of interest.
Content appears to open in different formats (some html, some pdf, some present a choice). It would be beneficial for the site to consistently allow both html & pdf options for all content, similar to the manner in which content is displayed from the "Current Issue" page (which is exceptionally well-designed and does an excellent job of allowing easy cross-sharing of content).

Other Issues and Comments:: The Journal of Gerontology & Geriatric Research is an excellent resource. Both current and previous issues cover a wide variety of topics and offer research across spectrums.
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