The Library provides support for research staff through your entire career at Essex. This page is intended to give you a quick overview of what the Library's Research Services team offers staff.
If there is anything you would like us to add to our support or you have any questions, please let us know.
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From October 2024, the University's new Author Rights Retention policy came into effect.
This policy means that, by default, authors will retain control over the copyright of their Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) when publishing outputs that are within the scope of the policy. This comes with many benefits, including:
For more information on the policy, including what outputs fall within its scope, suggested actions for authors, and key benefits of the policy, see the Library's Author Rights Retention page.
Summer 2023 saw the launch of the University's Open Access Fund . One year on, the Open Access Publishing Team are celebrating a successful first year , with 50 journal articles, 6 monographs, and 5 chapters published, and many more in the pipeline.
The team has been working hard to make the process as simple as possible for our researchers to use the fund. Authors who are interested in publishing just need to complete either a form for books and chapters , or a form for journal articles , ideally as early in the process as possible so we can support you throughout. There is now also a single dedicated email address for any queries (oapublish@essex.ac.uk).
We're pleased to see open access increasingly become the norm, and open research initiatives more generally being adopted. We're keen to work with colleagues where we can to learn how you are opening up your research process and what support we can provide you, so please get in touch with any ideas.
We're thrilled to say the Essex Student Journal has grown exponentially over the past few years. Since the Library relaunched ESTRO as the Essex Student Journal in 2020, we've turned over 60 Essex students into published authors.
To ensure that we can continue to provide this opportunity to future students, we have adopted a new submission cycle to be able to better manage the publication process and support our student authors effectively.
Previously, we accepted submissions year-round. This year, submissions will be closing from October 1 2024, reopening in the 2025 Spring Term and remaining open until the Summer break. We expect that this will become the cycle we follow in future years for the foreseeable future.
More information about the submission process is available on the Journal's website . If you or students have any questions about the Journal, please get in touch with the team.
Whilst the Essex Student Journal has always accepted creative writing alongside academic writing, it has been the minority of what we published.
So, in 2023/24 we relaunched our creative writing submissions with new support and processes to ensure it was clear to students that they were welcome to submit their creative works for publication.
Undergraduate and PGT students can submit short fiction and poetry up to 3000 words. We recognise that creativity can grow in all disciplines, so they don't need to have studied creative writing in order to submit.
PGRs can volunteer as peer reviewers to review creative writing submissions. They do need to have studied creative writing at some level, ideally postgraduate, to ensure they can provide informed and constructive feedback. We ask that they list "Creative Writing" in their profile interests so we can more easily identify them.
We're keen to see creative writing at the Journal grow in the years to come, and have many ideas in the works to support it. We're looking forward to seeing and supporting our students' creativity!
We are seeking academic colleagues to join the new Advisory Board for the Essex Student Journal. The board meets termly to provide their subject expertise and insights to help with the running and development of the Journal.
The creation of the Advisory Board will also aid our future plans to be indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. This will increase the value for our students of publishing with the Essex Student Journal and visibility of their work.
Find out more about the board and how to sign up.
The Library and its resources are available to all staff at Essex. You can find all the support we offer, including the Library Search function, via our home page. You may also find what you're looking for in our Subject Guides.
Where you need to login to access resources, you will typically use your University username/email and password. To avoid paywalls, we also have guidance on finding and using high-quality open access resources.
If you find a resource that the Library does not subscribe or otherwise have access to, you can request a resource and our Library team will try to provide a version for you. This can include books, articles, and other academic materials relevant to your work.
The Library also maintains a number of art and special collections, including ESCALA , the University Art Collection, and many special collections/archives. You can find more information about them and book to view them online .
If you need any help accessing resources, get in touch and your query will be directed to the relevant Library colleague.
Open research is gaining momentum as a force to help address inequalities in academia whilst supporting researchers, new and established, to ensure the integrity and visibility of their work. Open access is a key tool, but many more are growing in popularity.
The Library supports open access publishing in many ways. Publishing open access helps to make your work more visible and typically increases citations, as well as making vital research available to everyone, regardless of how much funding they have.
We provide dedicated open access funds, maintain Read and Publish Agreements with many publishers, and helped establish the University's Author Rights Retention Policy to help Essex researchers publish as many of their scholarly outputs open access as possible.
Have a look at the options to make your work open access or get in touch with the Open Access Publishing Team if you have any questions on making your work openly available.
At Essex, we are committed to making research as open as possible, and as closed as necessary. This is expressed through the institutional Open Research Position Statement . So, we are increasingly looking at how we can support the opening up of the whole research process where it makes sense for researchers to do so. There are a lot of small changes researchers can make to make their work more open, and no-one needs to do everything at once. You can find more information on our Open research guide.
One simple way to get started is to join the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) . The local branch is newly established to build a community across disciplines to support researchers who are interested in open and reproducible research. This can help you start making a difference for your own research and beyond.
Sharing your research with the world is a crucial part of your role. The Library provides support for helping you navigate the whole publishing process. We can help you find an appropriate journal to publish in and publish your articles, conference proceedings, or monographs open access. This can help you avoid predatory publishers and ensure that your articles and books are available to students.
