1. What is it? Why should I use it? How do I use it? Rachel Graham (Research Services Librarian) email : roar@uel.ac.uk tel : 0208 223 6466
2.
3.
4. What’s happening internationally? I will soon form a US Public Access Policy (10/12/2009* ) advise me please… * http://blog.ostp.gov/2009/12/10/policy-forum-on-public-access-to-federally-funded-research-implementation/ … Harvard advises manuscript deposit in an open access repository!
Today I’ll like to give you a brief overview of the University’s Institutional Repository Project. My presentation is in three sections, I’ll start by introducing UEL’s institutional repository Then I’ll talk about how it can help you And finish by giving some tips on how to use it and let you know what developments are being introduced in future
roar@uel is an online archival database hosting the full text of published research done at UEL. Material stored in the archive is freely available to anyone over the Internet. Services like roar are either already well established or being developed by academic institutions worldwide.
Who has got an institutional repository. Well most of our international rivals. Research Councils now presume institutions have a repository and are making decisions based on this presumption. All seven UK research councils have now mandated that research outputs that result from their funded grants should be made widely and free available as possible and ideal deposited in a digital repository. More importantly what would be the impact of not having a repository? Its highly likely that any such institution would stand out, for the wrong reasons.
As we Professor Steven Hyman, Provost of Harvard, the first US University to mandate Open Access, has submitted such a spot-on, point for point response to President Obama’s Request for Information on Public Access Policy that if his words are heeded, the beneficiaries will not only be US research progress and the US tax-paying public, by whom US research is funded and for whose benefit it is conducted, but research progress and its public benefits planet-wide, as US policy is globally reciprocated.
There are three main benefits of using roar to store your publications which I’ll go into now… the first one is visibility: roar uses quality metadata records and is indexed by all search engines, the UEL library catalogue and specialist search sites including repository indexing and cross searching tools. Repository content is ranked higher by some search engines than the content of personal web pages. A normal Google or Google Scholar search favours OAI-repository material and normally ranks it higher than an individual's own website. roar provides a showcase for University of East London research. It is used to support externally and internally driven audits of research activity including HEFCE assessment exercises such as the Research Excellence Framework and similar annual reviews.
Will an institutional repository make a difference, will it improve individuals and organisations research reputations, Southampton think it has for them.. The most striking evidence for this is Southampton’s rank in the league of Google citations or G-factpr. This is essentially an indicator of how often content on their website gets linked to and hence cited by other websites. In this respect, Southampton are 25 th in the world and 3 rd in the UK. Southampton put this down in part to the existence of its Institutional Repository, which has grown in the last 4 years to hold around 30,000 records, 25% of which are freely accessible full text versions of research articles. Essentially, by providing a place for individuals to manage and disseminate their scholarly work and a place where others can easily access that work Southampton University has increased the chance that research by its academics is cited – raising the profile of the institution
I mentioned that search engines favour repository material – here is the proof! UEL Psychology staff are already using roar to effectively promote their work and the school of psychology at uel roar uses quality metadata records and is indexed by all search engines, the UEL library catalogue and specialist search sites including repository indexing and cross searching tools. Repository content is ranked higher by some search engines than the content of personal web pages. A normal Google or Google Scholar search favours OAI-repository material and normally ranks it higher than an individual's own website.
I also mentioned that the repository can act as a showcase – here’s one of the ways this can be achieved.. this example is from Dr Martyn Baker who deposited his manuscript with permission from Wiley Blackwell. Roar can then provide sublinks to your other deposited work – showcase for the whole department
This demonstrates how roar is beginning to have a small influence worldwide thanks to the UEL authors who have already deposited some of their papers – this is part of a google analytics report which tracks visitors to roar google analytics can provide us with some simple statistics on who is reading and accessing work in uels repository – as you can see we already have a wide readership – not all the countries are on here but if we have time at the end or if anyone is interested I can show you the full report including key words people have used and what documents are being accessed. I’m installing better statistics package soon so we’ll be able to see downloads too!
What we’ve just seen is that repositories can increase visibility and hence citations – this can only be a good thing for you as researchers.
subscriptions limit access. roar can make your article more accessible than your publisher because no subscription is required to read the version of your article in roar. Easy access to your papers for students as through the catalogue – although we teach them to use databases – google effect. All seven major UK research councils now insist on open access deposit as a grant condition.
roar provides a permanent URL and a place where your scholarly work is securely and permanently stored. This is guaranteed for a minimum of 10 years even if you leave the University. When you deposit an item you get a URI (or Unique Resource Indicator) which is permanent and you can link to this from your personal webpages
If you have research outputs in non-text format (for example, images, artworks etc) we are happy to discuss with you the best way of making these available If due to edits taking place at a paragraph level by telephone or e-mail there has been no version between the submitted and final published version, and you are not happy to put an earlier draft online, please do contact us
The Physics community has been using a subject-based archive - arXiv - to hold their papers for over thirteen years, while also sending them to traditional journals: and yet Physics journals continue to be sold. arXiv now holds over 300,000 papers and takes in about 1/3 of the world's physics research. You give roar at UEL permission to keep your work in a current format and to freely distribute electronic copies of it—nothing else. We will embargo access to anything we are not yet permitted to make Open Access by your publisher
The final word on copyright concerns and author/article and journal impact from Sir Tim? The letter, signed by Sir Tim chairman of the school of electronics and computer science at Southampton University, alongside open access proponent and fellow Southampton University academic Professor Stevan Harnad, includes a line-by-line rebuttal of the ALPSP's arguments against open access.
After registration with roar the task basically consists of filling in an on-line form and hitting the "submit" button. 10 minutes work for the increased exposure and citation it gains.