Open Scholarship

Open Scholarship is about making research visible and sharing knowledge. Open access publications, open data, open educational resources, and open source software share this common principle. 

Open Scholarship has its origins in the open access movement, formalised by the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 and defined as:  

Open Access (OA) material is digital, online, freely accessible and free of most copyright and licencing restrictions.

Why Open Scholarship?

Open Scholarship benefits everyone.  

In a global scholarly environment of increasing volume and complexity open scholarship practices can fuel innovation and further global knowledge. Disseminating work through open access channels means that researchers in less resourced institutions, practitioners in the field and the general public can share findings – including academics in Australasian institutions. 

Open Scholarship accelerates the pace of discovery and the translation of research into benefits for the public by sharing results with other researchers in a timely manner who can build on it, and with practitioners who can apply the new knowledge. 

The taxpayer supports the research, the writing up of results, and the peer review and editing process. Open Scholarship allows these taxpayers to see these findings without having to pay to view. 

Open Scholarship enables a wider audience and more citations. There is considerable evidence that reaching more readers by making work openly accessible results in citable articles being cited more. Open Scholarship also allows institutions a wider audience for their outputs. 

Text adapted from Griffith University Library under CC BY 4.0. 

Flinders University Library has arrangements with the following publishers for discounted or waived article processing charges (APCs), when you submit an article with a Flinders affiliation and email address. 

• Biochemical Society / Portland Press (No APC fee)
  The Corresponding author can publish open access in any of the Biochemical Society’s journals without paying a fee;  includes research journals: Biochemical Journal, Bioscience Reports, Clinical Science, Neuronal Signaling and review journals: Biochemical Society Transactions, Emerging Topics in Life Sciences and Essays in Biochemistry. See further directions from Portland Press.
  
• BioMed Central (15% off)
  The Library is a BMC Supporter Member which gives a 15% discount on the article processing charges of all primary research articles accepted for publication in journals published by BioMed Central.
• Company of Biologists (No APC fee)
  The Corresponding author can publish open access without paying a fee in journals published at biologists.com; includes Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open. See further directions from the Company of Biologists.
• CSIRO (No APC for select journals)
  The Corresponding author is eligible for the article processing charge to be waived when publishing open access in one of the following eight CSIRO journals: Australian Journal of Botany, Australian Journal of Zoology, Wildlife Research, Environmental Chemistry, Sexual Health, Reproduction, Fertility & Development, Marine & Freshwater Research, and Australian Journal of Chemistry.
• MDPI Journals (10% off)
  The Library is a member of the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program which gives authors a 10% discount when publishing a book or journal article through MDPI.
• Microbiology Society (No APC fee)
  Any Flinders author can publish open access without paying a fee in journals by the Microbiology society; includes Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, Microbial Genomics, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology and Access Microbiology. 
• SpringerOpen (15% off)
  Flinders University authors are entitled to a 15% discount on the article processing charge in Springer’s fully open access journals.  Does not apply to Nature Research, Palgrave, or Springer Nature hybrid (Open Choice) titles.

Just because a paper is free of cost doesn’t mean it’s free of copyright. Here is a list of tools and resources to help you know where to look (and where not to look!) 

Recommended 

Use with caution 

Academia.edu and ResearchGate rely on authors to upload their research papers, and a contentious issue with these services is about which version is allowed to be uploaded: pre-print, author accepted manuscript (AAM) or the version of record. Subscription publishers will rarely allow the version of record to be shared via Academia.edu or ResearchGate. While many subscription publishers allow pre-print’s and AAM’s to be shared, this does not necessarily mean sharing on commercial sites like Academia.edu and ResearchGate for either or both versions. It is often unclear if recently uploaded articles are under a publisher mandated embargo period. If you are unsure of the copyright associated with an article from Academia.edu or ResearchGate, refer to the recommended list of tools and resources on page 1 for an authoritative source. 

Not recommended 

There are now many options available to researchers to disseminate their findings. These include 'traditional' subscription-based journals, books, and conference proceedings, as well as newer online models of dissemination. Journal publications have been at the forefront of online publication, some dating back to the early days of the internet. Book publishers are now using online platforms too, with new business models to support publication costs. And conference proceedings are formalising their online offerings to ensure longevity and discoverability. The models are defined by colour: platinum (sometimes also known as diamond), gold, and green open access.  

Platinum open access refers to publications that is both free to author and reader. These publications are usually supported by a society, institution, or university to ensure publications can be made freely available. An example is the journal Transnational Literature, published by Flinders University. 

