Creative works submission for ERA – what you need to know

The creative works part of ERA is a recognition that research outputs don’t always fit into publications such as journal articles etc. It is an area that is not straightforward and will evolve as the ARC work out how and what to measure and academics work out how their work fits into the criteria. It is important to capture as many creative works of CSU staff as possible. We require that you fill in the relevant CRO submission form and attach a 250 word research statement and a digital version of the work that can be displayed on CRO if copyright allows. Regardless of copyright the digital versions are required for the ERA peer review process.

These FAQs explain what is required and are a work in progress. They will be updated as issues come to light. If you have questions that are not answered here, please contact the CRO Team (cro@csu.edu.au) for clarification and assistance.

• What are the creative works categories?
• What is eligible for inclusion?
• What is required for the Research Statement?
• What do you need to do before you begin submitting information?
• What information is required in the submission forms?
• What is meant by 'sensitivity'? (this is a mandatory field for ERA)
• What kind of files can I include?
• What do I do about copyright of these files?

The following information has been adapted from the ERA Specifications.

• Visit the ERA home page (includes link to frequently asked question from ARC).
• Download the Submission guidelines.

What are the creative works categories?

The ERA specifications contain four broad categories of creative works, and their sub-categories, which are:

• Original Creative Works (Visual art work, Design/Architectural work, Textual work, Other) These are defined as:
  • Visual art work: A research output such as a fine arts and crafts work, diagram, map, photographic image, sculpture or installation.
  • Design/Architectural work: Realised, constructed, fabricated or unrealised building and design projects. 'Unrealised' projects must have an output that provides evidence of the research involved.
  • Textual work: Written creative work that is not eligible to be submitted as a book or journal article such as a novel or art review. Exhibition catalogues and catalogue entries should be submitted in this sub-category.
  • Other: Other original creative works that do not fit the other output
• Live Performance of Creative Works (Music, Play, Dance, Other). These are defined as:
  • Music: New work or a demonstrably new or innovative interpretation or production of an existing work.
  • Play: New work or a demonstrably new or innovative interpretation or production of an existing work.
  • Dance: New work or a demonstrably new or innovative interpretation or production of an existing work.
  • Other: Other new work or demonstrably new or innovative interpretations or productions of an existing work.
• Recorded/Rendered Creative Works (Film/Video, Performance, Inter-arts, Digital Creative work, Website/Web exhibition, Other). These are defined as:
  • Film/Video: Film or video.
  • Performance: Performances created specifically for a recorded medium.
  • Inter-arts: Recorded/rendered creative works, often experimental, produced in association with other researchers in other disciplinary fields.
  • Digital creative work: Creative 3D models, including digital outputs of architectural and design projects, computer programs,games and visual artworks.
  • Website/Web exhibition: These are eligible as recorded/rendered creative works if the eligible researcher is the creator of the creative worksfeatured in the website. Curated web-based exhibitions of other people's creative works must be submitted as Curated or Produced Substantial Public Exhibitions and Events.
  • Other: Other recorded/rendered creative works not listed above.
• Curated or Produced Substantial Public Exhibitions and Events (Web-based exhibition, Exhibition/Event, Festival, Other). These are defined as:
  • Curated or Produced Substantial Public Exhibitions and Events:
  • Web-based Exhibition: The curation and/or production of an internet website presenting a collection of creative works where the internet is the medium of the exhibited works.
  • Exhibition/Event: The curation and/or production of a collection of creative works exhibited together for the first time, in that particular arrangement, in a recognised gallery, museum, or event. This should be accompanied by a well researched publication that includes the time and location of the exhibition.
  • Festival: The curation of a festival bringing together innovative work or existing works in an innovative format or through a theme that provides new perspectives and/or experiences.
  • Other: Curated or substantial public exhibitions and events that do not fit into the above output types.

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What is eligible for inclusion?

• Works must have been made publicly available (performed, published, released, exhibited, occurred) during the reference period – ie, between 1 January, 2002 – 31 December, 2007, inclusive.
• Only outputs by staff CURRENT AS OF 31st MARCH, 2008 can be counted for ERA.
• Each eligible output will need to be uploaded to CRO. Forms have been specifically developed to facilitate inclusion of creative works; however, as this is a new initiative, CRO administrators will welcome feedback and suggestions from contributors in order to improve the process.
• Each entry MUST be accompanied by a 'Research Statement for Peer Review of Creative Works', which identifies the research component of the output. Creative works without research statements cannot be considered for ERA, and cannot be deposited in CRO.

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What is required for the Research Statement?

This statement must be a maximum of 250 words, and should address the following categories:

• Research Background
  • Field
  • Context
  • Research Question
• Research Contribution
  • Innovation
  • New Knowledge
• Research Significance
  • Evidence of Excellence

Note that creative works without research statements cannot be considered for ERA, and cannot be deposited in CRO. Creative works and their research statements may be considered for peer review by an expert ERA panel.

