Scholarly Communications Resources

Below are informational resources and tools on several scholarly communications topics.

Altmetrics

  • SPARC Article Level Metrics Primer – This primer provides an overview of what they are, why they matter, how they complement established utilities and metrics, and how they might be considered for use in the tenure and promotion process.
  • altmetrics.org – Website for everything about the study and science of altmetrics.
  • ImpactStory – Tool designed to create a quick and easy to view the impact of a wide range of research outputs. It goes beyond traditional measurements of research output — citations to papers — to embrace a much broader evidence of use across a wide range of scholarly output types.
  • Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity’s 56 Indicators of Impact, and J.Britt Holbrook’s corresponding blog post.

Author’s Rights

  • SPARC Author’s Rights Brochure – Essential information on preserving and managing the copyright of authors
  • SPARC Author Addendum – Document authors can use to modify copyright transfer agreements with non-open access journal publishers
  • Creative Commons License Selector – Simple tool to help authors and creators select the right Creative Commons license for their work

Fair Use

Open Access

  • Open Access Workflows for Academic Librarians -Work-in-progress web directory of pragmatic ways librarians can promote OA on their campuses.
  • Directory of Open Access Journals – Comprehensive directory of open access scientific and scholarly journals. The directory is organized by subject matter and is also searchable by title and article
  • JURN Directory – Links to several hundred arts & humanities ejournals. Journals listed are either free (open access), or offer significant free content
  • Directory of Open Access Books – Directory of academic, peer reviewed books in published open access
  • OpenDOAR – Searchable listing of open access repositories
  • SHERPA/RoMEO – Site ranks journals according to their policy regarding self-archiving. Type the title of the journal in the search box to find out what the publisher’s archiving conditions are.
  • Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities – view the full text of the Berlin Declaration and a list of current signatories (including ASERL!)
  • Good Practices for University Open Access Policies – Guide (written by Peter Suber, Stuart Shiever and others) to good practices for university open-access (OA) policies. It’s based on the type of policy first adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Kansas.

Public Access to Research

  • Berkman Center’s Notes on the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) – Comprehensive resource outlining the main points of FASTR and its current status in Congress, comparisons to other proposed legislation, statements of support, and news coverage.
  • Alliance for Taxpayer Access – Coalition of patient groups, physicians, researchers, educational institutions, publishers, and health promotion organizations that support barrier-free access to taxpayer-funded research. Site provides suggestions of how individuals and organizations can get involved in supporting public access to research.
  • Right to Research Coalition – Organization providing literature and other resources for use in promoting open access and public access to students.

ASERL Scholarly Communications Resources