Open Access has become mainstream. We hear a lot of talk about it, but are often not sure how it really affects us as South African researchers or how much agency we have in the context of increasingly competitive research environments. How do you balance imperatives around increasing access to your work with institutional pressures to publish in high-status journals? This presentation will provide some practical pointers on how you can take steps to be more proactive in addressing your visibility, curating your outputs, and managing your intellectual property rights for maximum impact and visibility. Presentation delivered to the South African Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) as part of its Open Access Week 2014 proceedings.

1. Open Access in Practice:
A Real-World Guide for Researchers
Presentation to the South African Human Sciences Research
Council (HSRC)
Open Access Week, 20 October 2014
CC-BY

2. BEFORE WE GET STARTED >>>
This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. That means you are free to download, copy, remix or
do just about anything you like with it, but you are also legally required to
acknowledge Michelle Willmers as the creator.
If you would like to view a copy of the license or understand more about how CC
licensing works, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

3. Open Access is
mainstream,
okay?

4. Plus…
We are operating in an internet-driven
scholarly communication paradigm in which
notion of Impact is being re-examined:
IMPACT = RE-USE

6. Q:
How do we make sense of and enact Open
Access in our local context while
navigating:
1. Competitive environment
2. Pressure to “publish in the right places”
3. Reputation management

7. THE ACCESS GOLDEN TRIANGLE
Visibility
Access
Curation Rights Management

8. 1. Visibility
In order for people to be able to access your work it
needs to be visible
(IDEALLY in a shareable format)

9. > In internet-driven, networked scholarship visibility of the
individual researchers is intrinsically bound up with visibility of
research
> You have an online shadow, whether you like it or not. Manage
and optimise your footprint! (And your reputation)
> Engage with and explore your online network through social
media channels and online sharing environments like
ResearchGate and Academia.edu

10. Available at: http://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/2652

11. 2. Curation
In order for your work to be optimally visible (discoverable
and searchable) it needs to be curated

12. 3 simple principles of curation
1. Describe with rich metadata
This will help people make sense of your resource online, boost the
findability of your resource, and enable semantic linking to boost citation
2. Share via online repositories
Use online independent individual (e.g. FigShare) or subject-oriented (e.g.
SSOAR, RePEc) repos if your organisation doesn’t have one
3. Archive
Investigate institutional support structures or private cloud storage.
Check SHERPA-ROMEO to ascertain archiving policies of journals.
> Once you have your content curated, promote it!
> Get cosy with your librarian

14. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8431

15. Curated material will have handles, DOIs (digital object
identifiers) and other URIs (unique resource identifiers) that will
enable:
> Machines to identify semantic relationships between online
content (linking papers to data sets, citation management)
> Usage of free, online Altmetric tools to track downstream use
of your content (including but not limited to formal citation)

16. Popular Altmetric tools
< https://impactstory.org
www.altmetric.com >

18. Available at: http://goo.gl/O9f7Q8

19. 3. Rights management
In order for people to be able to re-use your work they need a sense
of what they are legally allowed to do

20. Creative Commons
(and other open)
licenses provide
indicators or signposts
as to what you can and
can’t do with content

21. > At all costs: Avoid relinquishing your copyright or signing exclusive
copyright transfer agreements (unless you have good reason and have
considered all the ramifications)
> Creative Commons licensing is NOT relinquishing copyright, it is
system of articulating “exceptions” to your full copyright (in which all
rights are reserved)
> CC licensing means people can act legally without bugging you for
permission
> Manage rights on all your outputs! (Not just formally published
content). If organisational policy is restrictive in terms of formal
publication, exercise agency in the “informal” sphere by sharing
working papers, policy briefs, blog posts, etc. (grey literature)

22. Does your organisation restrict your
publication activity or dictate to in terms of
only being able to publish in certain journals?
If so, seek out the Open Access options (www.opendoar.org)
Where this not possible/desirable, explore options within
closed, “paywalled” publication channels:
> Is my publisher open to negotiation on the publication
agreement for more flexible release provisions?
> How do the self-archiving provisions of your publication
options compare? (www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/)

23. http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/autho
rs/addendum

24. Conclusion
> Engaging with your visibility, curation of your output and rights
management is part of professionalising your scholarly practice
> Always check organisational policy
> Caveat scriptor! (Be aware of what you sign)
> Exercise your agency
> Engage with your librarian

25. michelle.willmers@uct.ac.za
@scaprogramme