Digital Research

Your digital research project should further current scholarship in your field and complement other projects and papers. The final step is to share your project and then document and communicate its success and impact. How you share your final product depends on your goals and the medium you have chosen for publication. It is important with digital projects to openly share not only the final product, but also the data and digital assets that went into its creation. You should also consider how others may use your research data, content, or published final product in their future research. 

• Have a plan for sharing and circulating the final product.
• Include an explicit statement on further authorized uses of original content for your project via a copyright statement, Creative Commons license, or other appropriate license.
• Share all aspects of your project openly (not only the public interface, but also datasets, scripts, and resources behind the project).
• Make a plan to explain your project’s contributions to scholarship.
  • Document each stage of the project’s development and what work tasks you have completed.
  • Keep track of metrics that demonstrate the type of engagement audiences have with your project.
• Consider adding your digital research project to AU’s Institutional Repository (AURA).

• How will you share not only your final product, but also the digital assets that went into its creation?
• What type of copyright statement or license will you choose for your final product? Will you make your publication open access?
• What documentation might you need to gather in order to explain your project’s contributions to scholarship clearly to fellow researchers and university administration?

Scholarly Research Impact Metrics: This subject guide from the AU Library describes tools used to measure research impact, as well as tools to help enhance your scholarly profile through scholarly peer networks. This guide is applicable to all types of digital research products.

Scholarly Networks and Social Media Channels: This subject guide from the AU Library introduces tools to share your research via scholarly networks and social media channels.

Scholarly Communication/Open Access at American University: This is AU's full guide to scholarly communication, including topics such as creating scholarship, evaluating it, disseminating it to the scholarly community, and preserving it for future use.

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and their use at American University: This guide describes how to reserve and use globally unique, persistent identifiers for your research products.