FAQs

Submitting to CRO

General Information

What should be deposited in CRO?

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How do I log in?

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I’m logged in – how do I deposit?

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What information and documentation will I need to complete my submission?

Before entering your data, you are strongly urged to read the rest of these FAQs for important additional information about how to complete the form.  Note that inclusion in the Higher Education Research Data Collection, and the distribution of performance funding resulting from successful publication will directly depend on the accuracy of information submitted. This information will also be used for Academic Promotions, staff profiling and other research-related analyses.

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How do I complete the “submission status” section? What do the options mean?

Choose the relevant option from the drop-down menu, as follows:

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A checklist for bibliographic information.

It is in your interests to ensure each submission is as comprehensive and accurate as possible.  Note that substantially incomplete submissions will be returned to the depositor and/or may not be considered for inclusion in the HERDC.

Journal articles:
Books:
Conference papers:
Book Chapters:

NOTE: Additional information required for chapters. If you have submitted a book chapter, you will be contacted and requested to complete and return a Book Chapter Calculation Spreadsheet. This is an Excel spreadsheet formulated by DEEWR in order to assist in the calculation of total author contribution to any given book, which attracts a proportional allocation of points (for example, a second chapter will attract less points than an initial chapter). A link to this spreadsheet can be accessed via the Useful Links section of these FAQs.

 

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Research Codes (ANZSRC 2008 Codes – FoR and SEO)

The ANZSRC 2008 research codes are now the correct ones to use in identifying all your research outputs. These comprise FoR (Fields of Research) codes, and new SEO (Socio-economic) codes. The old RFCD and SEO codes can no longer be used.

Research codes will be integral in providing data for evaluation to the ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) initiative. It is therefore vital that you enter the correct research code/s. A link both to the codes and a conversion tool from old to new codes can be accessed via the Useful Links section of these FAQs.

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Author Details

Please note, personal details and information will not be picked up by search engines or viewable in CRO. This information is required for internal use only.

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Will my publications still count for Publication Points (formerly DEST Points)?

Yes, BUT for 2008 publications, the pre-print draft must be entered onto CRO to count for Publication Points.

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How are publication points apportioned?

For categories other than Book Chapters, where there are multiple authors, the count must be apportioned according to the number of authors. For example, if there are three authors of a publication, one third should be counted for each author who was a staff member or student of CSU.

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When do I submit the document/electronic work?

You will be prompted to submit the Word or electronic copy of the final accepted draft once other details are complete. It will then be converted to a PDF document prior to being uploaded to CRO.

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What version of an academic paper can be used for my Research Publications Data Collection submissions to CRO?

You will need to ensure you keep an electronic copy of the final accepted draft (after peer review, before layout adjustments by publisher). These pre-print copies are now no longer superfluous documents to be deleted, as they are the currency for open access.

A number of different terms are used for the versions of papers that can be placed in a repository - preprint, postprint, manuscript or publisher's version.

A preprint is the version of an academic paper which is submitted by an author for peer review (to a journal or conference). This version may be revised by the author as a result of comments made by reviewers.

A postprint is the final version of an academic paper, incorporating the revisions made as a result of the peer review process or as accepted for publication if no changes were made. This is the version most commonly used on institutional repositories.

A manuscript version is the final draft version post peer review. This term is not commonly used within Australia, as 'manuscript' may imply an unpublished item. However it is used elsewhere, and equates to a postprint.

The preferred version for CRO is the final draft version post peer review, as this is the version allowed by most (>90%) publishers. CRO staff will determine what each publisher will allow to be loaded into the repository.

As part of the upload process the paper will be saved as a PDF with a title page containing bibliographic information and acknowledgement that the paper has originated from CSU Research Output Repository. Printed versions of manuscripts can be scanned and saved as PDFs. Ensure that they are scanned at 300 dpi. Please refer to instructions for setting scanners at http://www.csu.edu.au/division/dit/compshop/printers/mfprinters.htm.

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What do I do if have not kept a copy of the final accepted draft?

If you have not kept an electronic copy of the final accepted draft of your 2007 then only the citation details can be made available on CRO. Where the final accepted draft is not available then academics, general staff and students are strongly encouraged to have the manuscript retyped in Word and uploaded into CRO. This is not mandatory but would certainly be helpful

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What if I need to exit / suspend the submission process?

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I’m ready to submit – what now?

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What do I need to know about copyright?

When the paper has been peer reviewed and submitted for publication, ownership of copyright depends on what rights have been transferred to the journal publisher when the contract was signed. This often prevents a copy of the publisher version being loaded into a repository such as CRO. Over 90% of academic publishers now routinely allow authors to self-archive a copy of the peer reviewed manuscript version of their papers (Note: not the publisher's PDF version). The Library will always check that the publisher is not one of the few that have objected to author self-archiving (in which case, access to your manuscript version will be blocked but the freely accessible record will still increase the visibility of the work).

