QUT ePrints Update – HERDC & stats
Merging repository deposit with reporting for HERDC
Every year, QUT academics are required to report their publications to the Office of Research for the HERDC (Higher Education Research data Collection). The University’s research funding is partly based on the number of publications we report – so we lose money if publications go unreported. Academics are also required to deposit copies of their published journal articles and conference papers in QUT ePrints. Naturally, busy academics will object to doing anything twice so the Office of Research and the Library have been working towards merging these two processes into one.
When a paper is deposited in QUT ePrints, the depositor can tick a box to say that the publication should be considered for inclusion in the next HERDC. When the record appears in the repository, it will have a link at the bottom of the screen to a HERDC collection form (see http://eprints.qut.edu.au/13659/)
When it comes time for the next HERDC, the School admin staff can search for all publications affiliated with their School, print the forms (which will be pre-populated with publication details from the eprint record), print a copy of each paper (which is attached to the record) and pass to the ADR for a consideration and possible sign-off. From now on, the Government has indicated that there will be no need to keep photocopies as evidence provided the full-text paper is in the institution’s repository. For the academics, this means no more double-handling. They can comply with both obligations in one go.
QUT ePrints – at a glance
Items in the repository = 14,457 Depositors = 2158
Open access (OA) fulltext documents = 8828
Restricted access fulltext documents = 1028 (some only temporarily restricted)
Journal article records with no fulltext attached = 2963
· Most of these have a hypertext link to the published version on the journal website (only accessible to journal subscribers)
· Some will have a hypertext link to an OA copy on the journal website
Books/Book chapter records with no fulltext attached = 900
· It is rarely possible to have open access copies of books and book chapters. However, the records generally include links to publisher website to promote sales of the book.
