Author: Marié Roux (Page 2 of 10)

Scholarly publishing is a growing concept in academic institutions and academic libraries are at the forefront of ensuring that authors get support related to scholarly communications. Wikipedia refers to scholarly communications as the “creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of academic research, primarily in peer-reviewed journals and books”. One of the foremost developments in scholarly communications in the past few years has been open access (OA), a concept that refers to making research freely available online without any access restrictions. Since the beginning of the 21st century, libraries have been involved in advocacy and promotion of OA to scholarly research to broaden access, increase visibility and deepen the impact of scholarly research. However, these efforts have been hampered by the existence of steep Article Processing Charges (APCs) and other restrictions in scholarly journals.

This prompted concerned bodies like the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), a South African non-profit consortium of mainly libraries of academic institutions that aims to negotiate the procurement of and securing access to information resources on behalf of its members to look at strategies to bring publishers on board in promoting OA. This resulted in some concessions from the publishers wherein they allow researchers from SANLiC member institutions to publish OA in selected hybrid journals without or only paying partial APCs. In South Africa, these agreements are termed the Transformational Agreements (TAs).

TAs are a shining light of change in the ever-changing world of academic publication, offering scholarly communication a more accessible, visible, and broader reach to a wide range of researchers. This year marks the third year that the first TAs were signed and, in this article, we look at the impact these have had on scholarly publishing at the University.

Our first interest was whether researchers at Stellenbosch University (SU) have taken advantage of the TAs. Figure 1 below shows that indeed researchers at SU have taken advantage of the TAs and this has been on an upward trend since we first signed these Agreements in 2021.

Figure 1: Increase in articles published OA through TAs

In 2023, the Institution received more requests to publish in hybrid journals than in fully open and subscription journals. Thanks to the TAs, many SU authors were able to publish without paying APCs. This does not only benefit the authors but also contributes to the visibility and impact of the Institution.

However, it is concerning that despite the availability of TAs, a few researchers still choose to lock their articles behind the paywalls thereby losing out on broader appeal, visibility and impact of their research as shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Choice of publishing model by SU researchers on TA-covered journals

The majority of SU researchers have taken advantage of the TAs. However, the reasons why other researchers still prefer the traditional model of locking their research behind paywalls are not clear.

Given that the University would have paid APCs to publish OA in these journals, TAs have also contributed to cost savings as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Estimate cost savings from APCs as a result of TAs

By 2023, the estimated cost of saving by publishing through the TAs, per publisher has been commendable. SU’s participation in these agreements saved the institution $1 053 761 (about R19 734 000) in article processing charges for 349 articles. Of the 349 articles, 112 were published in quartile 1 journals and 117 in quartile 2 journals.

In conclusion, transformational agreements at Stellenbosch University channels the growth within the openness concept, open access, and open knowledge sharing. The fact that some researchers still prefer to lock their research behind journal paywalls demonstrates the need for stronger advocacy and marketing as well as the provision of support to authors to ensure the rapid growth of OA scholarly publishing. Initiatives such as Open Access Week, outreach, workshops, and publishers training will continue to be used as tools to promote and raise awareness about open access publishing.

See more data about the articles published at SU in the Library’s statistics dashboard (go to the last tab about transformational agreements).

Authors: Sakhile Mngomezulu, Dr Siviwe Bangani

A picture says a thousand words, but how do you use these thousand words as a primary resource for research? Using photographs to conduct research requires a lot more than a quick glance and triggers an investigation on its own.

Photographs are visual representations of the memory of lives, landscapes, events, buildings, or objects within a specific time. The use of photographs can inspire a research topic, support it and serve as the primary source of your research.

Special Collections hold a variety of photo collections that can be accessed, by searching the finding aids on SUNDigital.  The photographs collections on SUNDigital range from 1900 to more recent and include photographs relating to the Anglo-Boer War, the Stellenbosch University and Victoria College history, photos from individual collections, and political events.  We have many more photos to access in specific individual collections.

