Month: August 2024

Introduction

The Library and Information Service is dedicated to offering top-notch assistance for any open access-related inquiries. To guarantee that our researchers receive timely feedback on matters about open access, frequently asked questions (FAQs) have been added to LibAnswers.

Eligibility to use transformational agreements

One of the most frequently asked inquiries is concerning eligibility, and researchers are interested in the requirements, primarily the institution’s affiliation. It is also crucial to remember that, if one of our writers collaborates with an author from another university, the corresponding author of the paper needs to be affiliated with Stellenbosch University for the article to be eligible for the use of a transformational agreement.

How to avoid Predatory journals?

Finding information about predatory journals and ensuring that researchers are not duped into publishing in questionable journals are two commonly addressed questions. Ask your Faculty Librarian or Scholarly Communicaton staff to help you to avoid these journals and publishers.

Does Open Access mean lower quality?

NO, the quality of a journal is determined by its editorial standards, peer-review process, and the impact of its publications, not by its accessibility. Many reputable journals are open access including those published by major academic publishers.

Are all predatory journals Open Access?

NO, predatory journals can be both open access or subscription-based. The access model is not a determining factor, but predatory journals lack legitimate and transparent editorial practices.

Why do some researchers associate Open Access journals with lower quality?

The association stems from the existence of predatory publishers who misuse the open access model. Predatory publishers often lack proper peer review and editorial oversight, leading to the publication of low-quality or even fake research.

What are Article Processing Charges (APCs)?

Scholars consistently inquire about the types of publications included in transformational agreements and the distinction between publishing in fully open access vs hybrid journals. The FAQs have been updated, and researchers may now access crucial information including the fact that there are no APCs associated with publishing in hybrid journals, but that there are various reductions available for completely open access journals based on the institution’s arrangement with the participating publisher.

Is the Open Access Publishing Fund still available?

Scholars consistently inquire about the Open Access Publication Fund, which was discontinued in April 2021. This fund is therefore not available anymore. To address these questions, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on Libanswers was created, along with a link to our open access Libguide that offers a detailed explanation of the fund’s closure.

What is a Journal finder?

Researchers are welcome to contact their Faculty Librarians or Scholarly Communication to get assistance in selecting journals to publish their articles. Most publishers have a “Journal finder” section which also assists them with locating the appropriate approved journal for a publication. See these examples: Elsevier’s Journal Finder and Wiley’s Journal Finder. 

Where can I find the list of accredited journals?

Researchers frequently have inquiries concerning the DHET accredited journals list. You can find out whether a journal is accredited by consulting the Accredited journals page under “Outputs and Journals” on the Division for Research Development website. You are also welcome to ask your faculty librarian for assistance.

What is a Read and Publish agreement?

One of the frequently asked questions, revolves around understanding what a Read and Publish agreement really means. It is also known as transformational agreements, which means that these agreements provide access to publishing and reading simultaneously. One of the benefits of open access is unrestricted spreading of knowledge to the wider audience, to ensure improved impact, consumption, increased citations and growth as an author.

Conclusion

The open access team at Stellenbosch University is responsible for ensuring that researchers are fully informed on everything related to open access. The purpose of the recently introduced FAQs is to enhance our offerings and enable customers to access information when the Library is closed. Additionally, the group is dedicated to helping users and interacting with them to improve comprehension of scientific publishing and open access.

More information:

• Stellenbosch University Transformational Agreements Libguide
• The Library’s Open Access webpage
• SANLiC
• Publisher Websites: Many publishers provide details about their transformational agreements and participating institutions.

Enquiries: Sakhile Mngomezulu

“SUNScholar is open to receive new nominations for the December 2024 graduation period.”

That was the opening line for every graduation period.  This year is no different, except now it has a new name, face and place.  The submission of theses and dissertations for graduation has moved to SUNStudent Academia.

The nomination for students to submit a thesis or dissertation for graduation now takes place on Thesis Management.

Thesis Management sits under the tab for Examinations, yet it has nothing to do with examinations.  For each functionality, Examinations and Thesis Management, it is two totally different, and separate processes and therefore two different outcomes.

During the process of Examinations, the thesis or dissertation has yet to be examined and reviewed.  In Thesis Management only the final revised thesis or dissertation needs to be uploaded.  This is the copy following examination, and after all corrections have been made.  This is also the copy that will be available on SUNScholar.

The User Guide for Thesis Management is available here.

For the most part, the workflow for Thesis management hasn’t changed.

To summarise the process:

1. The final revised document must be submitted in PDF format.
2. Log onto SUNStudent Academia.
3. Click on Examinations, then click Thesis Management.
4. The supervisor/promoter or administrative staff nominates the candidate.
5. The thesis/dissertation is uploaded by the supervisor/promoter or administrative staff.
6. The supervisor/promoter or administrative staff approves the submission.
7. The thesis/dissertation will be publicly accessible on SUNScholar following graduation.

