Menu

The LibVine

What's going on at Dalhousie Libraries

Archives for open access

Dalhousie’s Hannah Rosborough and Matthew Walker Receive Atlantic OER Development Grants

Leave a Comment

The Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries (CAAL) announced the opening of the Atlantic OER Development Grants 2024 cycle in May. Applicants were invited to submit proposals for funding to create new open textbooks, adapt existing open textbooks, or create new ancillary materials.

CAAL recently announced the recipients of this year’s Atlantic OER Development Grants, including two successful applicants from Dalhousie. Congratulations to Hannah Rosborough, Instruction and Scholarly Communication Librarian at the Sir James Dunn Law Library, and Matthew Walker from the School of Performing Arts!

Hannah Rosborough received a creation grant to create an accessibly designed Legal Citation Guide that will benefit students and legal professionals. It will include commonly cited primary and secondary sources, explain specific components of legal citation, and contain a glossary of legal sources. Tailored to law students, it will provide guidance for formatting legal documents and major papers.

Matthew Walker received a creation grant to develop a textbook entitled Devised Theatre Tools for Actor Training, which will articulate how devised methods and collaborative models can serve the actor in training. The collaborative nature of devised training seeks to give actors greater autonomy and empower them as artists. The book will help artists explore the parts of their own complex identity they wish to represent in their work.

Check out the full list of 2024 recipients.

New! Dal authors can publish for free in eligible Oxford University Press journals

Leave a Comment

By Hailey Wills

We are pleased to announce that, through our ongoing partnership with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), Dal authors can access discounted or no article processing charges (APCs) when publishing in eligible Oxford University Press journals.

Because the cost of open access (OA) publishing is packaged with the Libraries’ subscriptions, there are no additional costs to Dalhousie authors. Dal authors can benefit from unlimited OA publishing in over 350 Oxford University Press hybrid journals with no article processing charges. There is also a 10% discount on article processing charges when publishing in Oxford’s gold open access journals. The agreement extends from January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2026.

More details, including eligible journals and how to apply for the waiver or discount, are available on our Open Access LibGuide page.

Publish for Free in PLOS Biology

Leave a Comment

By Alison Brierley

You can now publish in PLOS Biology at no cost! PLOS Biology, the flagship journal in life sciences and biological studies from Public Library of Science is now author processing charge (APC) free through an agreement with Dal Libraries. As part of this initiative, all Dalhousie researchers serving as corresponding authors will have their fees waived when publishing in PLOS Biology. The goal of this agreement is to make open access publishing options more accessible to Dalhousie University authors.

How Does it Work?

When submitting your publication in PLOS Biology, indicate your Dalhousie institutional affiliation in the submission system. This ensures you will not be invoiced for any article processing fees if you are the corresponding author.

If the corresponding author is not part of Dalhousie or an institution with a PLOS Biology agreement, but at least one of the manuscript’s co-authors is affiliated, a 25% discount is available towards the non-member publishing fee.

Learn More

Please note: this agreement applies only to PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine; it does not apply to any other PLOS titles like PLOS One.

For more information about this and other APC discounts and waivers, contact your subject librarian or visit the online Open Access Libguide.

Author rights and copyright

Leave a Comment

fountian pen from unsplashby Roger Gillis

When it comes to publishing, authors often want to be in control of how their publication can be used and distributed. Unfortunately, it is often the case with scholarly publishing that authors are asked to transfer the copyright of their publications to third parties like publishers, leading to them losing control over the use of their own publications. This can create complications for researchers who wish to share their publications more widely, such as through a repository like Dal Libraries’ Dalspace, publish their papers on their personal websites, or create new works in different formats (e.g. republishing an article as a book chapter), as it requires the permission (and sometimes payment to) the publisher.

Fortunately, there are tools out there to assist authors with negotiating and retaining rights when publishing. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries recently announced the revision of the author addendum – a tool that assists authors with negotiating to retaining copyright when they publish in order that they can retain as many rights as possible. In addition, an accompanying guide to go along with the addendum was also developed to help walk authors through the process of using an addendum and retaining their rights.

The guide offers advice for steps that authors should consider prior to publishing, during the submission and review process, and after publication. When publishing, authors should be wary of the rights that they might be asked to transfer by checking publishers’ copyright policies on their websites, and should also consider their goals for their publications (such as creating new works later on, publishing on an open access repository, or sharing through a personal website or other means), and whether or not retaining copyright should be a priority when publishing.

