The accepted manuscript (AM) or author's accepted manuscript (AAM) of a research output is the author's final version, responding to peer reviewer comments, but prior to the publisher's final copyediting, typesetting and formatting.
Altmetrics (short for alternative metrics) are non-traditional indicators that measure the broader impact of scholarly research beyond academic citations. They capture online engagement such as mentions in news articles, social media, blogs, policy documents, and platforms like Mendeley. By reflecting how research is discussed and used in real time by the public, professionals, and policymakers, altmetrics complement traditional citation metrics. Tools like Altmetric Explorer, PlumX, and Overton help researchers and institutions track and visualise this wider impact.
An article processing charge (APC) is a fee paid by authors (or their institutions or funders) to make a research article open access and freely available to readers without a subscription or paywall.
Many academic book publishers will also allow a book or book chapter to be made open access for a fee, often called a book processing charge (BPC).
Bibliographic databases are databases which include records of individual articles, reports and other publications from a selection of journals, books and other sources. These databases have many functions which support complex searching. They may be focused on a particular discipline or be multidisciplinary. They may be full-text or provide links to either full-text or interlibrary loan request forms. They usually have editorial processes to determine which sources are indexed within the database.
Bibliometric databases, also known as citation databases, are specialised tools used to collect and analyse quantitative data about academic publications. They focus on metrics such as citation counts, publication trends, author productivity, journal impact, and collaboration networks. These databases are widely used for research evaluation, institutional benchmarking, and often provide detailed researcher profiles. Common examples include OpenAlex, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS).
See Illegal (black) open access.
See Free (bronze) open access.
Community-controlled open access (also known as diamond open access) refers to open access journals that do not have article processing charges (APCs). They are free for authors to publish in and free for readers to access. They are usually funded by universities, governments, societies or associations. Journals hosted on Open Journals at Deakin are examples of community-controlled (diamond) open access publications.
Controlled vocabularies are pre-determined, consistent index terms used for labelling records in databases. They are usually specific to the database and are aligned with the discipline area. They may be allocated to records by either human indexers or by machines. They provide powerful search functionality. There are often scope notes associated with the terms to assist with searcher term selection. They are often arranged in hierarchies.
Creative Commons is a globally recognised licensing system that allows a creator to govern what the public can do with their work. There are a range of Creative Commons licences to choose from, each with their own conditions.
Critical appraisal is the process of reviewing the quality of individual studies prior to including them in an evidence synthesis. There are many tools and checklists available to help support this appraisal.
Research data management planning includes all activities associated with research data, other than actually using the data – e.g. documenting plans for data custodianship, storage and transfer, safety and security, access, description, ownership, reuse and sharing, retention, destruction, and what will happen to the data when the researcher leaves Deakin.
Datacite is a registration agency that provides unique digital identifiers (DOIs) for scholarly content, allowing for persistent links that do not change even if the content they point to does. Datacite is the registrar of the DOIs created for DRO records.
Research funders strongly encourage data sharing, and many journals now require it. Describing and publishing datasets includes choosing an appropriate research data repository, creating a metadata record to enable discoverability of the dataset by other researchers, and making the dataset available by open or mediated access.
See Community-controlled (diamond) open access.
DOAJ is the leading directory of OA journals, providing details of OA journals and their policies. Many OA journals are also indexed in DOAJ, which can be searched at the article level. DOAJ also has high quality control standards to weed out predatory journals.
DRO (Deakin Research Online) is Deakin’s institutional repository, and stores all of the research outputs produced by the university's researchers. It runs on the Figshare platform, and receives the research outputs recorded in Symplectic Elements. DRO also collects Special Collections, theses and datasets. DRO stores the full-text of research outputs as a version of record, and presents them to the public if eligible for Open Access.
Symplectic Elements is Deakin University’s research information management system. It allows for the tracking, managing, and reporting on the research outputs produced by our researchers. Elements is only accessible to Deakin staff, but data it stores flows into our institutional repository, DRO (Deakin Research Online) and Find an Expert, which is viewable to the public.
Evidence based practice (EBP) is the process of using best available research evidence combined with clinical expertise and patient values to make decisions about healthcare. There are 5 steps to the process (known as the 5As): Ask> Acquire> Assess> Apply> Audit.
Expert searching is generally regarded as the process of developing exhaustive searches for evidence syntheses. Searches use a range of subject headings, field codes, filters and other search techniques, and should take a systematic approach across multiple information sources.
