The Library team helps researchers with enhancing their scholarly impact.
Research plays a vital role within academia; it advances knowledge for further study and underpins learning and teaching.
This article - the second in a series on research impact - explores scholarly impact and the Library resources available to Otago researchers to enhance the visibility and discoverability of their research publications.
Deputy University Librarian Cate Bardwell says measuring the overall influence of research involves not only measuring real world impact, but also assessing the reach and significance of research outputs within academia.
“Measuring the full impact of your research can be challenging. Bibliometrics like the h-index or citations counts may help identify the impact of a researcher or a research output, however they need to be interpreted and used with caution.”
The Library maintains several resources to support academics in understanding metrics that assess their scholarly output.
Using an ORCID iD, online researcher profile tools and researcher networks will greatly enhance the visibility and discoverability of research publications Bardwell says.
Library Research Services Manager Lisa Chisholm says the starting point should include developing a publishing strategy, which is particularly useful for early career academics.
“Think ahead about where you might publish your research to enable your target audience to access it. Consider publishing in Open Access Journals; Gold, Green and Diamond Open Access enables more people to access your research.”
Otago researchers can take advantage of Read and Publish Agreements to publish research and scholarly articles directly to open access, Chisholm says.
“The benefit is no transactional article processing charges within over 7,600 journals from 14 publishers. Last year over 300 articles were published under these agreements.”
Open access articles have increased visibility, receive a larger readership, and garner a higher number of citations than articles which are not, she says.
Bardwell says Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) Open Research Policy, introduced at the end of 2022, is a catalyst in promoting open access publications.
“Open access supports equity of access to research outputs, increases the impact potential of research and opens up avenues for collaborations.”
The MBIE policy offers researchers two pathways to make their work open, via open access journals or institutional repositories, where the ‘author accepted manuscript’ of a version published in a subscription-based (paywalled) journal can be made freely available, subject to publisher embargoes of no more than 12 months.
“Otago’s current institutional repository is OUR Archive, which offers academics long-term safe storage and managed access for their work.”
Bardwell says OUR Archive is currently the focus of a large University project, with a new repository in the works for early 2024.
“The revamped OUR Archive will be a much-improved system for academics to showcase their research and make it visible to a wider audience. It is a very exciting development – watch this space.”
Helpful Library links:
- Developing a publishing strategy
- Read and Publish Agreements
- Measuring Impact - publication and citation metrics
Contact your subject librarian for support. In addition to one-to-one appointments, the Library team also offer departmental sessions as required.
Read the first research impact article: Bringing research impact to the forefront
~ Kōrero by Sandra French, Adviser - Internal Communications