Goldsmiths Research Online (GRO) is Goldsmiths’ institutional repository, providing open access to research produced at Goldsmiths and acting as a showcase for our researchers work. Along with traditional text publications, it holds a wide range of practice research outputs created by staff and doctoral researchers at Goldsmiths. The repository also holds Goldsmiths' collection of doctoral theses.
The aim of GRO is to capture the diverse nature of research at Goldsmiths and has 28 output types, including a wide range of practice research options, that enable researchers to create an effective digital representation of their practice research outputs. The repository is intended to provide long-term, public, free access to these materials to anyone in the world with an internet connection.
Goldsmiths staff and doctoral researchers are able to login to add details of their research. You do not need to sign up. If you are a staff member or PhD researcher, you have default log in access.
Practice Research on GRO
There are many excellent examples of practice research outputs in GRO. You can search for examples by browsing by item type or by department. If you are interested in finding examples of practice research produced by a specific researcher, you can browse by all Goldsmiths researchers.
Guidance on searching and finding practice research theses on GRO is available here.
Benefits of GRO
Adding practice research outputs to GRO brings many benefits for researchers:
There are a wide range of practice research item type options on GRO that enable researchers to create an effective digital representation of their practice research outputs. By curating the best collection of digital materials on GRO, you can demonstrate the scope and context of your research, helping others to understand the research processes you went through and the research dimensions of the work.
Practice research outputs on GRO have three elements:
A designated item type (for example, an art object, composition, or performance). This can be recorded in the “Item Type” tab on GRO.
An upload. A collection of high-quality digital files attached to the record. This can be the work itself (e.g. an audio file of a composition), an extract of the work itself (e.g. a video file of an extract of a film or its trailer), or documentary/supplementary material (e.g. still photographs of an exhibition, a PDF of a press release or other publicity materials for an exhibition). One output can be represented by multiple files in different formats (e.g. text, images, audio, video). Files can be added to the “Upload” tab on GRO.
Information that describes the work and creates the citation. A detailed description of the scope and context of the work, including documentation of the process by which the work was created, and any relevant contextualisation. Links can be provided to gallery web page, artist’s web page or reviews. Descriptive information can be added to the “Citation” tab on GRO.
Detailed guidance on how to effectively represent your practice research outputs using the “Item Type”, “Upload” and "Citation" tabs on GRO is included below. A PDF guide on adding practice research outputs to GRO is also available.
The Online Research Collections team in the Library can support you in creating an effective digital representation of your practice research. You can contact gro@gold.ac.uk if you have any questions about adding practice research to GRO or would like to arrange a training session.
The first section of GRO you need to complete is “Item Type”. There are 28 output types in GRO, including a wide range of practice research options. The following practice research item types are included in the repository:
Art Object - A painting, sculpture, installation (non-site specific), model, collage, ready-made etc.
Artist's Book - An artist's book.
Audio - A sound recording, album, single, podcast, interview recording.
Broadcast - A TV or radio broadcast.
Composition - The score and/or description of a piece of music or sound you have composed.
Conference or Workshop Item – This can be used to capture artist's talks.
Design - A prototype, device, process, pattern, method or interaction. Please include a description and append any relevant documentation. If this is part of a bigger project, please use the "Project" category to make a separate entry for the project.
Digital - Any digital object you have created such as a game, website, blog etc.
Exhibition Catalogue - An exhibition catalogue you have edited.
Film/Video - A film or video.
Image - A single photograph or visual image. If this is part of a bigger project or exhibition please create separate entries for these.
Performance - A music, theatre, multimedia or art performance.
Printed Ephemera - A poster, flyer, brochure, pamphlet, card or similar item.
Professional Activity – This can be used to capture activities such as residencies, and studio and artist fellowships.
Project - A project that you are engaged in and/or have initiated. This can be used to capture multi-component practice research projects collecting together a number of other items from the repository.
Software - A software, program or application you have created.
In the “Upload” section of GRO, you can upload any files associated with the item.
This can be the work itself (e.g. an audio file of a composition or the PDF of the full score), an extract of the work itself (e.g. a video file of an extract of a film or its trailer), or documentary/supplementary material (e.g. still photographs of an exhibition, a PDF of a press release or other publicity materials for an exhibition).
One output can be represented by multiple files in different formats (e.g. text, images, audio, video).
