The Right to Research Coalition has announced a new student guide to publishing openly, entitled “Optimize Your Publishing, Maximize Your Impact.”  This new resource presents students with the ways in which they can make their research openly available for the widest possible readership and lays out the benefits of doing so – both as authors and as readers.  How do you know where to submit your manuscript?  What are the factors that go into deciding the most appropriate publication outlet?  Which journal will give your article the widest audience? Where to publish is too important of a decision to put off until the end of the research process.

In addition to information on open-access journals, repositories, and authors’ rights, the guide includes a publishing choices decision tree outlining the different opportunities to make an article openly available throughout the publication process.  The publication process can be complicated, and an article can still be made openly available even if it’s published in a subscription-based journal.  The decision tree lays out all of the options, so students understand the flexibility they have when deciding to make their work openly accessible.

While there are many general, how-to resources for open publishing, this guide is specifically tailored to address students’ concerns when it comes to publishing an article and launching their research career.  From how to approach a research advisor about Open Access to the dividends the open access citation advantage can pay when launching a career, students are in a unique position when it comes to deciding to publish openly.

The new resource is also designed to be flexible. Not only can students use it to educate themselves and their peers about open publishing choices, but faculty can also use it to start the conversation with their students.  And, librarians can integrate it into their scholarly communication programs, especially during library orientation for new students.  There is also space on the final page for the guide to be localized to a particular institution and include information on a campus’ institutional repository or open-access policy.

Today’s students are tomorrow researchers, and this guide will help students make informed decisions about how and where to publish their work for maximum impact.

The Right to Research Coalition's open publishing guide was produced with generous support from the Open Society Foundations.

Cross-posted from our blog at: http://www.righttoresearch.org/blog/r2rc-launches-new-open-publishi...