We also offer advice on copyright, whether that be regulations and licences related to publishing your research, data, and resources, or related to ensuring you are providing educational resources to students legally. We also support students with copyright questions too.
We know that publishing can be a complex process, so please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
The Library oversees the University's two repositories: the research repository and the data repository .
It is a requirement that your research is deposited in the research repository to ensure it is REF-eligible. The recent Rights Retention Policy makes this easier for you to do as all major publishers have been notified that you will be making your author's accepted manuscripts available open access in a research repository.
We would strongly recommend that you deposit your data in a relevant repository, where you are able to. It's possible to embargo or restrict access to it, but even having the metadata available can help improve the visibility of your research and, the more you make public, the more people can build on your work. This is especially important if your research is publicly funded.
If you have any questions about the University repositories, you can find more information on the University's website . You can also contact the repository manager. If you have any questions about publishing open access, contact the Open Access Publishing Team.
Publishing your research is not the final step - you also need people to read it!
There are lots of things you can do to increase the visibility of your work and make it more likely it's read and cited. You don't need to do everything, but finding some key things that work for you can really help to get the right people reading your work.
Our Research Visibility and Citations guide introduces key concepts and tools that can help your work be more visible. Increasing your own visibility as a researcher can also help establish you as an expert in your field. Our guide on online research profiles can help you get started.
ORCID and Google Scholar are two key profiles that the University require its researchers to create and connect to the Research Information System (RIS). These profiles are effective in boosting your visibility and the visibility of your work. The Library can support you to create and connect these profiles - see our quick guide for more information.
The University Communications Team can also help with areas such as engaging with the media and using social media, so be sure to check out their support too. If you have any questions about how the Library can help you, get in touch with our Research Support Team.
The Library and its teams provide support to students and staff on all three campuses. Students and staff can borrow resources, use study spaces, and speak to staff on any campus, regardless of where you are usually based.
The most up-to-date information about opening hours and other service updates is available online. If you or a student have a query and don't know who to reach out to, contact us via email and our friendly team will direct you to the right place.
The Library offers a range of support directly to students and to staff in their work with students, the key aspects of which are highlighted below.
The Library hosts and provides support for your modules' Reading Lists. We can help you navigate and build reading lists for your modules in the online reading list system. Once you've created your lists, we ensure that the resources are accessible to your students and work with you to find alternatives where we cannot provide them.
Have a look at our guidance for staff to find out more about creating and managing your reading lists.
We also have guidance for students to help them navigate and access the resources on their reading lists that we encourage you to share with them.
Whilst we aim to ensure all essential readings and as many recommended readings as possible are available to students, if they find a resource that the Library does not subscribe or otherwise have access to, they can request a resource and our Library team will try to provide a version for them.
Each department is looked after by a specialist librarian who you can speak to for advice on library skills for staff and students, subject-specific resources, content for your modules, and much more. Each also maintains Subject Guides for their departments that we encourage you and students to use to help find relevant resources and skills.
They're always happy to talk to you, so feel free to drop them an email introducing yourself when you start:
We are also happy to answer direct emails from students, but we'd encourage you to arrange timetabled teaching sessions in the first instance to help ensure we can continue to provide support to students sustainably. If needed, students individually or in groups can book a meeting with a librarian, where they can discuss queries they have on finding representative literature, evaluating sources, referencing, and more.
Skills at Library is a set of resources, workshops, and activities that guides students through key information literacy and library skills.
It acts as a great introduction for new students or refresher for returning students and staff. It can be completed as a training course or dipped into as needed, making it a flexible resource for all students and researchers. We encourage you to share it with your students where you can.
Key areas covered include:
The Library's Academic and Research Services Team can provide workshops or timetabled sessions for your students on a wide variety of library and information literacy topics, including referencing, literature searching, and information management. Our specialist librarians can also provide subject-specific support, for example navigating subject-specific databases, policy documents, and legal cases.
Find more information on the topics covered and how to book sessions on our Teaching Offer page.
The Essex Student Journal (ESJ) is a formal open access journal that is managed by the Library to provide students at all levels the opportunity to gain experience of a journal's publishing process.
Undergraduate and PGT students can publish their work and learn what is involve in submitting, revising, and publicising their submission. By the end, they will have gained a formal open access publication in their name, learned about publishing and open access, and developed their writing and reviewing skills. They can find more information about submitting on the ESJ website.
For PGRs, we offer the opportunity to peer review submissions, giving them training and experience of this vital community service in a supportive environment. We are always looking for more reviewers, so encourage any PGRs you know to volunteer today .
Additionally, we recruit a new Student Journal Editor annually from our PGR community, giving them practical experience of the editing and publishing process. The advert for this role usually goes live each July, so be sure to let any PGRs know about it.
Staff can also get involved by joining the Journal's Advisory Board . We meet termly to get your ideas and expert subject knowledge to inform how the Journal runs and develops.
Except where otherwise noted, this work by University of Essex Library and Cultural Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