An example, taken from page 68 of the Submission specifications, of an acceptable research statement (in this case for Visual Arts) follows:

Research Background

Current international developments in painting have identified the need to establish complex forms for representing identity in terms of facial expression. While this research recognises the significance of facial expression, it has overlooked the unstable nature of identity itself.

Research Contribution

The paintings Multiple Perspectives by Y address the question of the unstable nature of identity as expressed in painterly terms through a study in unstable facial phenomenon using the philosophical concept of 'becoming'. In doing so it arrives at a new benchmark for the discipline in understanding visual identity, namely that identity is not bound to stable facial phenomena but, like other forms of meaning, is constantly undergoing change.

Research Significance

The significance of this research is that it overcomes barriers for visually understanding the complex nature of identity and its expressive painterly possibilities. Its value is attested to by the following indicators: selection of the painting for inclusion in the international exhibition Documenta, Kassel, Germany; its inclusion as a case study in the renowned Courtauld Institute, University of London, Issues in Contemporary Art graduate seminar series; its being the subject of a chapter in the book Identity Reframed published by Thames and Hudson and authored by the renowned art historian Z; its forming part of a competitively funded ARC project.

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What do you need to do before you begin submitting information?

• Initialise your login (see below)
• Collect all the required information – a list of fields and definitions follows
• Locate the appropriate FOR and SEO Codes before entering your data – these can be found on the CRGT Research Codes page.
• Collect author information. Staff numbers, email addresses etc are required for all CSU contributors. Only name and affiliation details are required for non CSU contributors. Please enter all CSU affiliated contributors first and non CSU authors/creators after. If the author order is important for the item, use the byline number to ensure that the authors are displayed in the right order. Otherwise they will be displayed in the order they were input.
• Ensure that your files are ready to upload. ERA requires a digital version of the item for peer review. (See below for further information about formats and file sizes). More than one item can be included. The Research Statement should be loaded as a PDF or Word document.

Initialise your login

• The first time you submit items to CRO a profile needs to be created.
• Use your staff number with CS (must be upper case) as a prefix as your login and your birth day and month (ddmm) as your password (ie. CS12345678 for login and 0101 for password).
• You will then need to wait an hour before entering your publication details.
• A new form has been developed for each creative works category, in line with the broad ERA categories. Select the most appropriate category.
• Best viewing is achieved when 'window' is maximised and screen resolution is set at 1024 x 768 pixels.

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What information is required in the submission forms?

The Creative Works submission forms have been created in line with ERA requirements. Please contact us if you feel they do not adequately capture information you consider important, or if the information provided here is unclear or insufficient.

1. General:

The following fields are common to all creative works types:

• Submission Status: (Mandatory). Select 'Other' for material submitted for ERA. If the work was exhibited or published in 2009 it will be included in the next ERA submission.
• ERA Type: (Mandatory) As per the subtypes listed above. (link to type info above)
• Title of Work: Include the title and subtitles as appropriate. If the title was not originally in English put the title in the original language in the title box, and the English translation in the next box. Specify the name of the original language.
• Year: (Mandatory) The year that the work was made public, e.g. first exhibited, published, performed etc.
• Year created: If this is different from the above.
• Website: if applicable, the permanent URL of a website where the work can be viewed and further information obtained.
• Description: Description of the item for public viewing on CRO, both content and physical description
• Subject keywords: if applicable, subject keywords to describe the content of the work
• Sensitivity: (Mandatory) If the answer is yes select from the dropdown box below explaining the sensitivity. You will be contacted about this to ensure that it can be included in the ERA submission. SEE Info about Sensitivity
• Sensitivity type: Select from the dropdown menu. You will be contacted about this before anything is sent to ERA.
• Further Comments: Comments about this submission for the CRO administrators. This information is for internal purposes only and won't be displayed on CRO.
• FoR code: Field of Research Codes originate with the ABS and are key to the ERA process. Up to three can be allocated. These codes can be found on the CRGT Research Codes page.
• Percentage: Allocate a percentage proportion to each FoR code. The one, two or three percentages need to total 100%
• SEO code: Socio Economic Objective codes. These codes can be found on the CRGT Research Codes page.
• Percentage: Allocate a percentage proportion to each SEO code. The one, two or three percentages need to total 100%
• Author information: All fields are to be filled out for CSU authors. If the author is part of CSU now but wasn't when the work was created, nominate their affiliation as CSU and fill out all the information. If the author has no CSU affiliation, then specify 'other' in the University affiliation field and just put name and the number to specify the author's order, if required.
• Byline: If the author order is important then fill out the byline number box, otherwise the system will default to putting them in the order that they were input.

2. The different types: unique information required

Original Creative Works:

• Location: (if applicable). Enter data here as appropriate – for example, if the work is an artwork or image, the location where is it stored, if this is a public place such as an art gallery or company
• Publisher: if the work is textual or the artwork has featured in a publication. If the work has not been published, but has been exhibited, name the organization that exhibited or displayed it.
• Place of publication: The location in which the work was published (including displayed for public viewing)
• ISBN: if applicable.

