Academics Value Publishing Research in UCM Repository

diciembre 10, 2024

Digital platform generated under the Colmena project already has more than 500 open access publications that can be reviewed and downloaded.

The publication of research and data in a new institutional repository of the Universidad Católica del Maule (UCM), with free access, is one of the main lines of action proposed by “Colmena”, the Open Science project of this university. The academics participating in this initiative value the opportunity and space to share their research and studies in a transparent and collaborative work that transcends all kinds of borders and which already has more than 500 publications.

“Research loses its meaning if its results are only known by those who participate in them. Therefore, it is essential to socialize these findings with the community. By using repositories, access to information is increased and Open Science is promoted, facilitating access to data and methodologies that can help to replicate similar studies, as well as to strengthen and corroborate the findings,” said Flérida Rivera, an academic from the Department of Nursing at the UCM School of Health Sciences, who is currently researching public health problems, especially those related to women.

“In addition, other researchers can cite the work done, which increases its visibility and impact factor. This increased visibility is beneficial, as it allows the creation of collaborative networks between researchers from different disciplines and from different regions of the country and Latin America,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hugo Benítez, researcher at the Maule Advanced Studies Research Center (CIEAM) of the campus, said that “publishing in Open Science repositories is fundamental for the development of research today. Although it is not easy (it requires expenses sometimes not available to research teams), it allows you to free knowledge and give the opportunity of this access to everyone, promoting transparency and collaboration in the scientific community. This not only facilitates the reproducibility of the studies, but also increases the visibility of the research”.

Along with indicating that his area of study is Evolutionary Biology and Biological Invasions, he affirmed that “as scientists, we have an ethical duty to share and apply knowledge for the common good, and open science is the most effective vehicle to achieve this”.

For CIEAM researcher Jaime Vásquez, “the most relevant thing is that these publications and their main findings are available for free consultation by interested parties, whether they are undergraduate or postgraduate students, academics, thesis tutors, etc.” He also indicated that “the most important thing is that these publications and their main findings are available for free consultation by interested parties, whether they are undergraduate or postgraduate students, academics, thesis tutors, etc.”.

He also indicated that “an added value is that the repository offers the possibility of making visible the permanent collaboration networks that UCM academics have, in these times in which frontier research is relevant for the internationalization of knowledge”.

“Democratizing knowledge is a continuous point, not an end point,” he emphasized, mentioning that his area of research is health and quality of life, specifically on human cardiorespiratory fitness and its association with different variables.

The professional from the Department of Physical Activity Sciences of the Faculty of Education Sciences, Pablo Valdés, has also published his research.

“Always the fact of publishing the findings of the research that is done in all the studies and work of projects and programs is important because you can see if there are changes, improvements of these interventions that one is proposing and that can have an impact at both public, social or from the academic aspect,” he said, specifying that his field of research is physical activity and health, especially active aging.

“Open Science is a movement that has been growing stronger and that I believe should be accessible to everyone,” she said.

Similarly, Margarita Correa, from CIEAM, stated that “the publication of our research allows us to publicize lines of research, as well as results. The publication of data associated with scientific publications allows greater transparency, replicability and contrast of science”.

“Open Science allows to improve access to anyone who is interested, even a little in it, and encourages curiosity to go further without encountering barriers that are becoming fewer thanks to initiatives such as Colmena UCM,” he said, noting that his area of study is Sustainable Agriculture and associated Biodiversity, in a world under the effects of climate change.

Colmena is an Open Science project, funded by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation and has been running for two years at the Universidad Católica del Maule.

Link to access the repository: https://repositorioinstitucional.ucm.cl/

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