Suppose you are a researcher who has decided to embark on a review study. Be it a systematic or scoping review, umbrella, meta-analysis, or any other type of review,  the Library and Information Service offers in-depth support to assist researchers. Faculty Librarians can assist you in understanding the systematic review methodology, including the structured and reproducible approach used to identify, assess, and critically appraise relevant studies. They will guide you in creating a robust, well-documented protocol, emphasising best practices for search strategies and database selection. Whether helping with comprehensive literature searches or advising on inclusion and exclusion criteria, your faculty librarians will help ensure that systematic reviews are rigorous and evidence-based. Librarians offer training on literature searching techniques, database usage and the navigation of various information resources, helping to ensure that the review process is thorough and replicable.

The Library also offers specific workshops on conducting systematic reviews, literature searching techniques and the use of citation management tools like EndNote that can assist researchers with conducting systematic reviews. Consult the training calendar to register for these sessions. In addition to this support, the Library also has a library guide dedicated to assisting with conducting systematic reviews. Through the support offered in the preparation, retrieval, appraisal, and synthesis of information, the Library contributes to the successful completion and eventual publication of high-quality systematic reviews. So make sure to consult your librarian today!

Author: Elizabeth Moll-Willard

One of the most frequent questions that academic librarians get is “Is this a predatory journal?” With the advent of the Information Age and the internet, the number of journals in which you can publish in has skyrocketed, with some estimates putting it well past 30 000. Many of these journals are driven purely by profit and does not have the researcher’s interest in mind at all. Known as predatory journals, or predatory publishing, their drive for profit means they focus on quantity over quality, are quick to accept articles without any peer review process, are deliberately evasive about the publishing fees, list fake editorial boards using academics without their permission and more. A more devious tactic that these publishers employ is to directly contact researchers and invite them to publish with them, often using boastful language about the quality and reach of their journal. Researchers who may have been rejected by other journals, or who are unsure where to publish, might be swayed by this flattering invitation. However, they may live to regret publishing in these journals, and their academic reputation and career may be ruined.

Therefore, it is critical that researchers choose the most suitable journals to publish their research. But, as mentioned above, with so many out there and many of them predatory, how do you choose? The best option, of course, is to ask your faculty librarian, but if they are unreachable or you would prefer to double-check yourself, then you should make use of Think, Check, Submit. “Think. Check. Submit.” is a collaborative initiative that provides a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.

The campaign’s checklist is structured around three key steps:

Think: Before submitting your manuscript, consider if the journal you’re looking at is the best fit for your research. Reflect on the journal’s scope, audience, and reputation within your field.

Check: Investigate the journal’s integrity and quality. This involves:

• Verifying the journal’s peer-review process.
• Checking if the journal is indexed in reputable databases.
• Reviewing the editorial board for recognised experts.
• Ensuring transparency about the publishing fees.
• Confirming the journal’s publisher is a member of recognised industry organisations like COPE or DOAJ.

Submit: If the journal meets the necessary quality checks, you can confidently submit your manuscript.

If you would like to access a PDF copy of the full checklist, you can do so here.

For more information, also have a look a their video below:

Since Stellenbosch University subscribed to Elsevier’s research evaluation tool, SciVal, in 2023, it has been used productively for evaluating research for the University as a whole, for departmental groups, and for individual researchers. The following training will take place in June to further enhance research administrators’ and researchers’ skills in using the tool to their advantage. Both training sessions will be hosted online.

 Introduction to SciVal for research evaluation

Thursday 20 June, 11:00-12:30, presented by Marié Roux

An overview of SciVal will be presented, including the following:

• The underlying data of Scopus
• Overview of the different modules and entities
• An overview of all the different metrics and some example reports for individuals
• Customised template for a researcher at Stellenbosch University
• Measuring contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals
• Benchmarking with colleagues internally and externally

Register here

 Introducing SciVal’s next-generation Topics

Tuesday 25 June, presented by Elsevier

This is a global webinar on Scival Topics. A SciVal Topic is a collection of publications with a common intellectual interest, as determined through citation patterns. They are used to enrich strategic planning through a portfolio analysis to see which research fields you and your peers are active in, which research fields appear to be fast-moving, and who are key contributors. In this webinar, Elsevier will look at the next-generation SciVal Topics, talk about the benefits, as well as the functionality made available to help you transition to the new-generation Topics, and answer any questions you may have.

