Library: Author Resources for Publishing and Scholarship: Broadening Your Impact

Broaden the Impact of Your Publication

In order for scholarly work to have its intended impact, it must be discoverable, usable and citable. Every scholar can take steps to promote their work to the widest possible audience.

Selecting a Journal

When possible, select a journal that is indexed in the major databases for your field. Librarians can help you discover this information - just ask us.

Consider submitting to an open access journal. Studies suggest that articles available freely online are more likely to be discovered, read and cited later on. To find an OA journal, browse the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography
This annotated bibliography lists studies and review articles that examine whether open access (OA) articles receive more citations than equivalent subscription; i.e., toll access (TA) articles.
Ask Ina!
IM, email, phone and hours of operation info for the Russell Library's Reference desk.

The Knowledge Box

Subject to the limits placed on sharing your work by the copyright transfer agreement you signed, deposit a copy of your publication in the GCSU institutional repository, The Knowledge Box. If you don’t have permission to post the full text, add the article title, authors and abstract to your profile page along with a link to the article on the publishers website. If your article is available for free at the publisher’s website, or you’ve added it to a repository like PubMed Central or SSRN, just give us the link, or use the deposit process form on The Knowledge Box.

Check Sherpa/Romeo for more details about which journals allow their authors to share a copy of their paper or ask a librarian for assistance.

SHERPA/RoMEO
Use this database of publishers to determine what rights you may retain to your work.

Share Your Data

Although many researchers make data available upon request, studies suggest that openly sharing the data associated with a research study increases the likelihood that a study will be cited later on.

Sharing your data via a data repository (such as figshare or Dryad) may increase the impact of your work.

Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate
From the Principal Findings: "Publicly available data was significantly (p = 0.006) associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin..."
Data Dryad
Dryad is an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences.
figshare
figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner.

Make Connections

Scholars actively share their research on popular social networking site such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as more academically focused social networks:

Mendeley
For organizing journal ariticles and other scholarly information. The desktop tool helps organize article PDFs, and the website provides access to that information from anywhere. Social features allow you to share resources with collaborators and discover new information. Integration with Microsoft Word and other word processors allows you to create citations and bibliographies from your saved resources.
CiteULike
citeulike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references with over 5 million articles. Includes aspects of social bookmarking sites.
ResearchGate
Authors can create a profile, upload their publications (subject to copyright restrictions), and make connections with others. ResearchGate allows users to endorse the skills and expertise of others, and is experimenting as a place for open post-publication review of papers.
Academia.edu
Academia.edu users can create profiles, share information and connect with other users. The site also offers analytics regarding papers and publications.

Note: Social networking sites like Academia.edu and ResearchGate are not repositories and do not provide the same sorts of services, such as supporting open metadata and providing long-term preservation. You can read more about the difference between social networking sites and open access repositories here.

Source

Much of the information and organization for this guide was borrowed from the excellent guides at SUNY Geneseo and the KU Libraries.

It was adapted for use by the Ina Dillard Russell Library at Georgia College & State University by Jennifer Townes in 2016.