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What is QUT ePrints?
QUT ePrints is a way of making your research available to the people who want to read it. That’s right – a global audience, just one click away.
Any documents you upload to QUT ePrints are found by popular search engines like Google, Google Scholar and Scirus.
And the best part? Potential readers can click straight through to the full text of your paper. No passwords, no fees, no barriers. Because QUT ePrints is an open access repository.
As you can imagine, this increased visibility makes it even more likely that other researchers and practitioners will read and possibly cite your journal articles and conference papers. Remember that the copy in the journals will only be available to subscribers whereas the copy you upload to QUT ePrints will available to everyone.
In February of 2008, the top fifty authors at QUT had downloads figures ranging from eleven thousand to over eighty thousand. That’s an awful lot of readers!
In case you’re wondering about copyright issues, the version you deposit is generally your own peer-reviewed final draft. Over 90% of journals allow authors to provide free, open access to this version – even when copyright has been transferred to the publisher. And Library checks each document to ensure there’s no breach of copyright, so you don’t have to worry.
All right, who should do this?
Academic staff, obviously. But also postgraduate students and research assistants. In fact, it’s particularly important for higher degree students to disseminate their research outputs, it’s part of career networking. The University actually has a policy requiring the deposit of all royalty-free research publications.
Let’s sum up the benefits –
One. Immediate access to your full text for a global audience via popular search engines.
Two. More citations. We already know that citation rates are likely to be involved in any future research assessment process – having your publications in QUT ePrints means that you will have more citations to report.
Three. Automatic backup for your work, all stored, managed and displayed for you. No more searching your computer for that article you wrote way back when.
Four. It’s easy to insert a link to your ePrints page in your email signature. One click and your correspondent goes directly to your papers.
Five. A whole range of wonderful possibilities – developing new collaborations, engaging media interest, attracting postgraduate students.
Visit QUT ePrints at eprints.qut.edu.au and see for yourself! Or talk to your Liaison Librarian. We’d love to help you get out there.
