Open Access: be seen, be read, be cited, have impact!

Perspectives from two South African universities

Ina Smith Open Scholarship Manager

Stellenbosch University

Lazarus Matizirofa E-Research & Scholarly Communications Specialist

University of Johannesburg

“Universities and researchers are coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate the wider impact that their funded research has

beyond the end of the research project (publication)”

Manchester Univ. eScholar Blog (2012)

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

To encourage researchers to make their materials available in open access - in open access repositories or open access journals;

To develop means and ways to evaluate open access contributions to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice;

To advocate that open access publications be recognised in promotion and tenure evaluation;

Open access contributions include original scientific research results, raw data and metadata, source materials, digital representations of pictorial and graphical materials and scholarly multimedia material.

Source: http://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration

Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions …

Free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display. Complete version of the work and all supplemental materials submitted to open access repository.

Definition of Open Access

Citations have become an obsession within the research community.

Open Access (OA) is not about citations, nor is it about evaluating and measuring research.

OA is about making knowledge freely available to researchers, teachers, students and the public around the world.

“ … unrestricted and cost-free access to scientific information on the Internet.”

Source: http://www.clipartguide.com

Why Open Access?

• Increase research visibility

• Increase citations

• Increase impact

•Encourage dialogue and collaboration

•Easy access for all

•Continuous review process

•Rapid dissemination

•And many more …

Open Access @ SU & UJ

SUNScholar – all research

output (research articles, theses, dissertations, conference proceedings) https://scholar.sun.ac.za (since 2010 - )

UJDigispace – all research

output (research articles, theses, dissertations, conference proceedings) https://ujdigispace.uj.ac.za

SUNJournals – online journals 20 titles; 5 039 articles; 986 268 downloads (since 2011 - )

SUNConferences – online

conferences and proceedings 15 conferences (since 2012 - )

University Research Repositories

Goals of SUNScholar & UJDigispace repositories: preserve, now and in the future, to provide even greater benefits to institutions and researchers worldwide These include: Providing services such as profiles and bibliographies for

academics to centrally collect and display all their research output

Collecting statistics about how many times a paper has been downloaded, and from which countries

Implementing robust preservation policies Expanding to include research data and institutional

generated learning resources

Measuring Impact

• Bibliometrics (citations) • Altmetrics (social media) • Downloads

“The presupposition is that an article is being downloaded to be read. The chance of an article read being cited is one hundred percent greater than an article not read. Hence, it is safe to infer that the downloads are reflective of potential impact – developing world content is now being accessed from any part of the world that has Internet connectivity.” (Raju et al. 2014)

Research Article, Dept. of Animal Sciences (2013) – hot topic

A high incidence of species substitution and mislabelling detected in meat products sold in South Africa/Cawthorn, Donna‐ Maree Steinman, Harris A. Hoffman, Louwrens C. Subscription article (Elsevier):

Cawthorn, D‐M., Steinman, H.A., & Hoffman, L.C. 2013. A high incidence of species substitution and mislabelling detected in meat products sold in South Africa. Food Control, 32(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.01.008.

SUNScholar – Impact – Research Article

1

Sparked dialogue (also on social media), investigations, additional reviews of article ….. We want to encourage dialogue and have results scrutinised – along scientific principles.

Open Access Copy Downloads (27 February 2013 ‐ ) 12 November 2013 984 13 May 2014 1 534

SUNScholar – Downloads – Doctoral Dissertation

Doctoral Dissertation, Dept. of English (2008) – digitised

Writing black : the South African short story by black writers Rob Gaylard

Printed Copy Issued 1x (March 2008)

Printed Copy Issued 1x (March 2008)

Open Access Copy Downloads (November 2009-)

7 June 2012 2 629

13 May 2014 3 151

24 Sept. 2014 3 751

2

UJDigispace – Downloads – Doctoral Dissertation

3

UJDigispace – Citations – Thesis

4

Doctoral Dissertation, Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Dec. 2013) – expediting publishing research output because of funder requirements

Improving the direction‐dependent gain calibration of reflector antenna radio telescopes/ André Young

Open Access Copy Downloads (13 June 2013 ‐ ) October 2013 204 13 May 2014 272

SUNScholar – Impact – Doctoral Dissertation

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Article Level Metrics

Author Level Metrics

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SUNScholar – Citations - Google Scholar

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UJDigispace – Citations - Google Scholar

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UJDigispace – Citations - Google Scholar

TOP VIEWED THESES (JULY – AUGUST 2014) Online

Access

Physical

Access

The consequences of high population growth in developing countries: a case study of

South Africa ...

3,219 1

The unemployment problem in South Africa with specific reference to the Lekoa Vaal

Triangle Metro...

1,835 55

Affirmative action and the employment equity act of South Africa (Tladi, Tseke

Mokgomane) (10210/...

1,450 35

The causes and consequences of indiscipline in public and independent secondary schools

: a compa...

1,359 45

The effects that protectionism has had on the South African motor industry's component

suppliers ...

1,124 9

An assessment of the impact of the Skills Development Act (97 of 1998) on South African

courier c...

1,096 11

Management strategies to improve the academic performance of previously

disadvantaged secondary s...

830 9

The efficacy of R59(R) in weight loss of climacteric and menopausal women (Leite, Mark)

(10210/970)

789 1

The importance of vision and mission statements in promoting school effectiveness in

Northern Pro...

786 33

UJDigispace – Visibility & Impact

5 Nov. 2011 – 30 April 2014 (2 years, 6 months): 13 067 full text items

606 434 visits

2 276 101 page views; 1 564 000 unique page views

208 806 downloads; 171 201 unique downloads

Overall SUNScholar Usage Statistics

Overall UJDigispace Usage Statistics 5 Nov. 2011 – 30 April 2014 (2 years, 6 months): 9 800 full-text items 656, 111 visits 2 088, 087 page views

Repository Usage Statistics

Author does not need to be bothered by requests or lead users to paywall systems if pre-prints or post-prints are archived in the repository.

ResearchGate – Author – Personal Profile

"New knowledge is built on existing knowledge. If existing knowledge is not accessible – or is increasingly privatised –

then the whole enterprise of creating new knowledge for the benefit of society in general and the planet, is hobbled."

Ralph Pina IT Director, Stellenbosch University, 2011

Thank you