Over-reliance on database: A case study of using web of science

Abstract

Despite the numerous benefits of technology, the risk of over-reliance on technology has been noticed and emphasized by many scholars in recent decades. If users depend on technology heavily, the excepted benefits, for example, reducing errors, increasing efficiency, and improving safety, might not always be realized and can be offset. However, existing research in over-reliance on the academic database, one of the common used technology products, is particularly limited. This case study investigated how a well-known database, Web of Science, misled researchers' work. While academic databases provide many literature searching opportunities, academic researchers should realize that databases may also have technical errors. The authors introduced two possible explanations (i.e., “automation bias and complacency” and “the theory of technology dominance”) to explain how this phenomenon occurred in the scholarly community. In the end, the article is devoted to offering some feasible recommendations for both users and database developers.