File Formats
Files held in GRO are intended to remain available in perpetuity. We therefore recommend that you use the formats below to ensure that your work remains accessible.
Text: PDF (.pdf)
Images: JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg), PNG (.png), GIF (.gif), TIFF (.tiff, .tif)
Audio: MP3 (.mp3), Apple Lossless / M4A (.m4a), WAV (.wav), AIFF (.aiff), FLAC (.flac)
Video: MP4 (.mp4), MPEG (.mpeg), MKV (.mkv), AVI (.avi), Quicktime (.mov), H.264 codec
Other formats may be deposited, but these may not be as widely accessible or remain preserved for as long.
The repository is a web-based service, for audio visual and multi-media digital objects so we recommend that you include a version suitable for web delivery, and save an archival quality copy elsewhere.
Copyright
You are able to upload copyright-free full text material to GRO (e.g. text or multimedia material for which you hold the copyright, or which you have cleared permissions from the copyright owner).
Potential copyright holders, apart from yourself who you may need to contact to clear permission, include photographers, museums, archives, galleries, picture agencies or publishers.
We have a copyright decision-making workflow guide for practice researchers who want to upload text or multimedia content to GRO. The resource guides depositors through the steps we recommend practice researchers take to ensure the content they wish to make available on GRO is suitable for deposit.
Licensing
You can specify a Creative Commons licence on an uploaded file that allows other people to know how to use the material in an appropriate way without infringing copyright. Further information on Creative Commons licensing is available in the ‘Licensing and copyright’ section of this LibGuide.
Updating files
If you wish to upload new files to a record that is publicly available, please email gro@gold.ac.uk and an editor will add them to GRO on your behalf.
In the “Citation” section you can add descriptive information about the work. The aim is to provide a description of the scope and context of the work.
As a minimum, you will need to complete the basic descriptive details (these required fields are marked with a red star. There should be a maximum of five compulsory fields per GRO entry). But we recommend that you add further details in the following fields to provide an effective representation of your work on GRO.
Description
You can use this field to provide a summary of the research output. There is no word limit to the field but typically descriptions are around 300-words. You may want to include information in the following areas:
Research process (the question and/or issues being explored, the process of discovery, methodology, the creative and/or intellectual context or literature review upon which the work draws, or challenges or critiques)
Research insights (the findings, discoveries or creative outcomes of the research process)
Time and manner of dissemination (how and where the insights or discoveries were shared)
Contributors
You can include the names of any collaborators who have contributed to the output.
Event location
The location of an event, performance, screening or exhibition.
Dimensions/Duration
The dimensions or duration of an art object, film/video, installation or sound piece can be included.
Date range
The start and end of an event, exhibition or project.
Official URL and Related URLs
Links can be provided to gallery web page, artist’s web page or reviews.
Embedding a video from another site
It is possible to embed a video in GRO record to stream content from another site, like YouTube and Vimeo as with these examples from Saskia Olde Wolbers and Barby Asante.
To embed a video from another site, add the URL from the video hosting site to the “Official URL” field in GRO.
Updating the "Citation" section in GRO
Practice research outputs are often the result of long-term projects that change and develop over time so the descriptive information in the "Citation" section can be updated during the lifetime of a research project.
If you wish to upload new files to a record that is publicly available please email gro@gold.ac.uk and an editor will add them to GRO on your behalf.
Once checked by a GRO editor and made live, your GRO deposits automatically feed into your staff page with the next Goldsmiths site sync (usually within one working day).
To enable or disable GRO deposits to feed into your staff profile, please enter your campus username in the “Author ID” section (e.g. abcd001@gold. ac.uk) on the deposit form and select “Yes” or “No” on the drop-down menu under “Show on staff website?”.
There are different options for ordering the research outputs that feed into staff profile pages from GRO. The ordering options available for practice researchers are listed below.
If you would like the to change the order of your research outputs on your staff profile page, please email gro@gold.ac.uk and we will liaise with the Communications team to update your page.
Show / Exhibition
Project
Exhibition Catalogue
Performance
Artist’s Book
Conference or Workshop Items
Book
Book Section
Article
Project
Exhibition Catalogue
Show / Exhibition
Composition
Performance
Project
Book
Audio
Article
Design
Show / Exhibition
Book
Conference or Workshop Item
Image
Article
Film / Video
Book
Project
Show / Exhibition
Article
Book Section
Performance
Show / Exhibition
Project
Article
Book
Book Section