1 Making your PhD thesis Open Access
2 Outline Introduction to Open Access & open thesesCamilla Briault, Head of Research Student Administration Your thesis on SRO – how many time has it been downloaded? Using ORCiD to link your thesis to future work Benefits of having Open Access theses Former PhD students with a highly downloaded Open Access thesis on SRO Consideration of publisher attitudes towards publishing open theses: fact vs fear
3
4 What is Open Access? Scholarly work is available online free of charge to the end user. Open Access allows the end-user to share a digital edition, and to reuse the content subject to author attribution.
5 Theses on SRO SRO currently lists 1,435 theses98% are fulltext and 89% are Open Access In the last 12 months: 224 theses were deposited Theses were downloaded from SRO 120,021 times
6 How will people find you?Your thesis is your biggest piece of work at Sussex…but what happens when you leave? Many researchers SRO asking to be put in touch with the author of a paper or thesis. Sometimes we can’t find them… Make it easy with a research profile and by using ORCiD Fran Simó, I dreamed about a human being. Contact Sheet (2013). Flickr ID ID:338d8a144e3b0323ce33ca cfd CC-BY-NC-SA
7 ORCiD ORCID Today and Tomorrow (L. Haak, A. Meadows, L. Paglione) Presentation at the 2015 November ORCID Outreach Meeting in San Francisco (3-4 November 2015) CC-NC-SA license
8 Benefits of ORCiD Establishes your identity as an authorStays with you throughout your career Ensures you get credit for all your work even if you have published under different names Databases increasingly allow people to search using ORCiD Links with existing IDs eg ResearcherID Journals use ORCiD in contact details
9 Where can you use your ORCiD?Wherever you would give your contact details: Sussex web profile/Social network profiles SRO – add it in Sussex Direct for now signature Conference presentations In any research workflow: Funder applications Submitting journal articles (for you and your co-authors) Not just for outputs – also for data, peer reviewing, membership of professional bodies…
10 Get your ORCiD To benefit, researchers need only do two things1. Visit orcid.org and register… 2. Use it!
11 Benefits of an Open Access thesisIncreases visibility and exposure of your research. Increases your network, by making connections with researchers abroad. Publishers can identify potential book material. Usage statistics will be available to show how often the thesis was downloaded. Provides potential for increased funding opportunities and collaborations. Preservation and provenance of the work is guaranteed. LSE Library
12 Increases visibility and exposure of your researchDoctoral theses deserve to be read Before online theses became widespread a print thesis might be read 4 or 5 times. Read, not cited. An online thesis is the easiest way to get your research out there. More immediate than publishing a monograph, or even than publishing a journal article. Greater reach than a monograph with sales in the low hundreds
13 Increases your network by making connections with researchersSometimes students have contacted me and asked for advice (which I am happy to give); some people I met looked up the thesis and told me about it. Baumann, Charlotte (2012) Hegel’s logic of freedom Downloaded 1300 times since April 2012
14 Provides potential for increased funding opportunities and collaborations[…] it can expand your job prospects since your thesis will appear among the first results when someone Googles your name. In this way I have been contacted twice by scholars who were trying to put together an edited volume on topics relevant to my thesis. They were able to find my thesis online and after reading it, they asked me to contribute to their edited volume. I can say that the decision not to embargo my thesis has paid back! Di Bernardo, Francesco (2014) Politics, history and personal tragedies: the novels of Jonathan Coe in the British historical, political and literary context from the seventies to recent years Downloaded 624 times since October 2014
15 Publishers can identify potential book materialDemonstrating an audience is there for your thesis can help show the wider possibilities Your increased profile from having research available could made you a more interesting prospect for publishers
16 Online theses and publicationPublishers agree your thesis will require work and editing before becoming a book. It’s possible to ask for an embargo once you are being actively considered by a publisher. Consider the balance between the benefits of increased visibility of Open Access work against the possibility of a monograph. Regarding publishing, I would not worry in the least […] my online publication was never an issue. In fact, the book manuscript is a thoroughly different and revised version of the thesis anyway and this will be the case for any other student as well. Charlotte Baumann A dissertation is a book-length project, but it's not a book that is just awaiting a cover Cassuto, L (2011). From dissertation to book. The Chronicle of Higher Education arthttp://www.chronicle.com/article/Its-a-Dissertation-Not- a/128365
17
18 Elizabeth Knoll, senior editor at Harvard University PressConsider what is best for your own research What are your successful peers doing? Consider alternative routes to publication – a short open access book eg Palgrave pivot Contact publishers in advance if you know where you want to publish & see what their recommendations are. If your adviser is over 60 or is famous, you should not listen to your adviser about publishing matters. The only people you should listen to for advice are people who are within 10 years of your own age—or [editors] Elizabeth Knoll, senior editor at Harvard University Press
19 Journal articles Most publishers do not consider theses, even online, as previously published work. Check their author guidelines or ethical guidelines for information If you’re not sure what your journal permits – ask them https://www.elsevier.com/journals/mechanical-systems-and-signal-processing/ /guide-for-authors#5000
20 Useful Links How I got My thesis published, by Dr. Anna Arrowsmith, Sussex Research Hive blog: https://goo.gl/EAErsS Ramirez, M. L. et al Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers. College & Research Libraries 74(4), pp Ramirez, M. L. et al Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Sciences? College & Research Libraries 75(6), pp So you want people to read your thesis?, by Danny Kingsley, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group: https://goo.gl/fHIQty Openly Accessible E-Theses and Publishing Opportunities: Fact vs. Fear, Surrey Research Insight: https://goo.gl/FTDbgx Impact on Future Publication, UCL Library: SRO Reports on most downloaded theses: Sussex Library’s Open Access webpages:
21 Library Research Support teamContacts Library Research Support team https://aoasg.org.au/2013/04/10/so-you-want-people-to-read-your-thesis/
22 Open Access policies