LSHTM Research Online: How (and why) London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) Research Online works and why we need you!

“LSHTM Research Online automatically imports records for all current LSHTM staff research which is published. We harvest these from PubMed, Web of Science and the Schools existing Publications Database run by Andy Reid. If an article is from an open access journal or you have paid for it to be open access we should have automatically pulled in the publisher’s full text PDF of the article.  Where we and the School vitally needs your input is filling the gaps where your articles are not available as free full text because you have published in a traditional-model academic journal. Although we cannot use the publisher’s PDF in these cases, we can make much of your research freely available without breaking copyright. Open access policies differ for each publisher, and sometimes each journal. That is why we ask you to contact our team who are experienced in navigating open access publisher policies and will check all rights on your behalf and advise you as to what we can make freely available.  We recently had a public launch for the site where staff involved in trialling updating their full text explained their experiences and the reasons they felt it important to become actively involved. Aside from assuring people about the knowledge and support repository staff can offer Diana Elbourne, Professor of Healthcare Evaluation, declared “If I can do it - anyone can!”