There are two sessions to choose from in different time slots:

• Session 1, Tuesday, June 25, 2024, 08:00-09:00  Register here for Session 1.
• Session 2, Tuesday, June 25, 2024,16:00-17:00 Register here for Session 2.  

Enquiries: Marié Roux

Themed Let’s Achieve Research Excellence, the 12^th annual Library Research Week will be launched on 13 May 2024 by Professor Sibusiso Moyo from 15:30 to 17:00. This year’s event will also see the launch and introduction of the first University’s Data Management Plan (DMP) software, SunDMP, a DMP tool powered by Fair Wizard. To ensure wider access, the launch will be in a hybrid format, allowing guests and speakers to attend in-person or online. However, due to the small size of the physical venue, only invited guests will be given a choice to attend in person. In line with the tradition of the Library Research Week, during the launch, there will be a guest speaker who will focus on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.  

After the launch, there will be events each day from 14 May until 17 May 2024. These seek to empower researchers on many aspects of the research process including proposal writing, literature reviews, research methods, academic writing skills, scoping reviews, research data management, publishing and many more.

This year’s event has an inspiring lineup of speakers who will conduct these workshops and discussions on research best practices. Check out the programme on the library’s website: Library Research Week Page.

Prof Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe is Professor and Coordinator for Research Professional Development in the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She will present a guest lecture at the Stellenbosch University Library on Saving the time of the user: Academic library implications of industry initiatives and trends.

The lecture will take place on Friday 10 May from 09:30-10:30 in the Library’s Auditorium. All students and staff are welcome to attend.
Please book your seat here.

Removing stumbling blocks for users accessing content and services continues to be a significant challenge across the information landscape. Friction points include discovery, access, and authentication/authorisation workflows. Open access publishing promises to assist but is not the full solution. Recent industry initiatives have attempted to smooth pathways and improve researcher experience. This keynote will share industry efforts, including but not limited to Get Full Text Research (GetFTR), Seamless Access, and the Article Sharing Framework, identify how these efforts are shaping the information access landscape, and catalyse a conversation to explore how libraries and higher education institutions might better serve our users by leveraging these industry efforts.

In celebration of 30 years of democracy in South Africa, the Library and Information Service will be hosting a unique exhibition this month. This exhibition will showcase some of the material from the manuscript collections curated by Special Collections.

The collections focus on the path to democracy through negotiations to create a climate of change in South Africa within political, economic, and social arenas. We look at some of the organisations and individuals that played a role in the negotiations and preparations for democracy from the economic pressure to the conferences and workshops and voter education to the 1994 voting and the first democratic parliament as well as the changes and highlights of the democracy in South Africa till 2024. This exhibition also serves as a reminder of the enduring journey towards a more just, inclusive, and democratic society, honouring the resilience and collective spirit that continue to shape South Africa’s future.

The exhibition will be on view from Monday 13 May in the Stellenbosch University Library.

The launch of Stellenbosch University’s new Data Management Plan (DMP) platform, SunDMP, will take place during the launch of Library Research Week on Monday 13 May, at 15:30. Book here to attend this event.

SunDMP revolutionises research data management by streamlining DMP creation, ensuring legal compliance, and fostering a culture of transparency. Planning for research data management has advanced significantly with SunDMP, which the FAIR wizard platform enables. Data management planning entails preparing how researchers will manage their data during and after the research process. Researchers now have a solid tool to expedite this process and effectively articulate their data management strategies. SunDMP is important because, by the SU Research Data Management Regulation, these plans must be submitted with research grant applications.

Creating thorough data management plans (DMPs) is essential to data management planning. These documents function as road maps, outlining different facets of data management during the research project. Researchers specify how data will be gathered, handled, examined, and distributed in a DMP. DMPs also include strategies for encouraging research data reusability, which is essential to modern scientific methods.

Researchers can use technologies such as SunDMP to create strong DMPs, assisting them in making important decisions and guaranteeing adherence to legal requirements. Additionally, SunDMP can improve the efficacy and accessibility of data management planning by providing researchers with intuitive software, ultimately promoting an open and accountable culture of research data stewardship.

