Many thanks to Carly Seller for producing this monthly round up of activity on PEARL
New Report | Open Access on PEARL, February 2018
We just released the latest PEARL open access engagement report showing stats about repository usage and details of popular research outputs. In February 2018, there were a total 26,871[i] downloads made via PEARL – an increase of almost 75% on February 2017[ii]. The majority of users come directly to PEARL, however downloads also come from referrals from social media and from services including Google Scholar and the British Library Ethos[iii].
We publish these reports monthly, including details of the most downloaded open access versions of published journal articles and the PhD theses with the highest download figures. View the full interactive report on the LibGuides here: plymouth.libguides.com/research/stats
Our most popular collection in terms of download figures is the University of Plymouth Research Theses. PEARL archives and provides open access to research theses completed at the University since 2010, along with older theses digitised from the library collections.
Recently, one thesis keep appearing at the top of our downloads lists: Recruitment and selection and human resource management in the Taiwanese cultural context by Yu-Ru Hsu.
Completed in 1999, the thesis was added to the PEARL collection as part of the thesis digitisation project in 2013. Based on data collected from 500 randomly selected manufacturing companies based in Taiwan, the thesis looks at cultural values and how these have changed over time, paying particular attention to concepts of individualisation, masculinity, and traditional Chinese/Confucian values. In February 2018 alone, it received 1,464 downloads and has been received over 11,000 downloads since 2013. Our integrated statistics on PEARL show that over the past 6 months, 1,326 of these downloads came from India, 842 from the Philippines and 420 from Indonesia – a great example of how open access support research globally.
Carly Seller
Open Access Repository Officer
[i] All download figures in this report are from COUNTER-conformant data provided by IRUS-UK
[ii] In February 2017, there were a total 15,362 downloads from PEARL
[iii] See further information on the 2017 Open Access Report