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From which sources of information did I acquire most insights from in 2020? A prospective case study on a citizen scientist interested in meta-research and residential care
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Description: Abstract Introduction: I keep up with the scientific literature using a variety of methods such as monthly journal searches, automated email alerts and subscriptions to monthly newsletters. Each of these strategies inquires costs has a number of limitations. Given limited resources and multiple potential discovery strategies available I sought to measure which of the strategies I currently use to keep up with the literature of interest to me (health, meta-research, comics, trial methodology, systematic reviews, residential care) proves most productive in 2020. Objectives: To prospectively identify all sources of deliberate personal learning from February 10, 2020 to December 31, 2020. Study design: Case study Methods: From February 10, 2020 to December 31, 2020 I took note of the “strategies” (sources) that lead to the discovery of new personal insights (“knowledge”) transferred to a flashcards program called Mnemosyne. To do so I added 19 unique acronyms following the source of each new flashcard I wrote. On Jan 1, 2021 I then exported all flashcards written in 2020 to Excel for analysis. Results: I added 4493 new flashcards in 2020, for a total of n=19076 Mnemosyne flashcards on Dec 31, 2020. Of these 4493 flashcards, n=2392 (53.24%) had a strategy or source specified. The three main sources of insights for all flashcards were Targeted searches (50%), Twitter and tweets (34%) and Scientific conferences (7%). Seven (n=7) sources of insights (Targeted Twitter searches, Newsletters, Web of Science search alerts, Offline conversations, Google Scholar suggestions, Google Scholar citation alerts and Personal experiences) did not lead to flashcards at all. The 10 journals which led to the most flashcards were: Residential Treatment For Children & Youth (174 flashcards), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (71 flashcards), RERO DOC (database) (59 flashcards), Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (53 flashcards), BMJ (50 flashcards), Children and Youth Services Review (49 flashcards), Science (47 flashcards), Center for Open Science (36 flashcards), BMC Systematic reviews (36 flashcards) and Child & Family Social Work (33 flashcards). The 22 most “productive” unique sources of insights/flashcards had been published from 2000 to 2020 and were the source of a total of n=574 flashcards. The 22 most “productive” unique sources lead me to write from 15 to 64 flashcards each. All but one of the most productive sources of insights were identified when directly or indirectly looking for data related to residential care (or how to produce specific research on residential care). Eighteen out of twenty-two (n=18/22, 81.82%) most productive unique sources of insights were found through targeted searches, three (n=3/22, 13.64%) through Twitter and tweets and one (n=1/22, 4.54%) was found by chance (“surprise”). Limitations: Limitations included potential misclassifications, flashcards whose source I forgot to write down and uncertainty about the impact of the flashcards on my behavior and memory. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Registration and study protocol: See https://osf.io/rcyg3/ (dated March 2, 2020). Data and materials: See https://osf.io/cknjh/. All other data should otherwise be included within this manuscript. Keywords: Adult learning, spaced learning, flashcards, case study, Mnemosyne