Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

How to use repositories and other tools to find open access resources for your

research

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Open Access is having a big effect on the academic world but

how can you find open materials to help your research?

Repositories

Most academic institutions now

have a repository to record and

showcase their research outputs.

A repository record should tell you

a lot about an article, it might tell

you where to access it or contain a

file of the full text.

Have a look at a TeesRep record

here:

http://tees.openrepository.com/te

es/handle/10149/111573

Off the Handle?

When items are added to a repository they

are given a handle number, this can help you

to pick repository records out of your search

results:

Here’s our TeesRep record:

http://tees.openrepository.com/tees/handle/10149/111573

Here’s the handle number

Here is another TeesRep record, this time found by searching the article title in

Google:

tees.openrepository.com/tees/bitstream/10149/122292/2/122292.pdf

This is the repository host /the owner (Tees Uni)/ The handle no./ & the file name

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Here’s a Google search result for one of the previous articles references, this one

is also from a repository:

researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/2493/1/Academic_Review.pdf

Here the Handle No. File Name

Repository owner is Edinburgh Napier University

You can analyse the web address of PDF documents found online

in this way to discover their origin and confirm their scholarly

credentials.

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

DOI: The best way to locate an

article is using it’s DOI (digital

object identifier)

This is a unique number like an ISBN

for an article, searching for a DOI is

likely to produce accurate results

Even where the full text of an

item is not included in a

repository you should find

information, like links to the

publisher’s website or a DOI that

will help you track down the full

text.

DOI’s

10.1002/0002-8231(199601)47:1

This is what a DOI might look like, click on the link to find out more.

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

In addition to allowing you to find repositories, ROAR (the

registry of open access repositories) also allows you to search

the content of repositories in the register for open access

articles, try your search terms to discover freely accessible

documents.

http://roar.eprints.org/content.html

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

There are several places where you can access doctoral and

postgraduate thesis online, many Universities will hold the

details of thesis in their repository but there are also national

and international repositories where thesis may be deposited:

http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do;jsessionid=AB2593D0CE

BCE3F542EC1BBDAA8CED70

EThOS Thesis service from the British Library for

UK thesis.

http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada

-bin/Main/BasicSearch?coll=18&l=0&v=1

Thesis Canada from the Canadian national library

and archives

http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php

Dart – European libraries partnership

http://search.proquest.com/advanced?accountid=14

650

ProQuest thesis search, commercial database used

by many US universities

Online Thesis

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Directory of Open Access Journals

http://www.doaj.org/

Is a database which allows you to search through a

collection of open access scientific and scholarly

journals from reputable sources

PubMed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=uk

This is a medical database run by the National

Centre of Biotechnology Information, allowing

searching of open access journals in the field.

What is an open access journal?

'We define open access journals as journals that use a

funding model that does not charge readers or their

institutions for access.' DOAJ.org [16/10/13]

Some no-fee OA journals have direct or

indirect subsidies from institutions like

universities, laboratories, research

centres, libraries, hospitals, museums,

learned societies, foundations, or

government agencies. Some have

revenue from a separate line of non-OA

publications. Some have revenue from

advertising, auxiliary services,

membership dues, endowments, reprints,

or a print or premium edition.

Suber, P. (2006) SPARC

(http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-

06.htm#nofee) [16/10/13]

Some journals may be all or partially open

access and show which content is available

through a traffic light scheme (green for

open, red for closed access) a phrase like

‘supports open access’ or the open or closed

padlock symbol.

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Open Archives?

Many institutions are now making their archival resources

available online, you can find out what is available using

repository discovery tools like ROAR and OPEN DOAR.

-This is different from the Open Archives Initiative

The open archives initiative is a scheme were repositories can share the data

records where their remit overlaps, for example; Teesside University Thesis

are added to our repository (TeesRep) the information is added to a standard

which allows the British Library Ethos repository to automatically incorporate

the same information so users searching either location will be directed to the

full text. Find out more here: http://www.openarchives.org/

Some open archives:

Chopin Early Editions From the University of Chicago

http://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu/

Original sheet music

English Heritage Archives

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/archives-and-

collections/nmr/

Historic Photographs and plans

Documenting the American South

http://docsouth.unc.edu/

Primary historical sources from the University of North Carolina

World Digital Library

http://www.wdl.org/en/

Historical sources from worldwide sources from the UN Educational

Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Datasets

Researchers are increasingly making their research data

available openly, making datasets available allows others to

validate the research or reuse the data in further research

projects.

Some researchers prefer to work this way others are required

to do so by their funding body, you can find research data in a

variety of repositories:

Figshare

http://figshare.com/?gclid=CNSR38HdrLoCFVMdtAodKXwAoA

A sharing site where users can upload any file.

DataOne

http://www.dataone.org/what-dataone

A collaborative site for sharing Earth Observational Data

Freebase

http://www.freebase.com/

A community database for file sharing

You can find a list of data repositories from the Open Access

Directory wiki here:

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Data_repositories

*Many of these repositories are user contributed so there is no

guarantee that they will hold quality research, remember to assess the

origin and quality of the source the same as you would with a research

article.

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

Images

Library of congress prints and photos online

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/highsm/

Getty Images

http://search.getty.edu/gateway/search?q=&cat=highlight&f=%2

2Open+Content+Images%22&rows=10&srt=a&dir=s&pg=1

You could also try Flikr Commons, NASA images and the

National Gallery of Art.

Slides and Presentations

You may find helpful or reusable slides/presentations and other

resources:

Prezi

http://prezi.com/explore/popular/

Slide Share

http://www.slideshare.net/

Jorum (for open educational resources)

http://www.jorum.ac.uk/

Using Open Access Resources OR How to get free stuff

E-Books and Open Access

Hathi Trust

http://www.hathitrust.org/about

‘…a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure

that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future’

(Hathi Trust [23/10/13])

Directory of Open Access Books

http://www.doabooks.org/

A database to help users discover open access e-books

Project Guttenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Searchable collection of out of copyright books