In 2016, the F.A.I.R. Policy Statement was released by Universities Australia. It encourages the use of OA publishing and Creative Commons licences to make Australian research Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. It aims to promote greater impact for Australian research by removing barriers to access.
Filters are pre-determined searches on a very focused topic (such as a particular type of research design or a common topic). These are often validated for a particular database and platform but can be translated or adapted into different databases. They are designed to be incorporated into a larger search strategy to focus the search. A commonly used filter is one used in health databases to limit search results to Randomised Controlled Trials.
Find an Expert is Deakin's staff profile system. It is a module of Symplectic Elements, allowing users to discover the academic and industry expertise of Deakin University's researchers, for the purposes of collaboration or candidature.
Free open access (also known as bronze open access) refers to articles that are free to read online, but lack clear licensing (e.g. Creative Commons). This lack of licensing can create barriers to the research being shared or used for educational purposes (Costello, 2019).
Grey literature refers to material that is not published through traditional or commercial publishers. It may refer to government or organisation reports published on website. It may also refer to conference presentations and abstracts or ephemeral material such as physical brochures.
See Publisher (gold) open access.
See Repository (green) open access.
Hybrid journals offer subscription based content, but allow authors to pay an article processing charge to make their article open access.
Hybrid journals are often criticised for ‘double dipping’ since readers or libraries must pay a subscription to access certain journal articles, and authors must pay to make their work open access.
Illegal open access (also known as black open access) refers to paywalled (closed) research that has been illegally uploaded to file sharing websites.
An in-press version is an early publisher's version of a journal article. It may appear on the publisher's website prior to the article's final publication. The in-press version typically includes the publisher's copyediting, typesetting, fonts, and formatting, but without final pagination.
An institutional repository, or research repository, is an archive collecting, disseminating, and preserving the research output of a university. Deakin's institutional repository is DRO. Most journals allow the accepted manuscript of an article to be made Green OA in the author's institutional repository.
An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a unique identifier for books and book-like products. Deakin University has a large amount of ISBNs that can be assigned to various researcher ouputs as required. The Copyright team manages this service.
An ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, is a unique identifier for a series of works. No one at Deakin assigns these, they can be obtained from the National Library of Australia.
Journal rankings are assessments or lists that evaluate academic journals based on factors such as their impact, citation frequency, reputation and influence within a specific field of study. The two primary sources for journal rankings are the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) which relies on Scopus data, and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) which utilises the Web of Science dataset.
Mediated searching is the process of librarians working collaboratively with researchers to design and develop complex searches.
Non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) refer to research outputs that go beyond conventional academic publications like journal articles or books. These include datasets, creative arts, music performances, government or non-government reports, policy documents, recordings, presentations or posters, etc.
Open access (OA) is a publishing movement aimed at making research freely available online. Fully open access research is free for the public to access, read, download, copy, share or use for any other lawful purpose. This approach to open access was established in the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) and Berlin Declaration (2003).
Open Educational Resources (OER) are openly accessible resources used in learning and teaching.These include OA textbooks, OA journal and book publications, and other resources with Creative Commons licences.
UNESCO defines OER as "teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions."
ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a unique, persistent identifier for researchers. It distinguishes individual researchers, ensuring proper attribution of work, and aids in linking research activities across various platforms and databases, including Elements and DRO.
Closed access research appears behind a "paywall" that requires users to either buy the article or book in question, or subscribe to the journal.
Researchers can often access "paywalled" research through their university library, however, access will depend on what journal and database subscriptions have the university has purchased.
See accepted manuscript.
Use of the term post-print is not always consistent. It most often refers to the author's accepted manuscript, not the published version, especially in discussions of OA.
See submitted manuscript.
Use of the term pre-print is not always consistent. It most often refers to the author's submitted manuscript, not the accepted manuscript, especially in discussions of OA.
Proof reading refers to the process of reviewing search strategies for appropriate syntax use, search term spelling and broad appropriateness of search terms to the search question or topic.
Protocols are the plans that are written to guide systematic reviews (and sometimes other types of reviews). These protocols include a master search for the topic. They are often registered or otherwise published. The protocol supports minimising bias in the final review, and changes made to the protocol may need to be justified and documented in the final review. Whilst not all review guidelines require a protocol, they are good practice.
The published version of a research output is its final version, usually in PDF format. It will include the publisher's copyediting, typesetting, formatting, and pagination. Also called the publisher's PDF, in-print version, or version of record.
