My presentation given at City University London's Researcher Development Day, for early career researchers at City. The presentation is on scholarly communications, open access generally and at City, and how social media can be used to disseminate research.

1. Open Access & City Research Online
Neil Stewart, Digital Repository Manager
Neil.Stewart.1@city.ac.uk
http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/

2. Session overview
• Scholarly communication in the internet age
• Why open access?
• Open access at City: City Research Online
• Social networking: a new form of scholarly
communications, or a frivolous waste of time?
• Twitter, blogs & other social media
• Open access & social media: power dissemination!
• Conclusions

3. Scholarly communication in the web age
• The web as a classic disruptive technology - and these effects
are still playing out.
• Knowledge can now be freely disseminated via the web.
• Goodbye to the library as the gatekeeper for scholarly
knowledge (?)
• Traditional models of publishing (subscription journals, hard
copy monographs) under threat as a result.
• New methods of scholarly communications gaining currency e.g.
e-books, open educational resources, open access journals.
• Problems of authority and authenticity of information.
• Social media as a dissemination tool or a medium in its own
right?

4. Why open access (OA)?
• General (reductive) argument: (nearly) all research is taxpayer
funded, so taxpayers should have access to that research
• Growing recognition in last 10+ years that the internet & web
services can cause this to happen.
• Open access benefits include:
• Move away from research hidden behind subscription pay-walls.
• Widest possible audience for research.
• Open access citation advantage.
• Social justice- lowering the “digital divide”.
• Open access = better science, developed more quickly
• Open access movement focussed on peer-reviewed journals.
• New areas of focus include open data, open monographs.

5. Green vs. Gold Open Access
• Green open access:
• Author self-archives “author final” version in an institutional repository
(IR) or subject repository.
• An embargo period is often applied.
• Copyright, versioning of papers both issues for academics.
• Getting academics to do it- to mandate?
• Gold open access:
• “Author pays” model- though rarely out of academics’ own pockets!
• Articles from a fully Gold or “hybrid” journal are made open.
• Problem of funding for Gold, publishers “double dipping”, creation of
a market for Gold journals.

6. Open access: a hot topic!
• A lot of publicity around OA recently:
• The Elsevier boycott (early 2012).
• Finch Report on access to research outputs (June 2012)
• New RCUK policy on open access (post-Finch)
• The Guardian and other prominent media outlets have
been examining OA issues.
• What does all this mean for researchers?
• Open access mandatory for all funded research!
• Funders likely to be much more rigorous in monitoring
compliance.
• Early career researchers should get in the habit early!

7. Open access at City: City Research Online
• Institutional repository service launched in Autumn 2011.
• Allows City authors to make their research (articles,
chapters, conference papers, theses) available to anyone
who wishes to access it via Green OA– author self-
archiving.
• To do this, all we need is the “author final” version of
papers- the final, post-refereeing draft.
• We do the copyright checking on your behalf.
• Papers added to CRO get found and downloaded- we
regularly see 200+ downloads a day.
• See for example http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/1101/

8. Social media- blogging
• A new form of academic communication?
• Quick & easy to set up a blog!
• Allows for peer interaction, can find an
audience outside the academy.
• Can contextualise research for new and wider
audiences.
• Problems: finding the time, creating an
audience.

9. Social media- Twitter
• Short, timely updates on relevant topics.
• Conversational model.
• Know your audience! Possibility of mixed
messages.
• Hashtagging your Tweets.
• Some examples of good practice here at City:
@giCentre, @cityuni_hcid, @CityLCS
• Also possible to build personal networks, e.g.
@WebsterFrank

10. Case study: it really works!
• Melissa Terras, UCL Department of Information Studies.
• Made a concerted effort to blog & Tweet about her papers
which had been added to UCL’s institutional repository service.
• Most papers had received one or two downloads; after
publicising, this rose to an average of 70 downloads per paper.
• As a result, she achieved 27 of the top 50 most downloaded
papers in her department that month.
“If you tell people about your research, they look at it. Your
research will get looked at more than papers which are not
promoted via social media.”
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/04/19/blog-tweeting-papers-worth-it/

11. Further reading
That LSE blog from my last slide:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/
Impact of Social Sciences Handbook:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/the-handbook/
A guide to using Twitter in university research, teaching, and impact
activities:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/09/29/twitter-guide/
Social media: A guide for researchers: http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-
work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-
researchers

12. Thanks!
Email: Neil.Stewart.1@city.ac.uk
Twitter: @neilstewart
CRO’s email address: publications@city.ac.uk
CRO’s OA repository: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/
CRO’s on City’s website: http://www.city.ac.uk/research/research-
publications
CRO on Twitter: @City_Research
CRO’s blog: http://cityopenaccess.wordpress.com/