Academics at Brunel University could see their reputations enhanced with increased citation rates for their research papers under a new scheme to archive all their work online.
John Murtagh, project manager of Brunel's new archive, said research had shown that the number of citations could increase by a quarter if academics archived their work on publicly accessible websites.
He said: "Brunel is trying to increase its research impact and profile, and one way is by making our research more prominent. When we put it in the Brunel University Research Archive it will be out there."
Brunel is thought to be the second institution in the UK after Southampton University and the ninth department or institution worldwide to make it mandatory for academics to archive their papers online.
Academics in Brunel's maths and computing department will have to deposit their papers in the database from January. Eventually, the scheme will be rolled out across the institution.
The archive includes a table of top 50 downloads. Academics can see when their paper was read and where readers are from. Profiles of academics may be added to enable readers to contact those in their field. The archive holds 120 items, which have been viewed 3,000 times since mid-November.
Details: http:///bura.brunel.ac.uk