The authenticity and integrity of the sources are essential, and the photographs must be interpreted and contextualised. Challenges when using photographs are mostly quality of photographs, limited information, copyright, and ethical use.

Here are some questions to ask when interrogating your primary resource:

• What is the event or context of when this photo was taken?
• Why was the photo taken and who is the audience (Is it for artistic, documentary, journalism, or marketing purposes)?
• What do you already know about the photo? (Such as an indication of the photographer, location, date or any other captions or descriptions associated with the photo, its subject matter and whether the individuals are identified or not and its background).
• Was the photo edited, cropped, or colorised? Did this editing change anything?

Herewith a few examples:

Prisoners of war on Burt’s Island, 1900 – WJ Leyds Collection

Brick-making – Walton Collection

Voter Education Poll 26 June 1990 (?) – IDASA Collection

Author: Marieta Buys

We are thrilled to inform you that we have new additions to the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service’s research support services.

 Welcome to  Xabiso Xesi: Manager Research Data Services

Xabiso Xesi

Xabiso Xesi joined the Library as the Manager of Research Data Services on 1 February 2024. Before joining us, Xabiso served as a Digital Scholarship Specialist at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) Libraries. However, he is no stranger to SU having previously worked as an Information Systems Coordinator at the University’s Division for Research Management. He brings extensive expertise in research data management, scholarly communication and information systems management which was gained during his time at the CPUT and SU. Armed with a Postgraduate Diploma in Knowledge and Information Systems Management from Stellenbosch University and a BCom Honours in Information Systems, he is completing an MPhil in Digital Curation at the University of Cape Town.

Researchers can consult with Xabiso on research data matters such as creating DMP plans, preserving research data, research data policies, tools for sharing research data and data citation.

He can be contacted at xabiso@sun.ac.za or 021 808 9489.

Welcome to Sakhile Mngomezulu: Manager Scholarly Communications and Open Access

Sakhile Mngomezulu

Sakhile Mngomezulu joined the Library as the Manager: Scholarly Communications and Open Access on 1 February 2024. Previously, he served as Senior Librarian: Institutional Repository and Systems Support at North-West University following a role as Librarian: Scholarly Communications at the same institution. Sakhile also worked as an Information Specialist at the Varsity College IIE and at the Management College of Southern Africa. He holds a Bachelor of Information Studies degree from the University of Limpopo and a Master of Information Science Degree from the University of South Africa. He is presently enrolled for a Ph.D. in Information Science at the University of South Africa.

Researchers can consult Sakhile with queries related to advice on open access publishing options including transformational agreements, open access initiatives, and publishers and consortia relationship management.

He can be contacted at sakhilemn@sun.ac.za or 021 808 9907.

Author: Dr Siviwe Bangani

On 20 October 2010, Stellenbosch University (SU) became the first university in Africa to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. In signing the declaration, the then Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Russel Botman committed the university to “…firstly encourage… researchers to deposit their material in SUNScholar, our open access repository. And secondly, … to openly sharing our research output with the rest of the world”.  Open access (OA) refers to the practice of making research outputs immediately available online without any access restrictions.

OA is applicable to all research outputs including journal articles, conference papers and books. The OA vision was necessitated by several factors including the prohibitive costs of journal subscriptions and the need for universities to share information. In South Africa, OA can also serve to ensure equal access to information irrespective of a university’s financial status and background hence its support by the National Research Foundation (NRF). That way OA in South Africa also plays a social redress and justice role. The NRF mandates that all research outputs produced from research funded partially or in full by NRF be deposited to institutional repositories with an embargo period of no more than 12 months.

In this article, a month after the 13^th anniversary of the signing of the Berlin Declaration by SU, we attempt to unpack OA as well as indicate how the Library supports the journey towards OA at SU. Firstly, however, it is important to provide a greater understanding of the types of OA as well as the benefits that the University can accrue from OA publishing.

What are some of the open access publishing models for researchers?

