The Benefits of Scholars’ Mine
Benefits for Faculty and Graduate Students
Increases the impact of research
Many journals are subscription-based, which can potentially make your work inaccessible to many researchers who lack access to subscription-based services. Scholars' Mine is regularly crawled and indexed by Google, Google Scholar, Bing and other popular search engines, which makes your scholarship easy to find and accessible to readers worldwide. Scholars' Mine provides complete bibliographic information for the original publication, so readers will always be able to cite the version of record, helping your citation rates.
The discipline-specific nature of journals and databases can be a barrier for scholars engaging in interdisciplinary research. Researchers in other fields may be unable to access your work because they are not familiar with the journals and databases in your field. Scholars' Mine provides cross-disciplinary support and tools, making your work easier to find.
Full text works placed in Scholars' Mine automatically appear in the larger Digital Commons network of over 1 million articles from 300 participating institutions. Your work is placed in context with fellow researchers and research disciplines and can be browsed and downloaded using sophisticated discipline based searches.
Satisfies Open Access Requirements
Granting agencies like the NSF now require grant recipients to deposit peer-reviewed scholarship they fund in open access repositories and databases. Providing access to this material through Scholars' Mine ensures compliance with your granting agency’s requirements.
Improves researcher’s online presence
Scholars' Mine provides each faculty member an author profile to enhance your online presence. Your profile allows others to see the scope and quality of your work. Combining your profile with the descriptive metadata work done by Scholars' Mine staff allows your scholarship to rise to the top in search engine results. Profiles also attracts collaborators, future colleagues, and graduate students.
Your profile gives you the ability to share your work and announce new work through email and subscriber lists. It also allows your colleagues to follow your work through RSS feeds and mailing lists. You can also share your work through popular social media sites like Facebook and twitter.
Your profile is also portable. You can take it with you and continue to update it if you leave Missouri S&T.
Enables the sharing of hard-to-access scholarship
Some forms of scholarship, such as conference presentations, exhibits and performances, technical reports, white papers and student research, are not always available or disseminated widely. These types of work often contain valuable information and can complement peer-reviewed publications. Scholars' Mine provides an opportunity to share these works more broadly.
Measures readership
As an author in Scholars' Mine you will receive monthly e-mail reports showing how many works you have in Scholars' Mine and how many times your works have been downloaded in the preceding month. If you sign up for an account with Scholars' Mine, you will have access to the Author Dashboard, which will provide readership statistics graphically and in greater detail.
Manages and preserves work
Scholars' Mine aggregates your scholarly output in a single location, instead of having your works spread out across different journals and websites. Scholars' Mine staff perform permission checking and deposit your work, ensuring that all copyright and publisher requirements are met. Scholars' Mine staff also augment your work with descriptive metadata making, it easier for potential readers to search for, find, and use your work.
Every item in Scholars' Mine is given a stable URL. This means that no matter who cites your work, or how many times you redesign your Web site or change your vita, readers will always be able to find it. Not to mention the benefit you gain--if your flash drive breaks or your laptop dies, you can download copies of your work from Scholars' Mine.
Works in Scholars' Mine are backed up multiple times, so there is no need to to worry about losing your work because of a server glitch or hardware failure. Scholars' Mine staff also employ the latest digital preservation solutions, so your work will continue to be readable through changes in technology.
Benefits for the Institution
Sustains and enhances academic excellence and student success
Scholars' Mine facilitates inter-disciplinary research, collaboration and the production of new scholarship by providing immediate global access to the research output of our faculty and students while providing permanent URL's to reference their research and allowing faculty and students to assert their intellectual property rights.
Research is improved by showcasing work that is underserved by traditional publishing, such as student scholarship.
Scholars' Mine enhances student learning by providing students direct access to up to date and relevant research in their fields of study that are produced on our campus.
Scholars' Mine serves as a learning platform providing students experience in publication, peer review, and the legal and moral issues surrounding intellectual property.
Maintains an image of enduring quality
Scholars' Mine increases the opportunities for our institutional research to be discovered by a global audience.
Scholars Mine ensures that the full value of our campuses scholarly output is realized by reaching the widest audience possible.
Every time our campus research is discovered and used the value of our brand increases.
Encourages economic stability and recruitment
Scholars' Mine comprehensive collection of our campus research output can facilitate advancement, funding raising and recruitment of faculty and students.
By showcasing our research output Scholars' Mine provides direct evidence to donors and other funding agencies that their dollars are being used wisely and effectively.
Potential faculty and students can see the types and quality of research being done in their area of interest on our campus.
Scholars' Mine can also aid in recruitment by showcasing our campuses vibrant culture and history.
Meet Community Needs
Scholars' Mine is an active way to communicate with the public and to contribute to the betterment of the regional, national, and global community.
Access to regionally valuable content is improved and the content preserved. Regionally-specific research documents are often the most downloaded content in institutional repositories.
