Open Access promotes Polar Research

The move of the journal Polar Research to an open access publisher has allowed us to highlight the results of a long-term survey in the Arctic. St Andrews researchers Tiago Marques and David Borchers are co-authors of: The effect of sea-ice loss on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in West Greenland, Polar Research, 29(2): 198-208.

Tiago and the survey team

David Borchers - CREEM; School of Mathematics and Statistics

“An aerial survey was conducted to estimate the abundance of belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) on their wintering ground in West Greenland in March–April 2006 and 2008. [...] These results, based on nearly 30 years of dedicated survey effort, are among the first available evidence showing a shift in distribution of an Arctic cetacean in response to changes in sea-ice coverage.”

Polar Research is now published by Co-Action Publishing with all content now freely available under a Creative Commons licence.

David Borchers has a number of CREEM reports already available in Research@Standrews:FullText

Tiago Marques already has his PhD thesis on distance sampling available in the repository, and has recently contributed another article: Estimating the Barents Sea polar bear subpopulation size in Marine Mammal Science 25(1). The article describes the importance of scientific methods for population sampling, given the "current intense interest in polar bear management due to the potentially disastrous effects of climate change".

Images taken during this large scale survey illustrate the dramatic Arctic terrain and the adventurous life some of our researchers lead!

Sea Mammal Research reaches wide audience

Assessing the effectiveness of conservation measures: resolving the “wicked” problem of the Steller sea lion was one of the first articles to be self-archived in Research@StAndrews:FullText following the implementation of our Research Information System, Pure. Professor Ian Boyd deposited the author version of his article and it is now in the Top 20 most viewed items in our repository.

Recently, Prof. Boyd has added his article An International Quiet Oceans Experiment, and we have had permission from the publisher of the journal Oceanography to make the published version available.

Along with all the recent e-theses deposited in the repository, this takes our total well over the 1000 items recently celebrated.

'Quest for the fictional Jesus' celebrated in Graduation Week

The item marking our 1000th item in Research@StAndrews:FullText is a thesis from the School of Divinity by Margaret Ramey - The quest for the fictional Jesus : Gospel rewrites, Gospel (re)interpretation, and Christological portraits within Jesus novels

Other theses deposited on the same day included:

The roles of the cathedral in the modern English Church, Peter Rowe - Divinity

Optically guided neuronal growth, David Carnegie - Physics & Astronomy

Enemy within the gates : reasons for the invasive success of a guppy population (Poecilia reticulata) in Trinidad, Caya Sievers - Biology


Authors attended a reception during Graduation week to celebrate their achievements with colleagues in the Library.

Double '1000' success for open access article

Götz, T. & Janik, V. 2011. Repeated elicitation of the acoustic startle reflex leads to sensitisation in subsequent avoidance behaviour and induces fear conditioning, BioMed Central Neuroscience 12:30

Not only is this article one of the items contributing to our 1000 total in Research@StAndrews:FullText, it has been downloaded over 1000 times from BMC, making it the most highly accessed article in May from BMC Neuroscience. The article looks at the behaviour of grey seals when exposed to noise pulses, and the effects of their 'startle reflex'.

The University Library has arranged a Prepay Membership with BioMed Central, allowing St Andrews researchers to publish easily with BMC and gain a discount on the Article Processing Charge. Choosing open access with BMC means articles are published with immediate, free access on a highly visible platform. Authors retain copyright and anyone can reuse their articles under a Creative Commons Licence, ensuring a wide readership.

First portfolio thesis in Research@StAndrews:FullText

One of the recent items making up our 1000 total is a new format for our repository. The portfolio thesis by Geoffrey Sharwood-Smith has been deposited with enhanced metadata records in order to clearly describe its full contents - the main critical appraisal and 7 publications. Since its deposit, the thesis has already appeared in our Top 10 most downloaded items.

http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1815

Commenting on our repository services, Dr. Sharwood-Smith says "I’m very impressed with the facility that you have given me to make my thesis searchable world wide."

Featured articles in Research@StAndrews:FullText

As promised we will be highlighting a number of recent items that contributed to our landmark “1000” in Research@StAndrews:FullText - The articles and theses illustrate the range of research outputs that can be made open access.