The Dalhousie community is encouraged to contact the Dal Libraries’ Copyright Office if they have questions about author rights and copyright, and can also refer to the Copyright Office’s page on retaining copyright.

DalSpace: Dalhousie’s Open Access Repository

Leave a Comment

dalspace_bannerDalhousie’s open access digital repository exists to preserve and disseminate the scholarly and intellectual output of our community. DalSpace is hosted and curated by the Dalhousie Libraries and we are committed to freely and openly distributing our content for discovery. DalSpace has the following attributes:

  • Free for everyone to read content
  • No registration required to search, view or download
  • Free to post content for registered community members
  • Quick discovery of material via Google searching
  • Permanent URLs for every item
  • Meets the requirements of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publication
  • Not owned by commercial enterprises
  • Primary purpose is to preserve and provide access

Check out the new look and feel of the DalSpace launch page

OA

For more information on how DalSpace can fit into your open access workflow and help you attain your OA goals, attend one of our upcoming webinars:

  • Open Access: Tips for Planning
  • Copyright and Author Rights

Register to get a link at: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/ScholarshipSeries

For more information about DalSpace, contact Ann.Barrett@dal.ca, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications.

Scholarship @ Dal Libraries – New series starting fall 2018

Leave a Comment

 

scholarship at dal libraries seriesDal Libraries is launching a new seminar series this month focused on research tools and services. This series will focus on a range of topics going forward but the fall 2018 sessions will focus on aspects of the publishing and research process including research reporting, rights and impact.

Open Access: Tips for Planning
Wednesday, October 24, 12–1 p.m.
Presented by: Geoff Brown

Taking Charge of your Professional Identity: Tools & Metrics
Friday, November 9, 12–1 p.m.
Presented by: Melissa Rothfus & Melissa Helwig

Copyright and Author Rights
Friday, November 23, 12–1 p.m.
Presented by: Roger Gillis

Intro to Research Data Management
Friday, November 30, 12–1 p.m.
Presented by: Erin MacPherson & Sarah Stevenson

All sessions will be online only. Register for links to individual sessions at: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/ScholarshipSeries

 

Dalhousie Now a Member of SPARC: Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education

Leave a Comment

SPARCSPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is a global coalition that advocates for open access, open data, and open education. They are committed to making “Open” the default for research and education.

SPARC works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials with the goals of democratizing access to knowledge, accelerating discovery, and increasing the return on our investment in research and education.

How do they do this?

The Internet has changed the way we create and interact with knowledge. No longer do we have to be a world where knowledge is accessible by only the privileged few.

SPARC collaborates with stakeholders—authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers and the public. As advocates, they build on the opportunities created by the Internet to promote changes to infrastructure and culture to make research and education Open.

With over a decade of experience and more than 200 members that are primarily academic and research libraries in the U.S. and Canada, SPARC members use its resources and support to promote Open Access to scholarly articles, the open sharing of research data, and the creation and adoption of Open Educational Resources on their campuses.

“Publishing models that restrict access to knowledge for the sake of profit limit everyone’s potential. Widespread adoption of SPARC’s Open Agenda will speed the pace of discovery, benefiting society in many ways, including medical breakthroughs, employment opportunities, and environmental solutions. As a research institution, Dalhousie has a responsibility to participate in this global movement,” said Donna Bourne-Tyson, University Librarian.

 

Open Access Week 2016: Making Your Publication OA in DalSpace

Leave a Comment

by Geoff Brown,
Digital Scholarship Librarian

DalSpace is a digital library curated by the Dalhousie Libraries. We are committed to freely and openly distributing and preserving the scholarly record. Other online document repositories (e.g. Academia.edu, ResearchGate and SSRN) are owned by commercial interests and operate as scholarly social networking sites. These are excellent online spaces to communicate with your peers; however, they are not acceptable open access repositories. These sites often appear free but their purpose is to make money. They cannot be relied upon for long-term access to scholarship.

In general, open access repositories such as DalSpace have the following attributes:

  • Free to post and download
  • No registration required to view or download
  • Not owned by commercial enterprises
  • Primary purpose is to preserve and provide access
  • Created by academic institutions, scholarly societies, government agencies and related organizations

To get started with DalSpace:

Registration

Enter your email address, and click the “register” button. This will establish your DalSpace username and password.

