Hogan Vacant Possession

UAL Research Online

UAL Research Online (UALRO) is the Library’s digital, online collection of the research produced by UAL’s faculty. The Library set it up in 2009 and continues to manage it as a service to researchers and a global showcase of UAL’s research. The collection is openly available online, with hundreds of visitors a day coming to browse and download our work, for free. Through UALRO the University accomplishes its goals of raising the profile of research, opening up access to it around the world and preserving it in perpetuity.

Built by the JISC-funded Kultur project, UAL Research Online is the first repository specifically designed for research in creative arts design and media. It currently contains journal articles, monographs, book chapters, conference papers, conference proceedings, exhibitions, video, audio, images and selected post-graduate theses. It is also able to manage software, datasets, workshop presentations, patents and approved PhD theses.

As an Open Access research repository, UAL Research Online satisifes the requirements of many UK funding bodies (e.g.,the UK research councils, the Wellcome Trust and the European Research Council) to make the results of publically-funded research available to the public.

The University also uses UALRO’s collection internally, as it is the only university-wide record of our research outputs. Ideally, researchers only have to enter details of their ongoing research outputs in one place – UALRO – and any other college or university body can then collect this data from UALRO. The collection also feeds into UAL’s REF 2014 submission; starting with the metadata and content in UALRO when the University put together its submission. Indeed, for the next REF, all articles published in academic journals will have to be openly accessible (i.e., downloadable for free, in full) or they cannot be submitted. UALRO is the way to ensure that journal articles are Open Access. Staff should deposit the final version of an article (the version that has been accepted at the end of the peer review process) to UALRO, as well as the published pdf if there is one, and UALRO staff will make sure it satisfies the new requirements.

All staff members at UAL can set up an account at UALRO to deposit their research outputs: written texts, objects, performances, exhibitions, films, etc. Staff are asked to give a few details about their research output and upload some content (for example, a scan of a book cover, a recording of a performance, the text of a journal article, chapter or paper given at a conference, installation shots of an exhibition, photos of the artworks, and any born-digital research). UALRO staff will edit it and contact staff if they have any queries or advice, and then they will add it to the online collection. UALRO will help make sure staff don’t breach anyone’s copyright, and they will protect the work against anyone doing the same to staff’s own copyright in the work.

For more information about UALRO contact Stephanie Meece and Alex Kohn, Scholarly Communications Office, Library Services.

Image: Eileen Hogan, Vacant Possession, New Art Centre Roche Court February 2013 cc by nc nd

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