Open Access, Stellenbosch University, University of Johannesburg

1. 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

2. “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)

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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 …

7. 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 - )

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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

11. 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

13. 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

14. UJDigispace – Downloads – Doctoral Dissertation
3

15. UJDigispace – Citations – Thesis
4

16. 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
5

17. 3 Receive alerts when cited
Article Level Metrics
Author Level Metrics
1
2
3
SUNScholar – Citations - Google Scholar
Citations

18. UJDigispace – Citations - Google Scholar
6

19. Citations
Archived in Springer
UJDigispace – Citations - Google Scholar

20. Archived in UJDigispace
Citations
UJDigispace – Citations - Google Scholar

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. "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