The word research as an activity is a complex phenomenon comprising of identification of problem, survey of relevant literature available about the study, applying a suitable method to find a solution to a problem, arrival at the findings, cross comparison of one’s findings with those of others, etc. It is also necessary to publish the research findings so as to bring one’s work into the notice of peer community to achieve both positive and negative comments. The research activity as such involves a lot of time, money and effort. The availability of the full text of previously conducted research works is inevitable for conducting research and thus plays a vital role in motivating or de-motivating the researchers in a specific domain of knowledge. There is a wide spread notion that the advent of e-resources have laid a positive impact on most of the core aspects associated with the ‘research activity’. The study in hand is an attempt to work out the proportions of users who agree that the advent of e-resources has laid a positive impact on six of the core aspects related to the ‘research activity’.
The study has been conducted with following research questions in mind:
If the problem identification as a research activity has become easy or difficult?;
Has the literature survey/review become faster, easier, economical and accurate than print era or not?;
Whether the process of cross comparison of research findings has become more flexible and wider than print era or not?;
Is there any impact of advent of e-resources on the spirit of researchers to conduct research?;
Does it take more or lesser time to complete the research at hand?; and
If there is any impact of advent of electronic information resources on the time taken to publish a research work?.