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Academic Writing Month (#AcWriMo): Wednesday (15th) – Publishing your research: Open Access

#AcWriMo provides a structured and supportive environment for researchers and academics to focus on their writing projects, set targets, and make progress in their scholarly endeavors. The goal is to boost productivity and help individuals establish good

#AcWriMo 2023 - Publishing your research: Open Access

Sally McIntosh, Lead Librarian Research and Collections, and Debbie Prior, Repository and Research Data Librarian, explored Open Access publishing. Attendees discovered potential routes to Open Access and learned about UWS support in navigating the Open Access publishing landscape. Facilitated by Dr. Ruth Currie, the session provided insights into the benefits of open research.

Reflective Questions

Do you know the best open access route for your work?  

How do you and your collaborators plan for open access in your publication plans? 

What conversations might you need to have with libraries, to ensure that your research outputs are open access compliant? 

Who might you want to read your work and why? 

How might open access publications support you in your wider engagement and impact work? 

Open Access

What was the session about? 

Open research has been consistently shown to be viewed more often and to receive more citations on average than articles published behind a paywall. In the company of Sally McIntosh, Lead Librarian Research and Collections, and Debbie Prior, Repository and Research Data Librarian, discover potential routes to Open Access and learn about the support available at UWS to help you navigate the Open Access publishing landscape.   

What were some take aways from the session? 

  1. Open access has relevance to anyone who publishes their work. From the day you are contacted by a publisher with confirmation of acceptance of your work, the university has three months to ensure the correct processes are in place to make that work open access. This is important for evaluations such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF). There are various routes that open access publishing can take and different costs associated with this. Libraries are integral to supporting you to navigate this and in ensuring your work is included. Contact pure@uws.ac.uk with any questions about open access, or when you get confirmation of acceptance.  

  2. Open access publishing is important in many ways. One important reason is because it enables your work to be read by anyone, not just those who can access work that is behind a publishing paywall. There are also online tools that can support you to monitor the engagement with your publications (e.g. Scopus and SciVal), which can support you to understand the impact of your publications.  

Recording : Wednesday's AcWriMo Session

Watch the recording of the session on this page and keep an eye out on the e-bulletin for future sessions. If you are a PGR, your PGR Coordinator will let you know when more sessions are upcoming. In the meantime, good luck with your publications and remember to email pure@uws.ac.uk when your publication is accepted!