Your research outputs. For example, a book chapter, journal article, conference paper, or artwork exhibited at a gallery. For a detailed definition of a research output, see question 4.
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UCA Research Online (UCARO) is the online repository for UCA research outputs, providing a digital archive of research by the University's staff and PhD students.
This includes books, journal articles, conference papers, reports, PhD theses, and practice-based research outputs such as exhibitions, artworks, films, performances, and designs.
UCARO is available worldwide to the public, and where possible, the research outputs are openly available to read or view in full. UCARO also satisfies the open access requirements of many UK research funders, such as the REF Open Access Policy.
UCARO is the first repository designed specifically for research in the creative arts, and was launched in 2010 by the Jisc-funded Kultur project. It uses EPrints, which is free and open-source repository software from the University of Southampton.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for academic staff and PhD students at UCA, to support them with their research, in conjunction with the Library’s Scholarly Communications guides.
See the two minute video guide on how to deposit, or view the PDF guide below:
Your research outputs. For example, a book chapter, journal article, conference paper, or artwork exhibited at a gallery. For a detailed definition of a research output, see question 4.
All current UCA staff and UCA postgraduate research students. You do not need to be part of the REF submission, and you do not need to be employed on an academic contract, in order to share your research outputs on UCA Research Online.
Everyone can view UCA Research Online. It is an openly accessible collection for the research community and public to view worldwide. Public access can be restricted to certain outputs if required by the publisher or funder (see question 5 on publishers).
Research may be defined as "a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared (HEFCE 2011)." A research output is an item that you produce as the final outcome of that process, in order to share your findings with an appropriate audience.
UCA Research Online is intended as a permanent online library of these research outputs. It is not intended as a record of all research activities that are associated with or lead to an output, or promotional activities, media publicity received, or teaching materials. These are still important and can be recorded in other places such as personal websites, press releases, social media, or your UCA staff profile page.
Examples of what should go into UCA Research Online:
| Generally yes | Generally no |
| A journal article written by you about your own work | An article written by someone else that is about your work |
| An article in a professional magazine or scholarly journal | An article in a non-professional magazine |
| An academic lecture conveying original research contained in a new book | A talk at a book launch or publicity event |
| A paper at an academic conference | Organising a conference, lecture series etc |
| Confirmed outputs (such as books that are in press, or exhibitions that are firmly scheduled or in production) |
Provisional outputs that are still at the planning stage (such as a book proposal, outputs promised in a grant application, or an exhibition several years in the future) |
| A publication on pedagogical research, or textbooks authored by you | Course teaching materials |
Yes - most major publishers are happy for you to do this under certain conditions, which usually include:
The Library can help you to check and understand the policies of individual publishers and publications - contact ucaro@uca.ac.uk. You can also search for your journal's open access policy using Jisc's Open Policy Finder.
Please make a note of the link on UCARO and contact us at ucaro@uca.ac.uk. We will either return the output to your 'user workarea' for you to edit directly, or make a simple edit on your behalf.
You are welcome to deposit your previous outputs from as long ago as you would like. For staff with a large number of research outputs, please prioritise the most recent research outputs.
It is important not to view quantity as more important as quality, as outputs can vary in the time and effort required. For example, a single output could be a major authored book or a shorter journal article. If you feel that your outputs are not fully listed or represented in a way that you would like on UCA Research Online, contact us at ucaro@uca.ac.uk
Staff profiles on the main UCA website are managed by the UCA communications team. Please send updates to your staff profile to communications@uca.ac.uk.
REF has an Open Access Policy that requires journal articles to be uploaded to UCARO within three months of publication in order to be eligible. For further details, contact us at ucaro@uca.ac.uk or see our guide to Open Access Publishing. For advice on all other aspects of the REF, contact the Research Office at ROffice@uca.ac.uk.
If you need help with UCA Research Online (UCARO), please contact Amy Robinson in the Library at ucaro@uca.ac.uk