When librarians conduct OA webinars, they often encounter a question about one publishing model of open access or the other. OA has 6 models:

• Gold open access – this is considered the golden standard of OA. Articles published in this format are made freely and permanently available online.
• Green open access – final version of the accepted manuscript is deposited in an institutional repository with specific information about how the article may be used.
• Diamond open access – this refers to journals that provide free access for authors to publish without a requirement to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs). These journals are supported by institutions and may be published through institutional repositories.
• Hybrid open access – this is a type of open access where subscription journals offer open access option provided authors pays APCs.
• Bronze open access – in this type, the article will be freely available, but the journal does not have open license which means they retain all the rights to the article including the possibility that they may decide to change it in future.
• Black open access – this is an illegal open access model, where non-openly licensed articles are illegally and illicitly shared among researchers (e.g., Sci-Hub, ResearchGate etc.).

What are the benefits of OA publishing?

• OA exposes your research to a wider audience, thereby making it more visible.
• This visibility increases its impact in terms of reach and depth.
• This increases the prospects of meeting potential collaborators nationally, internationally, interdisciplinary, intradisciplinary etc.
• Ensures greater compliance with funder mandates.
• May serve to decrease instances of academic dishonesty and fraud although the reverse may also be true.

How does the Library support open access publishing?

The Library supports open access in various ways.

• Advocacy for OA – The Library is a staunch advocate of OA institutionally, nationally and internationally. OA is often one of the topics in our Library Research Week programme and it is included in our researcher empowerment programme, #SmartResearcher Workshops. Each year, the Library celebrates OA Week by hosting webinars and other events on open access. Our Senior Director, Ms Ellen Tise is a sought after speaker in national and international conferences on OA topics. The Library also hosts a LibGuide dedicated to open access resources at https://libguides.sun.ac.za/open_access as well as an open access page at https://library.sun.ac.za/en-za/Research/oa/Pages/default.aspx
•  Hosting institutional repositories – The Library hosts a number of OA repositories.
  SUNScholar is a leading digital archive for the preservation and promotion of the research output of Stellenbosch University. The repository is meant to curate, preserve and facilitate the sharing of research outputs associated with SU.  It is a primary storage of all SU Theses and Dissertations. The repository also hosts OA journals, manuscripts, articles, conference papers etc. According to the NRF OA Statement referred to in the introduction, it is critical that not only research output be deposited in institutional repositories but also datasets used in research.
  SUNScholarData is an institutional research data repository which is used for the registration, archival storage, sharing and dissemination of research data produced or collected in relation to research conducted under the auspices of Stellenbosch University.
  Another repository of Stellenbosch University that seeks to showcase the University’s digital content from the Library’s unique digital collections and repositories is SUNDigital Collections. Collections in this repository include music, images, South African literature, finding aids for manuscript collections, African and Southern African archives and African and Southern African history.
•  Negotiating transformational agreements – As part of the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), the Library negotiates and promotes transformational agreements with publishers. These agreements are described as contracts negotiated between institutions and publishers that transform the business model underlying scholarly publishing towards a fully open access model. The full list of publishers with transformational agreements with South African university libraries can be found at: https://library.sun.ac.za/en-za/announcements/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=348

Conclusion

Since the signing of the Berlin Declaration on OA by Stellenbosch University in 2010, great strides have been made towards OA. Open access has served to increase the global reach of the research completed at SU benefiting researchers and communities alike. However, more still needs to be done to ensure that most if not all of the university’s research is openly accessible. This goes a long way towards ensuring equal access by reducing the gap between the information poor and information rich. In addition, the University is yet to find ways of evaluating the impact of OA as well as rewarding open science and scholarship. Therefore, it is critical that open access is considered in rewarding scholarship and innovation to encourage researchers to publish in open access journals.

Author: Dr Siviwe Bangani

When researching social history, one of the interesting resources will be newspapers or magazines.  In the case of Stellenbosch University, the student publications are some of the most interesting and entertaining research material.  The philosophy, interest and reasoning of the students open a new window into social and cultural history. The publications we hold start from 1885 and focus on campus life, sport, politics, art and literature and other entertainment.

