Get published

Your publishing strategy

• Scholarly publishing is undergoing rapid change. The number of published journals continues to increase, as does the number of open access publishers and publishing opportunities
  
  
• In a research environment with a strong focus on research quality and impact, informed by data and evidence, it is increasingly important for researchers to make informed decisions about where to publish to ensure maximum exposure and impact of their research
  
  
• What you decide to publish is an important consideration. This page is designed to assist you to develop a publishing strategy that will help guide your decision making.

See also the additional resources on getting published:

• Helpsheet: Essential tools for selecting a target journal or publisher
• Presentation: Inside guide to getting published: Tools, databases, resources
  PPT - iLecture Recording (18mins)

Selecting and targeting journals and publishers
Consider your intended audience or readership
Check the quality of a journal or publisher
Check within key subject databases for publication lists:
Determine your publication priorities and timelines

Consider open access publishing options

Open access is the idea that information should be freely available online for anyone to access. Most publishers allow some form of open access or self-archiving.

• Increasingly researchers are required to meet open access requirements of government and funding bodies such as the NHMRC by publishing research output in open access resources, such as institutional research repositories.

Look for open access journals through the DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals which includes 7000 open access scientific and scholarly journals.

• Subject databases also increasingly including open access titles.

Some publishers only allow authors to make an article open access upon payment of fees.

• Check OAKlist or SHERPA RoMEO for publisher copyright policies and for information about which version of an author's work may be archived within a repository such as Deakin Research Online

You can choose to favour publishers who allow you to publish in an institutional repository

• You can also seek an addendum to your publishing agreement. Advice is available at the Deakin University Copyright website.

Inside guide to getting published

Over the past two years the Library and Prof Roger Horn (Dean, Research Training) have collaborated to organise the popular Inside Guide to Getting Published seminars.

The seminars have featured presentations from Deakin experts - all with a publishing track record and experience as a reviewer or editor.

Each seminar has been iLectured and the presentations are available here:

• Inside Guide to Getting Published, Deakin University Library, Burwood and Geelong, September 2012
• Inside Guide to Getting Published, Deakin University Library, Burwood and Geelong, June 2012
• Inside Guide to Getting Published, Deakin University Library, Geelong October 2011
• Insider's Guide to Getting Published, Deakin University Library, Burwood June 2011.

Issues to consider when deciding to publish your work

• The most appropriate publishing model that meets your specific criteria (e.g. society publisher, commercial academic publisher, open access publisher, other publishing models)
• Ensure that you have obtained permission to include any third party material (see the using third- party material section for example of seeking permission)
• Be aware of any particular conditions attached to funding grants that may have implications regarding your choice of publisher (open access deposit, e.g. NHMRC policy on the dissemination of research findings)
• What do you want to do with your work in the future? (Do you want to retain the right to copy it, distribute it, make amendments, post it to a website, add it to a repository etc...)

Who owns the copyright and what are your author's rights?

In general, if your work is the result of your scholarly output, then you are granted automatic copyright

Moral rights also exist even though you may not hold copyright. It implies an understanding that an author must be acknowledged and credited as the creator of the work. It then follows that it is illegal for your work to be falsely attributed to someone else and that any work that you cite and wish to use must in turn be fully acknowledged and clearly attributed or cited

If your work has been produced on behalf of someone else, i.e. where you have been commissioned or hired to produce the work, then copyright resides with that employer. An example is producing teaching or course materials on behalf of a University. You retain moral rights as the author, which means that you must be properly attributed or acknowledged as the author anytime that work is cited or used.

Publishing agreements

As the copyright owner of your work, you have the right to reproduce your work, publish it in print or electronically, make it available online, perform it in public, adapt it and broadcast it.

You also have the choice to assign or licence some or all of these rights to a publisher.

• It's important to understand the type of publishing agreement you are being asked to sign and how long it will last.

You may be requested to sign over copyright to the publisher (assign copyright), sign an exclusive licence or a non-exclusive licence.

Each agreement is different and needs to be understood in terms of what it means for the way you may wish to use your own work in the present and in the future and you also need to be aware if one agreement covers all potential output versions of your work, e.g. print book, e-book, audio book, etc... or do you need to enter into separate agreements.

• A transfer of copyright means that you assign all or some of the copyright to the publisher. The publisher in turn may return some of the rights back to you to give you permission to use your work in different ways, i.e. to make copies; to post on your website; to deposit into a repository etc...
• With an exclusive licence, you retain copyright, but grant certain rights to your publisher that state the exact conditions under which they can publish and use your work
• With a non-exclusive licence, you give the publisher permission to publish the item on your behalf, while you retain the copyright. This means that you do not need to seek the permission of the publisher if you want to use your work in different ways, i.e. make copies, post on a website, deposit in a repository etc...

It's becoming more common for publishers to return to authors some of their rights, in particular the right to deposit a version of the work in a repository, post the work on a website etc...Consult publishers' websites for further information regarding author rights and responsibilities.

If the publisher does not explicitly provide this information it is still possible to negotiate a standard contract by asking the publisher to consider an addendum to their agreement. DRO provides a sample addendum for you to consider.

You may also wish to explore the open licensing model offered by Creative Commons. This is where you as the copyright owner expressly decide the conditions under which you allow your work to be openly accessible.

Further information

• Consult the Deakin staff Research and Copyright page for further information regarding your author rights
• Information about publishers' permissions and copyright may be found on the Deakin Research Online (DRO) copyright pages.

Bibliometrics tools to measure research impact

Citation analysis is an aspect of bibliometrics that provides the ability to track the work of authors, the influence of papers and the trajectory of research ideas by examining citation counts as depicted in key citation indexes and online resources.

A citation count refers to the number of times one paper has been cited or referenced on the work of another.
Citation tracking refers to the analysis of the following data:

• what is published (the paper)
• by whom (author(s) and associated affiliations)
• where (which journal)

What is citation analysis?
Scopus
Web of Science
Google Scholar
Resources on the Web
Helpful information from other Universities

Deakin Research Online (DRO)

DRO is a secure open access institutional repository which stores, manages, indexes, preserves and showcases research outputs produced by Deakin University researchers, staff and higher degree research students, making it discoverable throughout the world.

• Where possible it provides either a PDF attachment or direct link to research output.
• It supports research reporting requirements such as the Higher Education Research Data Collection.
• It assists researchers in keeping their web page and CV up to date.
• It speeds up scholarly communication and dissemination (no publishing delays).
• If full text is supplied, it fulfils government and funding body open access requirements.

Benefits of showcasing research in DRO include:

• increasing visibility and collaboration of research
• facilitates discovery through search engines such as Google Scholar and is harvested through TROVE and OAIster
• enables re-use of research
• boosts citation counts
• increases impact of research.

Submitting your work in DRO

Determine if the research output can be stored in DRO. At least one of the author/creators must be a current Deakin University employee or higher degree research student. If so you can submit your research via DRO.

Deakin Research Online deposit agreement

We encourage researchers to sign a deposit agreement with DRO, so we can investigate making published or post print versions of the work openly accessible.

The DRO team has experience working with publisher permissions and always checks compliance before allowing approved versions of the research to be made visible to the public.

Which version should I deposit?

In most cases, publishers do not allow published version of the work to be made visible, but many will permit post print version of works to be made openly accessible.

When submitting you will need to attach the following versions:

• The published version as supplied by the publisher.
• The accepted manuscript or post print, refers to your last version, accepted by the publisher, corrected after peer review but with no copy editing or formatting by the publisher.

For further assistance and information on getting published through DRO please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.