FAQ's
What is Open Access?
Open Access means free availability on the Internet of academic and scientific literature, allowing any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or reference full text documents.
Support for Open Access has been evolving gradually to consolidate itself, through international conferences and declarations, encouraging researchers and scientists to deposit their papers in a digital repository:
- 2002: Declaration of Budapest: Perhaps the most important initiative of the movement of Open Access to Knowledge, which resulted from the meeting held in Budapest in late 2001, promoted by the Open Society Institute (OSI). The statement approved there established the meaning and scope of Open Access and defined two complementary strategies to promote and achieve it.
- 2003: Declaration of Bethesda and Berlin Declaration: The latter was signed, on 22nd October 2003, by representatives of some of the most important European scientific institutions, including the Max-Plank Society (Germany) and the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (France), supporting the Open Access and the deposit in open access files, and affirming that they will encourage their researchers and scientists to deposit their work in at least one repository. The University of Alicante signed this statement in November 9th 2006.
- 2010: Declaration of the Alhambra: Statement signed by representatives of various stakeholders in the implementation of open access in European Southern countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey).
How can Open Access be implemented?
There are two channels through which the work of the authors / researchers can be available on Open Access.
One way is to publish in Open-Access journals: scientific journals with peer review, editing and publishing comparable to traditional journals, but they are accessible without the need of purchase or subscription. You can find more information about them by consulting the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
The other way is self-archive in an open access repository: this means that, in addition to the publication of articles in scientific journals ("traditional" or open-access articles), authors can deposit them in institutional or disciplinary (thematic) repositories. There is a list available of these repositories in the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
What are the benefits of self-archive in RUA?
ASome of the benefits of archiving digital works in the Repository at the University of Alicante are the following:
- Increased visibility and impact for their work, since they are accessible to everyone via the Internet.
- As readers, researchers benefit from access and use of the full text of all published research works in their area, not only research which can be accessed by performing the underwriting institution.
- Possibility of Integration with other information systems (curriculum management system, OpenCourseWare, etc.)
- Access to statistical data on access and downloads of the work.
- Centralized access point to all the scientific and academic production of a lecturer, research group, educational innovation group, and so on.
- Use of persistent and stable identifiers (handles) for each of the materials deposited.
- Preservation of digital materials over time.
- Cooperation with other institutions, teachers, researchers, especially important in developing countries, through open and shared knowledge.
- Accreditation of the authorship of the work by making them available online.
- Compliance with national and international policies regarding the mandatory deposit in open access publications resulting from publicly funded research
What materials can self-archive in RUA?
Any material in any format, can be self-archived in RUA, provided they meet the following basic conditions:
- Be produced (or co-authored) by any member of a Research Group, GITE, Center, Unit or Service of the University of Alicante.
- Be the result of research, teaching or institutional activities of the author or co-author.
- Do not be ephemeral.
- Be in digital format.
- Be in full and accomplishing standard conditions of "quality".
- The author must be able, and willing to, grant to the University of Alicante non-exclusive right to preserve and provide access to their work through RUA.
What teaching materials can be filed in RUA Teaching?
- Teaching materials for which you are author or co-author.
- The materials may contain only snippets of the works of others as a quote or illustration for teaching.
- If the materials contain images, audio, video, etc.. of which is not the author or co-author must have obtained the express permission of the owner of rights for use or must be works under a free license (Creative Commons, GNU, etc.)..
- The text, images, etc.. than own production should always include the correct citation (author and origin).
- RUA not intended as a tool for interaction with students as the Virtual Campus is, but a platform for "finished” publishing materials. Once teaching materials have been archived and available in RUA, they cannot be filed again if they do not contains significant changes to the text, images, etc.
- Teaching materials as a result of research works should not be filed in RUA, such as journal articles, conference paperAs, etc. without an eminently educational or research purposes in teaching.
- Text-based teaching materials can be filed in any format (Power Point, Word, OpenOffice, etc.).. RUA administrators will make a copy of the material in PDF format for preservation purposes.
What kind of content can be deposited on Research RUA?
RUA Research accepts any material generated by members of a research group in their research work, whether it has been previously published or reported in public for the first time. Some examples are:
- Articles in journals
- Newspaper articles, popular science magazines, etc.
- Communications to congresses, conferences, posters, etc.
- Book chapters and entire books
- Audio-visual materials (audio, video, etc.).
- Data sets
- Technical reports and research reports
Can doctoral theses be published in RUA?
In order to publish doctoral theses in RUA, within the Doctoral Theses Collection, students should submit to the Secretary’s Office of the Doctoral School the following material:
- A copy of the thesis in a file type .rtf, .doc or .pdf.
- Metadata Sheet (Word)
- Once approved the thesis, the Doctoral School forward this documentation to the unit responsible for its publication in the RUA. Publication in RUA will be assigned to the thesis a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, unless otherwise stated by the author of the thesis.
If the document has been previously published in a magazine, book, etc.. What version should I file of it in RUA Research?
In general, RUA Research may file the final version published by the journal or publisher. However, there are publishers that do not allow open access to the final PDF published (post-print), but the final version with the modifications suggested by reviewers and / or the original version sent to the journal for review (pre-print). In any case, RUA administrators check the editorial policy on this before putting the paper in open access.
Will documents filed in RUA Research be in open access through the Internet?
At first, all documents filed in RUA Research remain in restricted access for members of the corresponding Research Group. Once the journal or publisher’s policy regarding self-archiving of materials in repositories has been checked by RUA administrators, these restrictions may be removed and the document will be in open access.
Can a file be removed or modified after self-archiving in RUA?
Generally, once a document has been filed in RUA, it cannot be modified or removed from the repository, but the following exceptions apply:
- when the archived material contains serious errors in its content
- the archived material contains serious errors in form
- that the journal or publisher of the document requires its removal.