animated gif announcing SOAR's 100,000 readers
Wednesday, September 01, 2021

This month SOAR@USA topped 100,000 total downloads. SOAR@USA, the University of St. Augustine Library’s open access research archive, collects the research work of students, faculty and staff at the university. It gathers together preprint and post-print articles, conference presentations and working papers from faculty and staff. Student works include dissertations, capstones, and other scholarly projects, as well as student poster presentations from the numerous Campus Research Days and OTD Capstone Symposia.

The repository was launched in 2018 and access has steadily increased in that time, topping more than 7,000 downloads accessed in a single month. Since its inception the repository has been accessed by institutions in 179 different countries, demonstrating the global impact of USA research. “Some of the most accessed work in the repository are our student projects”, says librarian and SOAR@USA manager Eric Robinson, “These student collections regularly reach 100 downloads per day and more.”

The repository also now publishes locally produced, peer-reviewed journals. The Student Journal of Occupational Therapy, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal launched late last year, is managed and edited by our own USA students and publishes student work from OT programs around the country. The newly launched Philippine Journal of Physical Therapy just went live this month and is now accepting submissions.

New collections are regularly added as the repository expands to represent additional programs at the university, and the library has plans to begin publishing two more peer-reviewed journals this year. Anyone interested in possible journal projects or in adding their work to SOAR@USA can contact a librarian at soar@usa.edu for more information.

The Scholarship and Open Access Repository (SOAR@USA) collects and houses the research and scholarly output of faculty and students at the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. SOAR@USA is managed by the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences Library.

Blog post by:

Eric Robinson, MLIS
Scholarly Communications Librarian