One of the earliest student publications in our collection is the Stellenbosch College Ramkie dating back to 1885.  Volume II no. 8 of 11 March 1885 starts with the words:

 “The voice of reason readily commands the ear of the student.”

These are handwritten documents, not always easily readable and only four pages long.  With the papers as brittle and damaged as it is, digitisation is a wonderful way of preserving them.  When scanning and uploading the documents to SUNDigital, the authenticity of the publications becomes more visible.

The Stellenbosch College Times followed the Ramkie and was published between August 1885 and September 1886 and the short-lived The Victorian in 1888. The digitisation of the printed Stellenbosch Students Annual  1892- 1897 and the Stellenbosch Students’ Quarterly, Vol 1-23  (1898 – 1920) is still ongoing.

“Die Matie” was the official student newspaper of Stellenbosch University since 1 August 1941. This collection spans editions up to October 2011.

The need to communicate with Alumni and Donors became more and more apparent. The “Die Stellenbosse Oudstudent” was published until 1947 and in 1957 Matieland was established.  Matieland 1957-2020 is available on the University Archive web-page.

You can visit Special Collections or the University Archive and make an appointment to consult more of these sources and photo collections.

Author: Marieta Buys

The Library can assist researchers in analysing their research and publications towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The easiest way will be with the assistance of the “Analyse results” option in Web of Science. You can find the results with a click of a button:

• Do an author search in the database Web of Science
• Click on the list of publications indexed by Web of Science
• Click on Analyse results
• A long list of analyses is available from the drop-down button
• Choose Sustainable Development Goals at the bottom of the list
• You can view the results in a TreeMap chart, Bar chart or table and you can download the visualisations.
• There is also an option to download the results and visualise it in any other way.

SDG TreeMap chart in Web of Science

The Library can also assist you with the following methods:

•  A Researcher Impact Report where a wide range of metrics is provided, including your contribution towards the different SDGs. This information will be sourced either from Web of Science or SciVal, depending on which database indexes your publications the best.

SDG section of a PowerBi report (Researcher Impact Report)

• You are welcome to request only the SDG information if you are not interested in the other metrics.
• A SciVal report per SDG is also available for the whole institution which could be analysed by author. The limitation is that the analyses will only be for a maximum of 10 years and will therefore not give a complete picture of a researcher’s research output if it exceeds the 10-year period.

Enquiries: Marié Roux

Data collection is an instrumental part of scientific research. Data collection is a systematic method of obtaining, observing, measuring, and analysing accurate information to support research findings. Collecting data is not limited to a single research field, and all researchers may from time to time collect data personally (primary data) and or use data that was collected by fellow researchers (secondary data) for a different research purpose. While research techniques and goals may vary, the general data collection methods used in the process are essentially the same. In other words, there are specific standards that need to be strictly followed and implemented to make sure that data is collected accurately. However, collecting accurate data is not enough if it will not be stored and secured safely. As way of ensuring good research data management (RDM) practice within Stellenbosch University (SU) researcher community, the university provides several SU pre-approved data collection tools (and support) to researchers. See a discussion below about some of the tools:

Stellenbosch University Microsoft Teams

All SU researchers are eligible to receive Microsoft Office365 software at no extra charge. This means that SU researchers can collect and share data using the pre-approved platforms to ensure that their research data is collected and stored safely and remains accessible any time. This helps minimise chances of data loss as the institutional Information Technology service desk controls this infrastructure.

SUNSurveys

SUNSurveys is an SU pre-approved web-based e-Survey service that is available to support SU researchers and may be used to conduct online surveys for their academic research. SUNSurveys is also regularly used for staff opinion polls, voting and service delivery surveys.

