Open Access  

Lisa McIntosh
Associate Librarian, Resources

Email: lisamc@uow.edu.au
Phone: 02 4221 5608

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Michael Organ
Manager, Repository Services

Email: morgan@uow.edu.au
Phone: 02 4221 3108

22 - 28 October 2012

Open Access Week highlights the burgeoning support for open access to research outputs amongst the international higher education community and the general public, through the proliferation of digital repositories – such as the University’s Research Online - and the adoption of open access policies by major research funders.

More information.

Did you know?

In 2012 the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) revised the Policy on the Dissemination of Research Findings . As of 1 July 2012, NHMRC “requires that any publications arising from an NHMRC supported research project must be deposited into an open access institutional repository within a twelve month period from the date of publication”.

The Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Discovery Projects Funding Rules for funding commencing in 2012 also strongly encourages deposit of ARC supported research publications in publicly accessible outlets, such as an institutional repository, within twelve months of publication (see sections 5.2.2 and 13.3.2).

Research Online is the University of Wollongong's open access digital archive of research output. RO currently contains over 25,000 scholarly items, and has generated more than 4 million fulltext downloads since the site went live in 2006.

Why use institutional respositories?

Institutional repositories such as Research Online enhance the visibility, retrievability, and impact of research output by the exposure of material to researchers through search engines such as Google. Studies have shown open access leads to improved citation rates along with an enhanced research reputation for faculty staff and the University.

UOW Researchers: Ensure your recent publications are in Research Online. Forward the final manuscript (post-peer reviewed) version of your publications to research-pubs@uow.edu.au for discoverability in Research Online and Google.

What can I upload?

Research Online accommodates a wide range of material, from journal articles, conference papers and book chapters, through to theses, audio and video files, and images such as photographs and artworks. It has the ability to fully host and archive conferences, and publish peer-reviewed journals. A growing number of journal publishers are allowing authors to deposit their final manuscripts in institutional repositories. The Library is also engaged in a major digitisation initiative to make available on open access University theses dating back to the early 1960s.

Open Access Journals published at University of Wollongong:

• Animal Studies Journal (Arts)
• Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal (Faculty of Commerce) - ERA Ranked 'B'
• Australasian Journal of Peer Learning (Academic Services Division) - ERA Ranked 'C'
• Current Narratives (Faculty of Creative Arts)
• Illawarra Unity - Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (Faculty of Arts)
• International Gramsci Journal (Faculty of Arts)
• Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice (Academic Services Division) - ERA Ranked 'B'
• Law Text Culture (Faculty of Law) - ERA Ranked 'A'
• Tide (Faculty of Creative Arts)
• Middle East Media Educator (University of Wollongong in Dubai)

Peter Kell (Education)

"Research Online is the most amazing thing that has happened for scholarly publishing in my 20 years as an academic." January 2009
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Katina Michael (Informatics)

"I think the real contribution of RO has been in forming cross-institutional and transnational networks. We have had individual papers downloaded thousands of times and believe this has led to an increased citation rate relative to opportunity. We are able to collaborate with academics, engineers, lawyers, policymakers across the globe without ‘pushing’ material to people in a misguided way. People are finding our research and then getting in touch with us…" August, 2009
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Sara Dolnicar (Commerce)

"Research Online is revolutionary. Finally I have a good answer to give to people who email me, tell me that their uni has no funds for journal subscriptions and ask for my paper! Research Online has contributed greatly to the dissemination of my work." September, 2009.