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

HEFCE and RCUK agree on need for Open Access strategy

The Times Higher Education has reported that "Research Councils UK and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have agreed to work together to advance the transition to open-access publishing of research". The full statement from HEFCE is available at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2011/rcuk.htm

The bodies will look at how to support the practice of depositing papers into open access repositories, as well as the 'gold' method where researchers pay to publish in a journal that makes their article open access.

St Andrews researchers can currently deposit author versions of research publications into PURE so that they can be made publicly available in our institutional repository Research@StAndrews:FullText http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/

St Andrews researchers - we want your views on OA

Unlocking attitudes to Open Access Survey

We are launching a survey to find out what you think about Open Access and how you use the University’s digital repository. This is part of a national initiative to create a body of evidence about researchers’ attitudes, and will help us develop our services to support research activity in the University.


Research@StAndrews:FullText is the University’s digital repository, where the full text of research publications and theses is securely stored for the institution and made freely and publicly available.  PURE is the University’s research information system where researchers can add their research publications and deposit the full text of those publications for transfer to the repository.

The survey will run from 3 May 2011 to 30 June 2011 and can be accessed at http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/standrews/openaccess2011

New look for Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has launched a new interface. It is now even easier to navigate around DOAJ to find open access journals and related information.

The 'About' section gives clear definitions on the journals included in the directory:

"Open Access Journal: We define open access journals as journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. From the BOAI definition [1] of "open access" we take the right of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory. [1] http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess

Quality Control: The journal must exercise peer-review or editorial quality control to be included."

The statistics section shows that journals are being added to the directory at a rate of over 100 a month. In total there are now 6436 journals listed, with over 500 based in the UK.

For anyone thinking of setting up an open access journal, there is a really useful resource: Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing 

Authors rights to deposit in repositories

The UK Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) have made a statement supporting the rights of authors to deposit a copy of their published work in repositories. "Do you know your publishing rights?" is a response to recent changes in the policies of some publishers.

If authors want to investigate how to retain certain rights, the JISC/SURF Copyright toolbox provides practical suggestions.

OAIG: http://www.open-access.org.uk
"The aim of the UK Open Access Implementation Group is to add value to the work of the member organisations to increase the rate at which the outputs from UK research are available on OA terms."