Open access making a real difference

A new website has been launched to provide real examples of the way that open access can transform scholarship. One of the stories describes the overwhelming response for St Andrews researchers following the decision to publish in an open access journal. The topic of the paper caught the public imagination when described as development of an 'invisibility cloak' in the University press release.

"As a result of the coverage, the paper was downloaded more than 50,000 times in the space of just a few months, and it reached an extremely wide and diverse audience for a technical scientific paper."

Flexible metamaterials at visible wavelengths by Andrea Di Falco, Martin Ploschner and Thomas F Krauss
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/12/11/113006

Read more open access success stories at http://www.oastories.org/ including:

Professor Tony Doyle, CERN Atlas
Using open access to collaborate on the largest experiment in the world – and inspire the next generation of particle physicists
Open Book Publishers
Cambridge scholars taking monograph publishing into their own hands

Range of content being used in Research@StAndrews:FullText

In our top ten most viewed items this month (Oct) we have published articles, e-theses, a technical report, e-book and article from a hosted University journal. It is great to see such a range of items being used in our repository, Research@StAndrews:FullText.

Our new download statistics are giving us further insight into usage of these research outputs. We will soon be able to display these on new pages at Research@StAndrews:FullText, but in the meantime here is a selection from our first list:

1. Retrospective power analysis (60) - consistently our most viewed article in the repository
2. Subverting space : Private, public and power in three Czechoslovak films from the 1960s and ‘70s (34) - recommended reading for our film Studies students
3. Variation in habitat preference and distribution of harbour porpoises west of Scotland (24) - Biology thesis
4. “Proven patriots”: the French diplomatic corps, 1789-1799 (24) - popular e-book from our St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series
5. Comparing pre- and post-construction distributions of long-tailed ducks Clangula hyemalis in and around the Nysted offshore wind farm, Denmark (21) - Technical report from the Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling (CREEM)

New reports from Open Access Implementation Group

The UK OAIG has just released two new reports on the benefits of open access to the private sector, and the practicalities of implementing 'gold' open access in HE.

Benefits to the Private Sector of Open Access to Higher Education and Scholarly Research provides some examples of the ways that businesses have used and benefited from open access material, and suggests that further evidence is needed to fully understand the potential impact of open access.

JISC Collections open access fees project: final report describes the outcome of a study into the principles and practical processes of paid open access options, particularly the 'hybrid' model where individual articles in a traditional journal can be made open access on payment of a fee. The report identifies several areas where improvements could be made to support the transition to open access publishing.

See our information about research funders and open access policies on the Library web pages.

Benefits of Research@StAndrews:FullText

Back in June, we celebrated reaching 1000 items in Research@StAndrews:FullText with some of the contributors to our landmark total. One of our thesis authors was unable to attend our event, but has been back in touch with comments about the repository.

"In my field of biblical studies it often takes two to three years before thesis research is made accessible to scholars for consideration and interaction. The digital repository has made it possible for scholars to access my research on 1 Peter almost immediately after I defended my thesis. I am also grateful for the way in which this technology enables scholars all over the world to access my work with a internet connection and a Google search."

Kelly Liebengood, author of 'Zechariah 9-14 as the substructure of 1 Peter’s eschatological program'

Our new statistics have allowed us to see that Kelly's thesis has been downloaded several times. We can also see that visitors have found the full text through a global index of electronic theses in the US, called OhioLINK Worlwide Center, as well as through Google searches.

We are delighted that Research@StAndrews:FullText can support our researchers in this way.

Research@StAndrews:FullText NEW download statistics

We are pleased to announce that we can now report on downloads from Research@StAndrews:FullText via Google Analytics.

Since 2009 we have been able to count visits and page views for our repository. Now, with the help of our developers at the Scottish Digital Library Consortium, we can include figures for full text downloads. We are still working on further improvements that will allow us to display results in the repository itself, and we hope to make these publicly available by the end of the year.

In the short time that these statistics have been available, we can already see some exciting results.

The latest CREEM Technical Report, deposited only 3 weeks ago, has been downloaded 16 times.

A recent thesis, Variation in habitat preference and distribution of harbour porpoises west of Scotland has had 486 views and 290 downloads in only 2 months.

“Proven patriots”: the French diplomatic corps, 1789-1799, the third ebook in our St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series, has been downloaded 24 times in 2 months.

We have recorded 2,705 full text downloads "since records began" (22 Aug 2011). In this period over 100 items were downloaded more than 5 times each.

Guidance for researchers on funder mandates

As part of our Open Access Week initiatives, we are launching new web pages to support our researchers.

We have created a guide to the open access policies of major research funders to ensure that you are fully informed about the ways you can comply with grant conditions.

See Research funders: open access policies on the Library web pages.

This guide is part of a range of new Library web pages designed to support researchers in all areas of open access, for example:

• Summary of funder open access policies
• Open access FAQ
• Open access definitions
• Quick guide to deposit full text in PURE

With thanks to colleagues from the University of Glasgow Enlighten repository service for allowing us to base our guide on their information.

Supporting Open Access initiatives

Open Access Week 2011 is a global event now in its 5^th year, promoting open access as a new norm in scholarly communication. To mark the event, which runs from 24 – 30 Oct 2011, the Library would like to share some of the results from a survey we ran earlier this year. The survey was part of a national initiative to create a body of evidence about researchers’ attitudes to open access. 

As well as seeking opinions about open access in general, the survey asked about 'self-archiving' - "the open access route where the author makes a version of his/her publication available in a repository or other online open access service" and use of our Research Information system Pure.

See the Open Access survey results