UTA ResearchCommons

The University of Texas at Arlington's open access digital institutional repository, UTA ResearchCommons, manages scholarly resources for UTA scholars and beyond. UTA ResearchCommons is accessible to the global research community and thus, supports UTA researchers by expanding the visibility of their publications through open access and complying with federal and other funder mandates. UTA ResearchCommons provides essential infrastructure for scholarly dissemination and increases the scholarly impact of UTA faculty, students, and researchers.

  • Did you know? Open access articles by UTA authors have DOUBLE the number of citations on average than those behind paywalls in pay-to-read journals (8.61 versus 4.82 citation rate).
  • Did you know? 16 articles published by UTA authors were in the top 1% highest cited in their field. 10 of those 16 are published open access.

The repository is an important tool for preserving and showcasing the university's legacy. A service of UTA Libraries, UTA ResearchCommons houses research output produced by UTA’s community of scholars, as well as materials from the University Archives and Special Collections, and makes both openly and freely available to local, national, and global audiences.

Advantages to uploading your work to the UTA ResearchCommons include the following:

  • By providing a persistent URL that can be shared with colleagues, the ResearchCommons is an easy, free way to ensure that your research is permanently available to a global audience. This permanent URL also preserves your work in perpetuity in one centralized location. 
  • Works hosted in UTA ResearchCommons collections have a higher likelihood of being cited because of increased visibility in search engines and other harvesters, both popular and scholarly, which can result in an increased interest in research collaborations. 
  • It fulfills the requirements of federal funders, such as the NIH, NSF, & NASA (refer to the White House OSTP Nelson Memo of 2022), to publish your research (both publications and datasets) in an open access repository.
  • As an addition to traditional scholarly publishing and/or an alternative publishing method, it provides . . .
    • Free access since your works are not hidden behind a paywall.  
    • You can retain your copyright and choose a Creative Commons license to let readers/users know what they can and cannot do with your work, unless otherwise transferred via publisher contracts. See our Copyright information [LINK].
    • Immediate access to your research with no need to wait several years for an article to be published.
  • The UTA ResearchCommons allows you to host self-created content for your courses or your colleagues.
  • It supports and promotes the open access scholarship movement to ensure public and global awareness and benefit from research.

To save you time, the library will deposit your materials into the RC on your behalf.  We will check the copyright status of previously published materials, upload the materials we can legally archive in the RC, and describe the materials for you. Alternatively, you can upload your materials and curate your collection or designate a graduate research assistant to do so. We will be happy to get you started.

For more information, or to deposit your works in ResearchCommons, please contact your subject librarian or email librariesops@uta.edu.