Files to be uploaded: scanned documents if the work is textual, otherwise images. Ensure that the copyright holder of the work gives permission for it to be displayed on CRO. If permission is not given, the files can be locked.

Live Performance:

• Place of performance: the venue and location of the performance
• Other location: if applicable, information about other versions of the work, eg scripts, recordings and their locations

Files to be uploaded: files to be included will depend on what is available and should assist a reviewer to evaluate it. It could include sound or visual files on DVD; wav files; scripts; images from the performance. Ensure that the copyright holder of the work gives permission for it to be displayed on CRO. If permission is not given, the files can be locked.

Curated work:

• Location: The venue and location of the exhibition

Files to be uploaded: files to be included will depend on what is available and should assist a reviewer to evaluate it. It could include images from the exhibition, reviews, scanned exhibition catalogue. Ensure that the copyright holder of the work gives permission for it to be displayed on CRO. If permission is not given, the files can be locked.

Recorded work:

Please provide extensive description of the work in the 'Description' field.

• Publisher: Who made the work public (for example, eg the publisher, if the work was commercially released); the venue of the performance;
• Place of publication: The location of the publisher.
• ISBN: if applicable

Files to be uploaded: files to be included will depend on what is available and should assist a reviewer to evaluate it. It could include copies of the recording, reviews, scanned catalogue etc. Ensure that the copyright holder of the work gives permission for it to be displayed on CRO. If permission is not given, the files can be locked.

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What is meant by 'sensitivity'? (this is a mandatory field for ERA)

Confidential or Sensitive Research Outputs (from Section 6.1 of the specs)

Sensitive research outputs may include, but are not limited to:

• commercially sensitive research outputs; or
• research outputs that are culturally sensitive.

Institutions are responsible for identifying the nature of the sensitivity, the damage that may flow if sensitivity is not maintained or respected, and the conditions under which the research outputs may be reviewed. This requirement applies for all outputs, not just those identified for peer review. The ARC will regard such research outputs as having been submitted and received in confidence, and will maintain the sensitivity of the output unless otherwise required by law.

Institutions are responsible for ensuring that any necessary permissions have been obtained from the organisation which commissioned the research output or from the researcher who conducted the research, as determined by the intellectual property arrangements in any commissioning contract or similar.

Institutions are responsible for ensuring that the information included in the cluster submission identifies the conditions in which it is inappropriate for RECs or peer reviewers to view a sensitive research output submitted by the institution as outlined in the ERA XML schema provided as part of the ERA–SEER Technology Pack.

6.1.1. Commercially sensitive research outputs

A research output that is inherently confidential in nature may be included as part of a cluster submission provided the necessary permissions have been obtained.

6.1.2. Culturally sensitive research outputs

A research output that is culturally sensitive may be included as part of a cluster submission provided the necessary permissions have been obtained.

6.1.3. Australian Government security classified research outputs

A research output that includes information classified in line with the Australian
Protective Security Manual 2005 as either 'in-Confidence' or greater, or 'Restricted' or greater must not be included in a cluster submission.

Please note: 'Sensitivity' is a mandatory field for ERA

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What kind of files can I include?

Research Statement: The 250 word research statement must be included as a PDF or Word document. This will not be available for public viewing.

Evidence of work: Digital versions of the works must also be included where possible for the peer review process.  There are not strict rules about what should be submitted. The best evidence that you have for the work is recommended. Multiple files can be included. This may include a DVD or a sound file of a performance if available, but if not, a copy of the program or script might be able to be scanned. Generally, images, documents, short movies and sound files are the sort of things that could be loaded. Please contact the CRO Team (cro@csu.edu.au) if you have questions about the types of files to attach.

There are size limits for ERA but, as a rule, not for CRO, so if your file is larger than 15 MB then we may need to also get a copy on CD/DVD to send to ERA. CRO will accept most file types and ERA have specified a number of acceptable types:

• Adobe PDF (i.e, .pdf);
• GIF image (i.e. .gif);
• JPEG image (i.e. .jpg, jpeg);
• Microsoft Word (i.e. .doc);
• PNG image (i.e. .png);
• Text (i.e. .txt);
• ZIP archive (i.e. .zip); and
• MPEG Video/Audio compression (i.e. .mp3, mp4).

Research outputs with file types not identified in the list of supported formats (e.g. WAVE, AAC, etc.) may still be included as part of an ERA submission upload. (from section 5.2.4 of the technical specifications)

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What do I do about copyright of these files?

Copyright will need to be ascertained by the author of the creative work. The author may not own the copyright – it may, for example, be owned by the publisher of a text or the distributor of music. This can be followed up in negotiation with CRO. Items will only be loaded for public viewing if permission has been given by the copyright owner, otherwise they will be locked. Please contact the CRO Team (cro@csu.edu.au) if you have questions about this.