Introduction
The PolyU Institutional Research Archive (PIRA) is an open access repository for The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s research, teaching and learning digital materials. Managed by the Library, this platform aims to preserve, secure and provide access to these digital materials produced by PolyU researchers, teaching staff and students.
Aim and Objectives
- To collect, showcase and provide persistent and reliable access to PolyU’s research outputs, teaching materials and students’ works and outputs in the open access domain.
- To increase the accessibility and visibility of the works and outputs from PolyU staff and students, and to facilitate knowledge transfer.
- To provide a long-term platform to preserve the digital materials collected from the PolyU community.
Content and Collections
All PolyU academic and research staff, research degree students, and academic equivalent staff may submit research, teaching and learning digital materials to the PIRA.
PIRA has the following collections:
Research Outputs: collects research and scholarly publications affiliated with PolyU and with Open Access content, such as journal articles, book chapters, conference papers and creative works.
Patents: collects full-text patents affiliated with PolyU
Theses: collects full-text theses and dissertations from PolyU MPhil and PhD students
Open Educational Resources: collects teaching and learning materials that are created and shared by PolyU community.
Outstanding Work by Students: collects a wide range of exceptional work/projects carried out by PolyU students in different disciplines, which are showcased through videos, photographs and documents. All works are nominated by academic departments.
Submit your work
Direct Online Submission
PolyU faculty, staff, or student may submit your work via Direct Online Submission system.
Deposit Non-Traditional Research Outputs
PIRA welcomes requests to add non-traditional research outputs to showcase your research.
Please follow the steps below to submit your non-traditional research output:
Step 1: Complete the Deposit Agreement Form.
Step 2: Submit the Agreement Form along with your files through the Direct Online Submission system.
Copyright Issues
When the authors submit their scholarly output to the PIRA, the work is made available for worldwide public in open access domain via the PIRA. Depositing a copy or a version of a work in the PIRA will NOT prevent the author from publishing the work in a journal, distributing or archiving it in any other ways. In other words, submitting a research work to the PIRA will not alter the copyright of the work.
Looking for publisher copyright policies on self-archiving
PolyU authors are encouraged to deposit new and previously published materials in the PIRA. Currently, most major publishers will allow papers published in their journals to be deposited in open access repositories, subject to certain conditions.
To verify publisher self-archiving policies before depositing your paper, you can use Open Policy Finder which is maintained by the Joint Information System Committee (JISC), UK. This tool allows you to search for a journal, publisher, or funder to find out their open access policies. The results will provide summaries of the permissions typically granted in each publisher’s terms and conditions.
The Library will also provide checking the publisher’s policy at the time of your deposit.
What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) generally refers to making scientific and scholarly knowledge and information freely accessible online. There is a global trend in providing open access to research and scholarly outputs, e.g. articles, conference papers, working papers, theses, etc.
By sharing PolyU’s scholarly and educational output through our PIRA, the PolyU Library is part of a worldwide movement that aspires to make information freely accessible to all members of society.
Visit OA LibGuides to learn more about Open Access, OA publishing, OA archiving and OA copyright.
Open Access@PolyU
PolyU places strategic importance on making its research outputs widely accessible to diverse audiences, including scholarly communities, policymakers, and the general public worldwide.
Since September 2010, PolyU has adopted the following Policy in Support of Open Access to Published Research:
PolyU academic and researchers are required to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings (author’s final accepted manuscript) in PolyU IR (now known as PIRA) for open access, as of the date of paper publication. Full text of other research outputs should also be deposited where appropriate.
To comply with the University’s Open Access Policy, all academic staff are required to deposit their Final Accepted Manuscripts (FAM) of publications into the PolyU Institutional Research Archive (PIRA) immediately upon acceptance for publication. The Library has been tasked with monitoring FAM deposits. The Library will review each submission to ensure compliance with publisher policies and confirm that an appropriate version of the research output is made available for open access.
Read more from Open Access to Published Research, Research Grants & Contracts (RIO)
Open Access Mandates from RGC
For publications resulting from research funded by RGC, upon acceptance of a paper for publication, "the PC / PI / Project holder should check whether the publisher already allows (i) full open access to the publisher’s version, or (ii) the author’s depositing a copy of the paper (either the publisher’s version or the final accepted manuscript after peer-review) in the institutional repository for open access".
Read more from RGC's Guidelines on Disbursement, Accounting and Monitoring Arrangements for Competitive Research Funding Schemes