Due to the sensitive nature of security and ongoing enhancements to Thesis Management, the upload/submission of the final revised thesis or dissertation, must be done by the supervisor/promoter or administrative staff.

The final date for the submission of theses or dissertations for the December 2024 graduation is 28 November 2024.

Changes in the process

• The Thesis Management function will remain open throughout the year.
• It is compulsory for all master’s and doctoral students to complete this process for graduation.
• Students will not be uploading any documents; this will be the responsibility of the nominator.
• The process of nomination, submission and approval/rejection will take place on the same screen/programme.
• The manual input of the student number will give a dropdown box of ALL postgraduate students within the faculty, ensure you ‘pick’ the correct student from the dropdown box.
• The manual input of the supervisor/promotor staff number will give a dropdown box of ALL supervisors/promotors within the faculty, ensure you ‘pick’ the correct supervisor/promotor from the dropdown box.
• Incorrect uploading of document(s) cannot be replaced after the submission process, so the process of nomination needs to be cancelled.
• Only a cumulative maximum of 250 MB can be uploaded per student. Exceeding this threshold requires the user to send the document(s) to scholar@sun.ac.za.
• Uploaded documents will remain visible to the staff member who did the nomination.
• The discretion and security of uploaded documents remain with the department.
• Thesis management will be ‘wiped’ clean after each graduation period.
• The embargo period only goes up to three years. For extensions or moving from embargo to open access and vice versa, an email must be sent to scholar@sun.ac.za  to manually make the changes.  These changes will not be reflected in Thesis Management.

What remains

The recommendations and look and feel of the thesis document remain the same.  Such as the new SU title page, declaration page(s), abstract(s) and typesetting.  See the library help page, Thesis/Dissertation submission for templates.

Requesting Access to SUNStudent

Access will only be granted to SU staff and with the approval of their line manager.  Any user requesting access must get their line manager’s approval for the request to be processed.

Your access can be provisioned by following these steps:

1. Please access the SUNStudent Service Desk here
2. The tile marked “user access management” is the section that allows users to complete their user role access request

For enquiries about theses/dissertations submissions, please contact Paulette Talliard or scholar@sun.ac.za.

As you may know, we switched over to EndNote as our officially supported reference management software at the start of 2024. The uptake has been impressive and our clients seem very satisfied with the software. But there are always questions and some of them get asked more frequently than others and, as EndNote can be quite a complex programme to work with when compared to Mendeley or Zotero, we’ll try and answer some of these questions here. This will be a “work in progress” as new questions continually pop up. So we’ll add a link to our EndNote LibGuide to this post so you can check back in to see if any new questions were added.

How is EndNote different from Mendeley and/or Zotero?

The core functions of all three programmes are essentially the same, to simplify in-text citations and generate a reference list for your research paper, assignment or thesis/dissertation. But there are some significant differences that we cannot go into here. Considering technical support, while Mendeley and Zotero are open source free-to-use platforms, EndNote is subscription-based and with the subscription, we get an immense amount of technical support and access to instructional resources that are of greater quality than that of Mendeley or Zotero. To read more about these differences, click here.

Is EndNote available to anyone at SU?

Yes, we have an institutional subscription, which means that any student or staff member at SU can get EndNote. However, we still discourage undergraduates from using reference managers, since they first need to learn how to reference and cite properly before they can make optimal use of reference managers.

I have been using Mendeley/Zotero to reference in my thesis, must I switch to EndNote?

No, you do not have to switch over to EndNote, especially if you are in the advanced stages of your thesis/dissertation. It can be a tedious and distracting exercise to switch over to EndNote at the later stages, so we recommend that you rather finish your current research project before switching over.

I have installed EndNote on my Mac device and clicked on it to run, but nothing seems to be happening

Unlike EndNote for Windows, EndNote Mac does not prompt you to create a new library the first time you launch the software and you need to do it manually. To learn more on how to do that, check Step 15 in the installation instructions here.

I have many folders in Mendeley, is there a way they can be replicated in EndNote?

Unfortunately, there is no way to replicate these folders and you will have to manually reorganise your references once you have imported your Mendeley library to EndNote.

Can I share my EndNote library or folders with colleagues?

Yes, you can either share your entire library, or specific folders (called Groups in EndNote) with colleagues. More about sharing with EndNote can be viewed in these PDFs:

Windows

EndNote 21 Library Sharing

MacOS

EndNote 21 Library Sharing

Can I use EndNote without internet access

Yes absolutely. EndNote works perfectly well without internet access. The online library serves more as a backup of your data.

How do I import references into EndNote

You can learn more about importing references here:

Windows

Adding a new reference

MacOS

Adding a new reference

How do I manage and edit citations in EndNote?

You can learn more about importing references here:

Windows

Managing citations

MacOS

Managing citations

For any enquiries please contact Kirchner van Deventer.