FAQs

Questions and Answers

 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.

 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).

What version of an academic publication can be used?

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.

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:

The list of your publications on your website must be linked to full text versions of the articles or conference papers in CRO. This creates a permanent secure link to a copy of the article and ensures that a legal copy is available for downloading via your site. The library will check to ensure that copyright compliance is met and the legal copy is loaded. Submission to CRO also ensures that your papers can be discovered using search engines, if they sit on personal or university web pages this is not necessarily the case.

When you publish your paper in a journal, it can only be accessed by those who have a personal or institutional subscription to the journal. If, in addition to this, you deposit a copy of your paper in CRO, not only have you provided an additional access point but, you have provided a copy that can be accessed free of charge by everyone on the internet.

Wider access often leads to an increase in citations as more researchers (academics and students) are able to gain access to your research output. Institutional repositories have been shown to increase citation rates by 50-300%.

Depositing copies of your papers in the CRO digital archive means peace of mind when your hard drive crashes. The material is backed up on a regular basis. The centralised IR brings together and simplifies the processes involved in dealing with intellectual property and copyright issues. The library ensures that it uploads only versions of articles that meet copyright requirements. This may mean observing embargo periods or uploading preprint versions.

If you receive requests for copies of your papers you can direct the requester to CRO where they may obtain a copy free of charge. This saves time and money. Publishing your paper on CRO reduces the amount of time between discovery and dissemination of research findings to scholarly communities

Presently CSU research outputs are disseminated across thousands of different journals, publications and web sites around the world. Once CSU researchers and scholars begin to deposit electronic copies of their papers in CRO it will create a valuable showcase for their work. Within CRO users are provided with the full citation for the formally published version. In many cases links are also provided.

What if my paper is already freely available on a web page?

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.

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).

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.

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.

 What about quality control?

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

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

The following papers provide a good overview of this topic:

Harnad, S. (2001) The self-archiving initiative: Freeing the refereed research literature online, Nature 410: 1024 http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/naturenew.htm

Lynch, C.A. (2003) Institutional repositories: Essential infrastructure for scholarship in the digital age. ARL Bimonthly Report 226. http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/br226ir.pdf

Hitchcock, S., Bergmark, D., Brody, T., Gutteridge, C., Carr, L., Hall, W.,  Lagoze, C., Harnad S. (2002), Open Citation Linking, The Way Forward, D-Lib MagazineVolume 8 Number 10

Antelman, K. (2004) Do open-access articles have a greater research impact College and Research Libraries, Vol. 65 Issue 5, p372-382,

Relevant Websites:

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI): http://www.openarchives.org/

Can I search multiple institutional 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:

Will my papers be found by Google?

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. 

What do I need to keep 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.

What do I do if I 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

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

Yes for 2007 the citation details will be used to calculate Publication Points but again everything possible should be done to place a pre-print version on CRO, even if it means having the paper retyped in Word format. For 2008 publications, the pre-print draft must be entered onto CRO to count for Publication Points.

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