Earlier this year, the Pratt School of Engineering began working with its faculty to complete their Scholars@Duke profiles. Scholars@Duke is a university-wide academic profile system that allows Duke researchers to publicly present their publications, research, and teaching activities. Fully indexed by major search engines, Scholars@Duke is intended to make Duke scholarship more accessible. As a part of this access initiative, the Duke Libraries have made it possible to directly link to open copies of a faculty member’s scholarly articles (see the featured image).

Open access to research has been a priority at the University for many years, as evidenced by the 2010 open access policy, which encourages faculty members to archive their research in our repository, DukeSpace. Since the roll out of Scholars@Duke and the publications management system Elements, it has never been easier to upload articles to DukeSpace and make them permanently available for download by anyone on the open web.

Dr. Marc Sommer, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Pratt School, has been doing just that. Making his articles available openly in DukeSpace not only raises his profile as a researcher, but makes it possible for other scholars across the globe to study his work on neuronal circuits in the brain. Storing articles in DukeSpace is “more professional than linking to an online box service,” Dr. Sommer said, and it is also easier for faculty members to maintain. DukeSpace provides a permalink and guarantees that the articles will be curated by Duke Libraries (see second featured image), taking the onus off the faculty members to provide continued access to their work.

Find out more information about sharing your work in DukeSpace and Scholars@Duke here on the ScholarWorks website.

You can read more about Dr. Sommer and his research on his Scholars@Duke profile.