Publisher open access (also known as gold open access) refers to research articles that are made freely available to everyone immediately upon publication, typically requiring an article processing charge (APC) paid by the authors or their funders.
Read-and-publish agreements are when libraries pay a flat fee to cover both subscription access to closed journal content and the open access article processing charges for their authors.
Referencing tools are used to collect, organise, annotate, cite and share research. Examples of tools include EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley. Deakin provides learning experiences for using EndNote.
Repository open access (also known as green open access) is when authors archive a version of their published work (usually a preprint or accepted manuscript) in a repository, often after an embargo period required by the publisher. Repository open access is a free pathway to open access for articles published in subscription (closed access) journals.
Deakin authors can use Elements to deposit the accepted manuscript of an article, which most journals allow to be made repository open access in DRO.
The management and stewardship of research data is an important element of the research lifecycle. Aspects of the workflow associated with management of research data include identification of data that needs to be stored, ethical and retention obligations, selection of appropriate enterprise platforms for data storage, creation and maintenance of a data management plan, description as appropriate, and publication of datasets.
Research Data Planner is Deakin’s online tool for creating a Research Data Management Plan (RDMP). It consists of an online form with many preset options to create an RDMP compliant with the Deakin Research Data Management Procedure, and ethics and funding applications. Footprints can also be used to create a dataset description for publication in DRO.
Research impact - assessed through a combination of research metrics and qualitative indicators - refers to the significance, reach, and influence of scholarly work within academia and, in some cases, broader society. It encompasses various dimensions such as publication and citation patterns, research funding, collaboration networks, and evidence of influence on policy, practice, or public understanding. These indicators are commonly used to support grant or academic promotions applications, institutional evaluations, and strategic decision-making, helping to demonstrate the value and contribution of research across different contexts.
The self-serve research metrics dashboard is an SSO-based tool that provides a summary report of a researcher’s publications and research metrics, based on their author profiles sourced from Symplectic Elements and Scopus. The dashboard data can be used for grant applications or academic promotion applications. It includes metrics such as h-index, scholarly outputs, citation count, five-year SciVal FWCI and benchmarking, journal rankings and Altmetric Explorer data.
A research metrics report is a document that presents various quantitative measures or indicators used to assess the impact, productivity, and quality of research activities. These metrics are derived from publication databases, citation indices, altmetric providers, and other relevant sources. The reports include information about citation counts, author metrics, journal metrics and rankings, and benchmarking.
Research outputs stewardship refers to the collection, description, reporting and discoverability of the University’s research data and outputs. It involves ensuring that research data, publications, and other outcomes are properly maintained, protected, and made accessible for the benefit of the research community and the broader public.
Researcher/author profiles are concise summaries or biographical descriptions of individuals that highlight their academic or professional achievements, research interests, and publications.
Review question framing refers to the process of using question frameworks to support the development of a question for a systematic review, scoping review or other evidence synthesis. Using a framework helps to ensure that all relevant aspects of the question are considered. The framework can be used to inform the development of inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review. It can be used to inform the search strategy development.
See Green (repository) open access.
Screening tools are used during evidence syntheses to help manage the selection of studies for reviews. The studies are screened against pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. These tools also support the data extraction stage of the synthesis. Several screening tools exist, including Covidence, Rayaan and Deakin’s in house Living Review System. Deakin has a subscription to Covidence, and the Living Review System is actively used by Deakin researchers.
Search engines are online tools used to search the internet. They are often used to search for material beyond traditional bibliographic databases, such as government reports, images, music, etc.
Search results management refers to the process of exporting search results from databases and other information sources to reference management tools, to email or for downloading. It also refers to setting up alerts within the database for new records matching the search strategy.
Search syntax is the range of operators used in database searching to connect different search terms as part of an overall search strategy. These include Boolean operators, proximity searching and wildcards.
Search translation refers to the practice of translating a master search strategy from one database into additional databases. This is an important aspect of comprehensive searching.
Search troubleshooting refers to the process of identifying and correcting issues with search strategies. This is needed when searches don’t produce the results expected. It may be because of syntax errors, spelling errors or inappropriate use of search terms or another reason.
The version of a research paper or book first submitted to a journal or book publisher. This version has not been through editorial or peer review.
Submitted manuscripts can sometimes be made Green OA, although most institutional repositories (including DRO) refrain from making non-refereed research OA. Submitted manuscripts also do not fulfill the mandated OA requirements of most grants, including ARC and NHMRC
See published version.
This refers to journals and repositories which publish protocols for evidence syntheses and the full syntheses.