Publish: Research Online - ECU's institutional repository

Information about outputs can be provided in the repository with a link to the published version, but where copyright and licencing arrangements allow the full text is included, allowing Open Access to the research.

Most publishers have policies that allow the Author's Accepted Manuscript to be shared on an Institutional Repository, like Research Online, after an embargo period. This is referred to as Green Open Access or Self-Archiving and for this reason it is important that you keep the Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) of your publications. More details about the differences between AAMs and the Published Version are below:

Access to your research is improved

Research Online is indexed by search tools such as Google, Google Scholar and the Digital Commons Network. Search Engine Optimisation is a high priority for the repository providers, ensuring outputs in Research Online feature prominently in search results. This can dramatically increase the rates at which your research is found and then subsequently cited.

Download statistics are available

Research Online provides all authors with an author dashboard, a personalized reporting tool for authors with works published in Digital Commons. It allows easy access to up-to-date information on downloads for a body of work or individual output, as well as global insights into the sources of readership.

It's simple to explore recent data, all-time, or choose a custom date range and to share data with others and export statistics for use in external applications.

To access the Author Dashboard

• click on My Account in http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ and register if you don't already have an account
• once signed in, click on DASHBOARD TOOLS to view the readership (on a world map) and the table of hits and download stats of your Open Access outputs - select the date range of the statistics you wish to view (see top right hand corner)
• if you have supplied Research Online with the open access versions of your outputs but they don't appear on your dashboard please contact researchonline@ecu.edu.au

Alternative metrics available on Research Online

While citation metrics record how the research community is interacting with research outputs, alternative metrics like Altmetric and PlumX indicate the impact the output is having within the wider public. By tracking online mentions in a wide range of sources including the news, social media, library holdings etc, alternative metrics can give a more immediate indication of impact than citation data which can take time to become available. Both publishers and Research Online provide sharing and social media tools that can assist with the promotion of research outputs. When discussing research on social media always mention the DOI or URL of the outputs to assist with the capturing of alternative metrics.

• For example: The article Randomized controlled trial of a peer led multimodal intervention for men with prostate cancer to increase exercise participation has both Altmetric and PlumX metrics (on the article page click on the logos to view the metrics in greater detail).

Safe archiving

Repositories are a safe archival record of your research output. Strict backup and archival protocols are followed to ensure a lasting record of research output at ECU.
 

Facilitate research sharing

Requests for copies of your outputs can be referred to the repository saving you time and effort.

Research datasets can either be made openly available online or access can be mediated via email. For mediated datasets ECU library will require an email address that can be made publicly available online, to which all requests for access will be directed.

You can apply a Creative Commons licence to your data to stipulate how it can be reused.

Services provided for research datasets

• Datasets receive a DOI -  a persistent identifier that authors can use to link their data to related outputs
• Datasets are automatically listed on Research Data Australia 
• Datasets are automatically listed on Datacite
• Download statistics will document the impact of the data

The search box offers 2 options:

• search the ECU repository only or

• search the Digital Commons, content from over 550 institutional repositories worldwide, by changing the search option to Across All Repositories

Searching Google and Google Scholar will also find outputs in Research Online

Find ECU theses 

Browse the ECU theses collections on Research Online

• there are two theses collections: PhDs & Masters and Honours.
• theses are listed by year, then alphabetically by author's last name
   

Search Research Online for ECU thesis by topic

• enter your keywords in the search box
• use the refine panel in the results page to limit by Publication Type "thesis"

Search Research Online for ECU thesis by author

• scroll down the author list and click on the author's name
• in the results page, use the refine panel on the left to limit by Publication Type "thesis"

Search Research Online for ECU thesis by School
Searching for theses by a School's name may sometimes bring up theses which seem a little displaced - this is due to the fact that historically, your School may have been aligned with different Schools or Faculties in the past.

• click on the Advanced Search button
• enter the current School's name in the search box
• click on the green + sign to add another search line
• in the second search box, click on the drop down menu and select Document Type
• type in thesis
• click on Search

Accessing the fulltext of ECU theses on Research Online
- most ECU theses are now available in fulltext
- some authors have restricted the fulltext of their theses to current ECU staff and students (email library@ecu.edu.au)
- a small minority of authors have totally restricted access to their theses