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)

REDCap is a secure web platform for building and managing online databases and surveys. This platform is available to all SU researchers at no extra charge. REDCap’s streamlined process for rapidly creating and designing projects offers a vast array of tools that can be tailored to virtually any data collection strategy. Moreover, REDCap provides automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to Excel and common statistical packages (SPSS, SAS, Stata, R), as well as a built-in project calendar, a scheduling module, ad hoc reporting tools, and advanced features, such as branching logic, file uploading, and calculated fields.

There are various other pre-approved data collection tools that are available to SU researchers. It is also worth noting that all SU pre-approved tools exist to ensure that researchers adhere to good data management practices throughout the research process. Please see the image below for a more detailed outlook on SU pre-approved research data collection tools.

Author: Sizwe Ngcobo

Did you know that the Library offers the following bibliometric reports to evaluate your research impact:

1. Basic metrics information

This report will include the H-Index from the different databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, etc.
The information will be shared via e-mail or in Excel format.

 2. Full Researcher Impact Report

This full report will be in the format of a Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow which will include the following:

• A summary page that includes all the important metrics, such as the H-Index from different databases, the M-Index, the G-Index and other indices. The total publications and citations per year, and per database. Your top article in Altmetrics. The top 2 highly cited articles in Scopus or Web of Science and a few other important metrics.
• VosViewer visualisation  – Co-authorship analysis.
• VosViewer visualisation  – Citations analysis.
• PowerBi report which includes visualisations of all the important metrics related to your research output, from a specific database such as Scopus or Web of Science, depending on where most of your articles are indexed.
• Guidance on the responsible use of metrics.
• Methodology: Explanation of the tools used as well as links to your author profiles in the different databases.
• Glossary: Explanation of all the important terms used in the report.

The information will be shared in a PowerPoint template, including the PowerBi report embedded in PowerPoint. A link to the PowerBi report will also be shared as well as an Excel document with underlying data, including your top 50 articles in Altmetrics.

3. SciVal Reports

A range of different reports could be created by means of SciVal which is based on Scopus data. A specific date range will be chosen, of which the longest period is 10 years. A wide range of metrics are available.

Request your report from your Faculty Librarian or contact Marié Roux to coordinate the request.

Visit our Research Impact library guide for more information.

Do you need to submit your thesis or dissertation? The Library’s help page on the thesis/dissertation submission procedure will help you to find all the relevant information you need.

SUNScholar repository

You will find valuable information on who does what, and when. There are specific processes to follow, and this page gives step-by-step guidance on how to complete these processes, for both supervisor and student.

There are various title page templates and declaration templates to download.  For the student using LaTeX, there is a link via TexLive or MikTeX, to download the software.

Please send your enquiries to scholar@sun.ac.za. There will also be a training session on how to submit your thesis on 20 February. Please book your space here.

SUNScholarData repository

For students who need to submit their research data along with their thesis or dissertation, the following will give guidance on the process.

1. How to Upload a Single File
2. How to Upload Multiple Files
3. How to Publish a File

Further guidance relating to the use of SUNScholarData can be found in the SUNScholarData Library Guide.

Enquiries: rdm@sun.ac.za.

The theme for this year’s OA Week “Community over Commercialisation” encourages a candid conversation about approaches to open scholarship that prioritise the best interests of the public and academic community.  According to UNESCO, by prioritising the community we can prevent the “inequitable extraction of profit from publicly funded scientific activities”.  The theme can be applied to various case scenarios you might find within the research cycle.

Stellenbosch University Library will engage in an active panel discussion that will address the aspects of transformational agreements and their impact on the publisher, author, and research-intensive institution.  The research community is hereby invited to join and actively participate in this discussion and find out how these agreements work within the SU research community.

Venue: Stellenbosch University Library, Auditorium
Date: Monday, 23 October 2023
Time: 11h00 – 12h00

Bookings: In-person or online

Should you have any questions for the panel, please send it to scholar@sun.ac.za.
Please take note that the discussion will be streamed, and the recording will be available on YouTube after the event.

Enquiries: Songezo Mpikashe