Submissions

  • After registering, you initiate the deposit process by sending an email message to dalspace@dal.ca with your name, DalSpace username, department/unit, and a description of the type of deposit that you or your department would like to make to DalSpace. After this initial contact, you submit content directly into the system.

Go to Posting to DalSpace for more guidelines.

Eligibility

  • Dalhousie faculty members or research staff
  • Graduate students deposit their completed, accepted thesis into the DalSpace Faculty of Graduate Studies Online Thesis Collection.
  • Students may deposit material into specific collections authorized by Dalhousie faculty members. Works must be vetted prior to deposit to ensure quotes from published sources are cited and permission obtained to reproduce images.

Open Access Week 2016: Managing Research Data

Leave a Comment

by Erin MacPherson
Research & Instruction Librarian

Managing data is an essential, on-going part of the research process. There are many reasons to manage research data, perhaps one of the most obvious is to protect data loss from disasters, theft or technological failure. However, there are many other reasons why one would want to manage research data, including making it publicly accessible.

Open Access FeatureIn June 2016, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) (“the Tri-Agencies”), adopted the Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management that addresses specific aspects and expectations of digital data management.

The Tri-Agencies are publicly funded and one of their goals is to promote access to research results. In addition to providing greater access, other benefits include reducing duplication, encouraging reuse and advancing knowledge. In addition, this is also an opportunity to highlight Canadian researchers (Government of Canada, 2016). Even if you have data that is not funded through the tri-agencies, you may be interested in digital data management.

How can the Dal Libraries help you with data management?

Data management is an evolving service, but we encourage you to check out the following resources or contact us at data.management@dal.ca for assistance.

The Dalhousie Libraries has many tools to help that can help you:

  • DMP Assistant: https://assistant.portagenetwork.ca/users/sign_up
    Developed by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Portage Network, the DMP Assistant is a free tool for you to develop a data management plan. This tool will take you through the complete process from data collection to preservation to develop a solid data management plan.
  • Workshops: Sign up for one of our data management planning workshops. We’ll review the “what, why, when, where and how” of data management and introduce you to the DMP Assistant. Check the library news on our website for future events: http://libraries.dal.ca/
  • DalSpace: Our institutional repository, a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes digital material produced by the Dalhousie community. Stay tuned for future updates on data repositories as we prepare to launch our version of Dataverse, a research data repository.
  • Research Data Management Subject Guide: Our subject guide provides information on data management from planning tools and guidelines to finding a suitable repository. Check it out: http://dal.ca.libguides.com/rdm

Reference

Government of Canada. (2016). Tri-Agency statement of principles on digital data management. Retrieved from http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=83F7624E-1

Open Access Week 2016: Tri-Agency Open Access Publishing

Leave a Comment

On February 27, 2015, the Tri-Agency Policy on Publications was announced: “Grant recipients are required to ensure that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Agency-supported research are freely accessible within 12 months of publication.”

Open Access FeatureFor research funded in whole or in part by NSERC or SSHRC, this policy applies to all grants awarded May 1, 2015 and onward. While not required, researchers holding grants that were awarded prior to May 1, 2015 are encouraged to adhere to the requirements of this policy.

For research funded in whole or in part by CIHR, this policy applies to all grants awarded January 1, 2008 and onward. While not required, researchers holding grants that were awarded prior to January 1, 2008 are encouraged to adhere to the requirements of this policy.

The Tri-Agency is recommending two paths to satisfy the open access policy:

  1. Green Route (Online Repositories) – Deposit your article in an online repository. As the official repository for Dalhousie University, depositing in DalSpace fulfills this requirement. Another Green option available to scholars is to deposit your content into a subject-based disciplinary repository. The Tri-Agency recommends that scholars search OpenDOAR to determine if a site qualifies as an open access repository.
  1. Gold Route (Journals) – Publish your research in a journal that permits immediate open access to the article. Many journals charge a fee to authors to make the article open access. This fee is called an author processing fee or charge and can be included in your budget as part of your application for funding.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the grant recipient to determine which publishers allow authors to archive journal publications in accordance with funding agency policies. You can check the open access restrictions of many journals using Sherpa-Romeo. For additional information on author rights, including how to amend the standard author rights agreements see the Copyright tab in this guide.

For assistance with either of the above options, please contact the Dalhousie Libraries at scholarly.communications@dal.ca

TOP