Please contact Xabiso Xesi (Tel: 021 8089489) or Sizwe Ngcobo (Tel: 021 8089978)  for assistance. Or send them an email at rdm@sun.ac.za

Other important links on the topic of Research Data Management:

• SUNScholarData (Institutional research data repository)
• SUNScholarData library guide
• Research Data Management  library guide
• Plan and manage research data

The final #SmartResearcher workshops for the first semester will take place in May. Some of the most important topics in the research life cycle will be presented during this time.  In this article we would like to highlight the workshops which will take place on the topic of Open Access and improving the impact of your research.

The fifth step in the research life cycle is Share and publish and the 6th step is Monitor and evaluate.

A few workshops related to these topics will take place this month (click on the links to make a booking):

• Increasing the visibility of your research output through self-archiving
  

  Tuesday 7 May, 11:00-12:30
  Stellenbosch University’s institutional policy on the self-archiving of research output is curated by the Library and Information Service. Complying with this policy, which asks researchers to deposit copies of their research output in SUNScholar, our institutional repository, can greatly increase the visibility and impact of research output. This workshop will teach participants more about the policy and how to comply with the policy in order to improve access to and visibility of their research outputs.

• Enhancing your research impact through open access publishing
  

  Thursday 9 May, 12:00-13:00
  This workshop will introduce attendees to the principles of Open Access and how it can benefit the impact of their research. Open access publishing is a model of scholarly communication that provides unrestricted and free access to scholarly research outputs, such as articles, papers, and data. In open access publishing, the content is made available online to the public without financial, legal, or technical barriers.

• Managing your unique author identity with ORCID

  Tuesday 21 May, 12:00-13:00
  ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. This workshop will explain what ORCID is, how to register and populate your profiles.

• Maximise your research impact
  

  Thursday 23 May, 11:00-13:00
  This workshop will show how to improve your impact as a researcher. The following two sessions will be presented: Increase the visibility of your research and Tracking your citations.

• Making important decisions about publishing your research
  

  Tuesday 28 May, 10:00-13:00
  This hands-on session covers important factors to help you decide where to publish your research. Making the right choices can increase readership and citations, diminish publication lag and ensure that your publication is eligible for government subsidy.

Another two workshops about using Endnote reference manager will also be on offer:

• Migrating your Mendeley Library to EndNote
• EndNote for reference management

Enquiries: Kirchner van Deventer 

The Library and Information Service is pleased to announce two additional Open Access (read and publish) agreements recently signed in addition to existing agreements. These agreements extend reading access and provide Open Access publishing opportunities for Stellenbosch University staff and students. Authors can publish in fully Open Access journals at a discount and in hybrid journals without having to pay article processing charges (APCs).

​The following agreements were signed in 2024:

Taylor & Francis (T&F) Open Access (Read and Publish) agreement

This agreement commenced in 2024. It is a three-year agreement (2024-2026).

Institutions participating in this agreement have read access to nearly 2000 journals in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Science & Technology (S&T) packages. In addition, eligible authors affiliated with subscribing institutions can publish their articles open access in all Taylor & Francis Open Select (hybrid) journals without paying article processing charges (APCs). Eligible authors will also benefit from a 10% discount when they publish in the Taylor & Francis fully Open Access journals. Read the full press release here.

The Company of Biologists  Open Access (Read and Publish) agreement

This agreement commenced in 2024. It is a three-year agreement (2024-2026).

Under this agreement, corresponding authors from the SU community can publish an unlimited number of research articles as Open Access in the publisher’s hybrid journals, such as Development, Journal of Cell Science, and Journal of Experimental Biology, as well as their fully Open Access journals, including Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. Authors will not be required to pay any article processing charges (APCs) for these publications. Researchers will also benefit from unrestricted access to the publisher’s hybrid journals, including their complete archives dating back to 1853. Read the full press release here.

Contact details:

For more information about the publishers and to view titles eligible for Open Access publishing, please visit https://libguides.sun.ac.za/OApublishing.

Enquiries about Open Access agreements may be directed to the Manager: Scholarly Communications and Open Access, Tel: 021 808 9907.