LSHTM Research Online automatically imports records for all
current LSHTM staff research which is published. We harvest these from
PubMed,
Web of Science and the Schools existing
Publications Database run by
Andy Reid.
If an article is from an open access journal or you have paid for it to be open
access we should have automatically pulled in the publisher’s full text PDF of
the article.
Where we and the School vitally needs your input is filling the gaps where your articles are not
available as free full text because you have published in a traditional-model
academic journal. Although we cannot use the publisher’s PDF in these cases, we
can make much of your research
freely available without breaking copyright.
What we need you to do is:
-
check your records by going to ‘Browse LSHTM author’ and finding your name
- review where there is no article attached to a record
- the
'author manuscript' or 'pre-print file' of these articles: this is the
peer-reviewed word document, accepted by the publisher, but without any
of the publisher's typesetting and copy-editing
We will then upload them to your records, always with a full
reference and link to the final publisher’s version.
Open access policies differ for each publisher, and
sometimes each journal. That is why we ask you to contact our team who are
experienced in navigating open access publisher policies and will check all
rights on your behalf and advise you as to what we can make freely available.
We recently had a
public launch for the site where staff involved in trialling updating
their full text explained their experiences and the reasons they felt it
important to become actively involved. Aside from assuring people about the
knowledge and support repository staff can offer
Diana Elbourne, Professor of
Healthcare Evaluation, declared “If I can do it - anyone can!”
Diana Elbourne speaking at the launch
So you know it’s easy, and you will receive a lot of help,
but why take the time to find these files and send them to us?
Speaking at the launch,
Peter Piot, our Director, said: “Our work will have a
greater impact on policy because people in all organisations including
government, charities and development agencies now have easy access to the
research we are doing at the School." By participating you are not only increasing
access to knowledge for your colleagues in low income countries or smaller
institutions; you are contributing to a culture of transparency for taxpayer
funded research which showcases the product of public funding.
You are also instantly
increasing your own online research profile by exposing records to major search
engines like Google. Importantly
LSHTM Research Online links will bring
visitors back to records often containing free full text - that everyone can
access and therefore cite - rather than a pay-to-access gateway to your work. We
can also provide you with feeds for other websites where you want your research
to be visible, again often with links back to freely available content. If you
wish you can monitor activity around your work by reviewing download statistics
from
LSHTM Research Online.