Camera-related behaviours of female dental nurses and nursery school children during fluoride varnish application interactions in nursery school settings
Yuefang Zhou ; Gillian Mackenzie Forbes ; Gerald Michael Humphris - School of Medicine


This article investigates camera-related behaviours in a community based health programme. The study is important for paediatric dentists, giving an understanding of how the process of video recording affects children in this setting. It also has practical implications for researchers wanting to use this video-recording method for studying children’s behaviour. The topic is accessible and illustrates collaborative research with the University and NHS Fife.

An author version of the article has been made available according to publisher policies, therefore increasing the potential audience, highlighting the content of the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry and showcasing research in the school of Medicine.

From age-sets to friendship networks in contemporary sociology : The continuity of soda among the Boorana of East Africa
Mario Aguilar, School of Divinity



This article is from the first issue of the new open access journal Sociology Mind. The author is on the Editorial board of the journal, which aims to “synergize sociological imagination in the 21st century toward a critical understanding of new social and cultural forces that call for scientific interpretation and analysis of facts and values.” The article has an appealing subject-matter, discussing kinship and emphasizing the importance of friendship in Africa.

The articles are available from the St Andrews Research Portal and our repository, Research@StAndrews:FullText

EPSRC to enforce policy on open access

The Research@StAndrews staff blog recently posted details of the new EPSRC Policy on Access to Research Outputs.
"EPSRC requires authors to comply with this mandate and ensure that all published research articles arising from EPSRC-sponsored research, and which are submitted for publication on or after 1st September 2011, must become available on an Open Access basis through any appropriate route."

The options are:

• “Gold” - publishing directly in a subscription-free open access journal, or paying an open access fee in a 'hybrid' journal
• “Green” - deposition of the peer-reviewed article (as accepted for publication) in an online repository, respecting any embargo period required by the publishing journal

To follow the "Green" option, staff at University of St Andrews can deposit their author accepted version (the version following peer review but without the publisher’s copyediting and formatting) in PURE. Documents will be checked by Library staff and once validated will be stored in Research@StAndrews:Full Text.

EPSRC first agreed this policy in 2009, but are now taking a strong approach to ensure compliance. See the RCUK position statement on Open Access

Landmark 1000 items in repository

We have now reached a landmark total of 1000 items in Research@StAndrews: Full text, the University's digital research repository. 

 

We will be featuring a number of theses and research publications that have contributed to this milestone over the next few weeks. Congratulations to all our authors whose work is now reaching a wider audience!

Most viewed items in Research@StAndrews:FullText

The article by Len Thomas Retrospective power analysis remains the most highly accessed article in Research@StAndrews:FullText, with 170 views in May 2011.

Also frequently viewed, our first thesis by portfolio to be deposited has proved of interest with 74 views:

The inferior vena caval compression theory of hypotension in obstetric spinal anaesthesia: studies in normal and preeclamptic pregnancy, a literature review and revision of fundamental concepts

The rest of the top 10 most viewed items are shown below.
The soft-focus lens and Anglo-American pictorialism
Saint Peter and Paul Church (Sinan Pasha Mosque), Famagusta: a forgotten Gothic moment in Northern Cyprus
Understanding barriers to small business growth from the perspective of owner-managers in Russia
Global distributive justice
The consequences of Israel's counter terrorism policy
What is social learning?
Applications of microfluidic chips in optical manipulation & photoporation
Karl Barth's academic lectures on Ephesians (Göttingen, 1921-1922)

Discovering open access repository contents

Our Library e-resources blog recently described how you can now find full text resources from OAIster through our Discovery Service SEEKER. See the full details in this post.

OAIster harvests records from worldwide institutional repositories including Research@StAndrews:FullText and makes them easily searchable.

A similar service that allows you to search and find open access resources in repositories is BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). Outputs from a specific repository can be found by refining your search results in the Collection drop-down list.

The Directory of Open Access Repositories OpenDOAR also provides a search service for material in its directory at http://www.opendoar.org/search.php