Gold open access, is where publications are free to read but the publication costs are borne by the author/s in the form of article processing charges (APCs). BioMed Central is a long-standing open access publisher.  

For green open access, authors deposit a version of their published work in a subject or institutional repository, making it freely available to read. Examples include the ArXiv physics repository and the Flinders Academic Commons institutional repository. 

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) guide How Open Is It? explains the range of options in more detail. 

Journals 

Journal publications have been at the forefront of new ways to deliver content. Many so called traditional print journals either now partly or entirely offered online. In addition, many new online-only journals have been created since the early 2000s. Business models have evolved with the advent of online content - while many journals still operate using a conventional subscription model, there are others using hybrid models as well as article processing charges (also known as 'author pays'). In most cases, there is the opportunity to make articles available openly.  

Some journal publishers have taken advantage of the gold open access models, offering little or no peer review and quick turnaround times to publication.  The Think. Check. Submit. checklist can help assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.  

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a community-curated list of open access journals and aims to be the starting point for quality, peer reviewed open access journals. 

Open Journal Systems (OJS) is a free online journal management tool used by universities all over the world to publish open access journals. 

Books 

Book publishers have also responded to online opportunities. Alternative models for monograph publication have arisen more recently, and so are not as mature as journal publication offerings. These include University open access epresses, many offered as platinum models, commercial open access monographs using gold open access models, and innovations such as library-supported models.  

The Australian Open Access Strategy Group describes monograph developments more fully. 

Knowledge Unlatched is a new business model for publishing books. Flinders University Library is a supporter member (2016 and 2017) of this initiative. 

Conferences 

While conferences were early to have an online presence, many used them mainly for promotion and registration not necessarily dissemination and preservation of the proceedings. However this is changing, and there are now options for open conferences too, covering the spectrum of platinum, gold and green. 

Individual conference papers may be able to be uploaded to the Flinders Academic Commons under green open access conditions. 

The Public Knowledge Project has created Open Conference Systems (OCS), a free web publishing tool that can do everything from creating a conference website to accepting paper submissions and registrations and storing conference proceedings in a searchable format. 

CERN maintain a list of where to publish open access conference proceedings, many of which are gold open access [Note: relevant to physics and related sciences]. 

Tools

• OPTIMIZE your publishing: maximise your impact   
  
  OA journals guide, with a publishing choices decision tree, from the Right to Research Coalition 
• Eigenfactor Cost-effectiveness Chart   
  
  A plot evaluating impact against cost to publish open access 
• SHERPA/ROMEO   
  
  Database of publishers' open access policies.  

UC Berkeley Library Selective list of OA fees  

Charges per article in US Dollars and GB Pounds. 

Open Data is the process of making the data gathered and created during the course of research openly available. 

Grant funding bodies and publishers are increasingly requesting researchers make data associated with research outputs publicly available. 

Data sets are the raw data files that are used for secondary analysis in research.  They are often deposited in data archives for preservation and dissemination purposes.  Although not all data files are available, data archives can be searched by a number of access points.

Data sets are considered to be a primary research source.  Data set files are usually downloadable and can be manipulated using statistical software such as SPSS.  Some data archives also provide tools for online analysis. 

Many governments, NGOs and research organisations now make many datasets available for reuse. Many are available free of charge, some are only available under certain conditions or may require payment (see below for information on restricted access datasets). Below are links and information on finding relevant datasets using findIt@flinders, as well as some of the main sources of government, research, and restricted access datasets.

Open data repositories 

Australian Data Archive 

Dryad 

Genbank 

FigShare 

ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research *US) 

TERN (Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network) Data Discovery Portal 

UK Data Archive 

World Health Organisation Global Health Observatory
 

Open government data portals

Australia 

• Official - data.gov.au 
• Unofficial - govpond

International 

• See Data Portals

Data catalogues 

Research Data Australia

Research Data Australia is a discovery service for Australian research data. It is designed to provide rich connections between data, projects, researchers and institutions, and promote visibility of Australian research data collections in search engines. 

Databib

Databib is a collaborative, annotated bibliography of primary research data repositories developed with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the US 

CSIRO Data Access Portal

Biosharing.org

UK Data Archive  

The UK Data Archive is curator of the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom, with several thousand datasets relating to society, both historical and contemporary.