You will be contacted when your item is loaded. We will follow up if the item cannot be loaded immediately because of an embargo or if the publisher does not allow self archiving.

For further information, see the Copyright page.

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What is CRO?

CRO - CSU Research Output is an open access digital archive, also called an institutional repository. CRO includes CSU scholarship and research output of various types, including refereed journal articles and conference papers. The aim of CRO is to collect and make available to the world the research output produced by CSU. Information submitted to DEST for the Research Publications Data Collection each year will be submitted to CRO, including prepublication versions of each publication - this will form the bulk of the content and will ensure that current CSU research is available to the world. When full text of articles cannot be loaded into CRO for copyright reasons the bibliographic citation will be loaded. Academic and research staff can self archive their research output prior to 2007 into CRO. This allows research to be located through search engines and for copyright compliant links to full text articles attached to references in staff web pages. See the Policy for CSU's Institutional Repository. CRO provides a stable and sustainable storage environment for digital versions of research output.

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What is an Institutional Repository?

Institutional Repositories (IR) are databases bringing together under one umbrella a University's published research output in digital form. Aiming to preserve and provide access to that research, IRs are an excellent vehicle for storing journal articles, conference papers and other ouputs such as working papers and reports. The majority of institutional repositories are 'open access', meaning that the works held within them are freely accessible and can be located using internet search engines such as Google Scholar .

There are an increasing number of scholarly digital repositories around the world. Some are discipline-based (e.g. CogPrints - cognitive sciences, arXiv - physics, mathematics), whilst others are institutional (e.g. Demetrius - Australian National University, QUT ePrints - Queensland University of Technology).

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What is the HERDC?

The Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) is used to collect publications in four categories:

For further information, see: The 2008 specifications outlining research criteria and eligibility for inclusion of 2007 publications.

2009 specifications will be available from the above site shortly.

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What are the benefits of having papers in CRO?

When you search google or google.scholar for information you often come across freely available preprints of excellent research papers. These are coming from the Institutional Repositories of universities around the world. Your articles on CRO are contributing to this scholarly information exchange and can be located in the same way.

Further benefits of depositing your articles on CRO:

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What if my paper is already freely available on a webpage?

Your paper may be available today but, unless you control the website it is on, can you guarantee that it will be available in the future? Conference websites often disappear after a short period. Web pages can be moved to different servers and, if a journal ceases to be published, its website may disappear.

With CRO operating there is no need to remove your paper from a current website. By depositing a copy in CRO you will be creating an additional access point. A link to the current web site or alternate location can be inserted in the record for your paper.

CRO provides a stable, secure, web presence supported by the University. It also provides enhanced access to internet search engine such as Google and Yahoo.

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Is self-archiving the same as publishing?

No. Depositing an electronic copy of an academic paper in a discipline-based or institutional repository is known as 'self-archiving'. This is not the same as self-publishing.

For scholarly and scientific purposes publication requires meeting the quality standards of peer review and acceptance for publication by a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore, self-archiving is NOT the same as publishing. It is a complementary process to peer review and journal publication rather than a replacement. Self-archiving is not the same as self-publishing (vanity press).

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Is self-archiving legal?

Yes. For example, when any new work is created the author or creator holds the copyright and is free to give away or sell copies, on-paper or on-line (e.g. by self-archiving). This means that the author can legally self-archive a paper they are about to submit to a journal for peer review and possible publication. This version is known as a preprint.

When authors submit the paper to a journal they are often asked to assign copyright to the publisher. This contract refers to the final, peer-reviewed version (the postprint). If all rights are assigned to the publisher this version of the paper cannot be legally self-archived without publisher permission. CRO staff will obtain this permission and upload the article where possible.

However, it is not always necessary to assign all rights to the publisher. Authors are strongly encouraged to retain their copyright, where possible, in their dealings with publishers.

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Will institutional repositories replace journals?

Institutional repositories are complementary to, rather than a replacement for scholarly journals. The peer review process provided by journals is of critical importance to scholarship. However, the proliferation of institutional and discipline-based eprint repositories could accelerate changes that are currently taking place in the scholarly communication process.

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What about quality control?

All of the papers in CRO will be copies of peer reviewed academic papers.

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Where can I find more information about the Open Archives Initiative?

The following papers provide a good overview of this topic:

Relevant Websites:

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Can I search across a number of eprint repositories with one search?

Yes. Most repositories have adopted a common set of standards for describing their metadata. This means that they can be cross-searched. There are a number of search engines which can cross-search multiple repositories including:

For a full list of services, see the Open Archives Initiative Registered Service Proivders

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Will my papers be found by Google Scholar?

Yes. A paper loaded onto CRO is usually available on Google the following day. Papers in OAI (Open Access Initiative) compliant repositories can be found by Google. CRO is OAI compliant so records are easily retrievable via Google. In fact most hits on papers in the repository come via a Google search. 

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Contacts and Useful Links

Contact the CRO administrators with any questions:
Links to related websites and documents follow:

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This information page was developed with the assistance of QUT ePrints.