Open access at Leicester

Open access at Leicester

International OA week

The wrap up of the International Open Access Week 2017 is a perfect occasion to give you an update on Open Access (OA) related activities at University of Leicester accompanied with fun statistics (as fun as statistics can be!).

During the Open Access week the University Open Access and Research Data Team ran a series of pop-up stalls at various locations across the main campus as well as in hospital sites (RKCSB & Glenfield), offering advice on raising the discoverability of research profiles. Also as part of the celebrations we have launched a completely redesigned OA website. Visit www.le.ac.uk/openaccess to explore the essential guidance how to make your research outputs OA.

Fig.1. Main page of new, redesigned Open Access website (www.le.ac.uk/openaccess)

The outreach campaign was in addition to routine talks and tailored training sessions that the team provides for departments across the University every year. Throughout the year 2017 we have delivered 16 of such sessions for researchers and 3 workshops in collaboration with RED, designed for our administrative staff.

Leicester Research Archive (LRA) in numbers

LRA is the University of Leicester institutional repository, showcasing all the research outputs to the members of public. LRA is growing both in case of readership (downloads per year – fig.2B) and in terms of number of items available (deposited items per year - fig.2A). One can browse the repository itself (https://lra.le.ac.uk/) or thanks to google indexing just use the google scholar to find the required items. Every new item, made available in LRA is indexed by google within 10minutes which boosts its discoverability.

Fig.2. LRA statistics – number of deposits per year (A) is over four times higher than in 2012. The number of successful downloads (B) per year shows that our readership doubled over the last two years.

Top trumps

The most read/downloaded items in LRA are PhD thesis, and while speaking of it we have to mention that thanks to digitisation project funded by Alumni all theses dating back to 1920’s were scanned and made available via LRA.

Top three downloaded theses:

1) 8722 downloads: Social and psychological factors in learning English as a foreign language in Lebanon. (1991) Yazigy, Rula Jamil, http://hdl.handle.net/2381/35692

2) 6761 downloads: Mass media and society: The six normative theories and the role of social, political and economic forces in shaping media institution and content: Saudi Arabia - a case study. (1987) Al-Ahmed, Mohammed S., http://hdl.handle.net/2381/34594

3) 4271 downloads: Physical and Chemical Investigations of Starch Based Bio-Plastics. (2015) Abolibda Tariq Ziyad Y., http://hdl.handle.net/2381/33021

Oral history at the University of Leicester

As announced recently, we will be hosting the CILIP Local Studies conference on July 9, which will be themed around oral history and sound collections. We choose oral history thanks to the University's, and the region's, strengths in this area. East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) Based in the Centre for Urban History, East Midlands Oral History Archive is one of the largest regional collections of its kind. It was o riginally funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to establish an archive of oral history recordings for Leicestershire & Rutland. It includes the collections of the Leicester Oral History Archive, the Mantle archive from North West Leicestershire, the Community History archive of Leicester City Libraries, the Market Harborough Museum collection, and the sound archive of BBC Radio Leicester, along with smaller collections donated by local organisations or individuals. Following a major digitisation project, the Library's Special Coll...

Research Elevenses in July

Throughout July we are running a series of 30 minute talks on key issues for Leicester researchers. There’s no need to book - just turn up! If you are off-campus you can join in live via Adobe Connect. Simply click the link and choose ‘Enter as Guest’ on the day. A recording of each session will be made available after the event. 6th July Discovering the University’s unique archives 11am, Fielding Johnson, Ogden Lewis Seminar Room 3 This session will explain what archives are and give an overview of the archives held by the University of Leicester library. Participants will also be introduced to the online archive catalogue and effective ways to locate archival sources to support teaching and research. Join the webinar 13th July Publishing your own Open Access journal 11am, David Wilson Library Seminar Room, Floor 1 The Library has developed an online publishing platform (Open Journals System) that enables researchers at Leicester to set up and run their o...

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar if you have a Google Account. Go to Google Scholar and sign into your Google Account. Conduct your search. Click on the Star icon (Save) under each reference you want to export. Then click on My Library in the top, right of the screen. Select all the references and click on the Export option: Click the Star/Save Icon Choose Export Option To Export into EndNote Choose the EndNote option. Open the EndNote file that is created. The references should automatically import into EndNote. To Export into RefWorks Choose the RefMan option. Save the RIS file that is created. Login to your RefWorks account. Click on the plus (+) button. Choose Import References. Add the RIS file you just saved. Set the file import option to RIS - Reference Manager. Click import and your references will be imported. --- Good Practice Tip: Always check that all the reference information you need has been...

DWLresearch

Search This Blog