Data repository catalogues 

Re3data (Registry of Research Data Repositories) 

Open Access Directory data repositories

FindIt @ Flinders Use FindIt@Flinders to search for datasets: 

• set your advanced search to 'articles' 
• enter keyword/s and 'datacite' eg lizards datacite

"Data citation refers to the practice of providing a reference to data in the same way as researchers routinely provide a bibliographic reference to outputs such as journal articles, reports and conference papers.  Citing data is increasingly being recognised as one of the key practices leading to recognition of data as a primary research output" [1] 

[1] Australian National Data Service (2011) Data Citation. Retrieved from http://www.ands.org.au/cite-data/

Data citation standards are evolving and may vary across disciplines and publishers. However, DataCite has undertaken some work in this area and recommends using one of the following formats: 

Creator (Publication Year): Title. Publisher. Identifier 

Abraham, Gad. Kowalczyk, Adam. Loi, Sherene. Haviv, Izhak. Zobel, Justin. ( 2011
                ) Five human breast cancer microarray gene expression datasets. Computer
                Science and Software Engineering, The University of
                Melbourne. doi:10.4225/02/4E9F695934393

Creator (PublicationYear): Title. Version. Publisher. ResourceType. Identifier 

Version (Edition)
Colley, Sarah. ( 2010 ) Archaeological Fish Bone Images Archive Tables. 1st edition. Sydney.  Sydney eScholarship. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/6253, Sydney eScholarship Repository 

ResourceType
Abraham, G; Kowalczyk, A; Loi, S; Haviv, I; Zobel, J. (2011) Computational Model for Gene Set Analysis to predict breast cancer prognosis based on microarray gene expression data. Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Melbourne.Computational Model.  doi:10.4225/02/4E9F69C011BC8 XXXXXXXXXX 

The DataCite format is used to display citation Metadata in collection records in Research Data Australia. 

See the Australian National Data Service Data Citation guide or the DataCite website for more information.
Example  

An example from Research Data Australia

How to cite Data  

A short guide to data citation by the Michigan State University Library - examples include APA (6th ed), MLA (7th ed), Chicago (18th ed) 

How to Cite Datasets and Link to Publications  

Ball, A. & Duke, M. (2011). ‘How to Cite Datasets and Link to Publications DCC guide: how to cite datasets and link to publications. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. 

Making your research data open 

eResearch @ Flinders can help make your research data openly available, assist with storage for Open Data and in addition provide Data Management Planning tools. Data Management Planning tools assist in describing the how you will handle your data while undertaking research and following the completion of your research projects.

Use the following sources to determine a journal or publisher's credentials. 

For journals: 

• Look at the editorial and submission policies of the Journal. 
• Check the quality and scholarly content of the Journal. 
• Use third party sources to verify publisher claims on where a Journal is indexed. 
• Verify editorial board by confirmation on editors’ professional research profiles. 
• Use Think. Check. Submit. to determine a Journal's credentials. 

Some indicators of legitimate publishers: 

• Membership to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 
• Entry in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). 
• Publisher is a member of Open Access Scholarly Publisher Association (OASPA). 
• Publisher is a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers(STM). 
• Visibility of costs associated with publishing. 

Membership of COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and STM require adherence to codes of conduct based on commitments to standard publishing practices. These are good indicators of quality publishers. Legitimate publishers should make their conditions for open access transparent, including costs associated with publishing as well as Open Access license conditions (Creative Commons). 

See also the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, by OASPA. 

If you are suspicious of a journal or publisher please contact the Flinders University Library for assistance -- researchlibrarians@flinders.edu.au.

Both the ARC (Australian Research Council) and NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council) policies state they: “… requires that any publications arising from an [ARC/NHMRC] supported research project must be deposited into an open access institutional repository within a twelve (12) month period from the date of publication”. 

In terms of outputs affected, the ARC policy covers all publication outputs including books, the NHMRC covers journal articles only.

Key Requirements:

• Chief Investigators (CIAs for NHMRC) are responsible for complying 
• Metadata must be submitted "as soon as possible" after publication (ARC) / "immediately upon publication" (NHMRC) 
• Must add full text with 12 months of publication, or state why not in the Final Report 
• Prefer deposit of Accepted Version or Published Version

Useful links 

• Make your paper Open Access
  
  Comply with ARC and NHMRC grant mandates. 
• SHERPA/ROMEO  
  
  Database for determining publishers' policies for open access.

ARC & NHMRC Policy Compliance Flowchart 

Not sure if you need to comply? This flowchart may help.