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Historians look to an open access future

Quick update from your OA support team


On the first day of Open Access Week 2014 we made a visit to the Postgraduate Early Modern and Modern History Forum. Despite the fact that the attendees had yet to begin their publishing careers, we were invited to talk about routes to open access, funder policies, and 'how open access might affect the way early career academics go about publishing'. The students were particularly interested in hearing about the benefits of open access, such as enabling reuse by readers without journals subscriptions, easier referencing through social media or translation into other languages. They were also keen to know how they can go about depositing their work in Research@StAndrews:FullText, given that students currently don't have access to the University's Research Information System, PURE, which handles the deposit process for publications.

We will take this feedback on board, and look at ways we can meet the needs of our new 'Generation Open'. As we continue visiting Schools around the University, lets hope the other disciplines are as forward-thinking as the historians!


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