Open Access in China: A breach in the Great Firewall?

You might not necessarily associate China with Open Access, but it has made rapid progress towards making more of its research publications open. Two powerful public agencies are instigating Open Access into Chinese scholarship - the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Both signed the Berlin Declaration (2003 & 2004). Just last year Beijing co-hosted the Global Research Council that discussed the GRC Open Access Action Plan.

In the same month Nature reported that CAS and NSFC had announced their Open Access mandate that with immediate effect researchers must deposit their papers into online repositories to make public within 12 months of publication. This appears to be what we would call delayed, Green OA and mirrors the US National Institutes of Health mandate and Hefce's Open Access policy in the UK. The mandates apply to researchers (CAS/NSFC) and graduate students (CAS) and CAS also encourages its researchers to undertake retrospective deposit into institutional repositories (IRs). At the moment IRs are specified for deposit and the NSFC is developing its own IR. China Academic Institutional Repository currently lists thirty-three IRs.

The NFSC has developed a blueprint for progress that includes Gold OA, the NSFC's IR, global agreement on OA in publicly funded research and an ambitious global share portal.

Detail from Figure 1. Targeting of the HBB gene in human cells using CRISPR/Cas9 from Liang P, Xu Y, Zhang X, et al. (2015) CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human tripronuclear zygotes, Protein & Cell, DOI 10.1007/s13238-015-0153-5 [Available under Open Access]

There is no Open Access fund similar to the UK Research Councils' block grant to pay article processing charges, but researchers are permitted to use their grants to cover publication costs. This is the same as the position in Canada covered in our previous post.  As in the UK several institutions are members of publisher schemes like Springer/BioMed Central. China's total R&D investment was 1029.4 billion RMB in 2012 and rising [1]; despite the potential for a publishing bonanza, progress on Gold OA has been slow due to concerns over predatory journals and pricing transparency.  So in this respect the UK could be seen as taking the lead on immediate Open Access.

Although China's research output grows exponentially its citation impact is below the world average although it is competitive with other BRIC countries [2]. Overall, the Chinese agencies hope that OA publications will grow in proportion to the rapid growth of research publications and the expansion of the OA market with encouragement from publishing institutions.

China offers great potential for development in OA policy and infrastructure and there are many opportunities for publishers. However there is a strong science bias and humanities and social sciences have not at this stage been included in the mandate. There is great emphasis on bibliometrics but, unlike the UK, China does not have a regular research assessment exercise, as reported recently by Nature.  The current drive is to improve research quality over quantity.  If China succeeds it will be a major partner with the UK promoting Open Access inside and outside the Great Firewall.

1. Development of open access in China: strategies, practices and challenges, Zhang X, Insights 27(1), March 2014
2. Open Access in China: An Overview, Wang D, 1st OASPA Asian Conference, Bangkok, June 3rd 2014

Research publications - what you need to know

The University of St Andrews Library is here to help support you in your studies and research and we are developing a series of new workshops for staff and students. Our first workshops will provide advice on important aspects of research publication that may be new to you.

Research funders increasingly expect publications to be Open Access, new policies affect the way your research outputs are disseminated, and there are new expectations about aspects such as underlying research data. We aim to simplify things for you, and provide the information you need to get the best from your publications, and ensure compliance with funders.

We have two short (45min -1 hour) sessions planned, with more to follow. Sessions are primarily aimed at St Andrews research staff, and would also be suitable for research students who will be publishing journal articles, or research administrators. Each session will be repeated. See details below and on the Library's event page.

Funder and grant acknowledgement: all you need to know
17 March 2015, 14:15 - 15:00: Register for a place
25 March 2015, 10:15 - 11:00: Register for a place

This short session will explain the value of acknowledging funders and grants in your publications, and the best way of doing this. We will cover statements about underlying research data, the basics of linking papers, as well as funding and data in Pure.
There will be a presentation, practical demo, and time for questions covering:

• why proper funding acknowledgements in published journal articles are necessary
• good practice and standard formats for acknowledgements
• capturing funder and grant details – in submission systems and in Pure
• benefits of funder acknowledgement – compliance, reporting, visibility of research
• linking publications and data
• access to underlying data
• not forgetting … correct author affiliation

HEFCE Open Access policy for REF 2020: make sure you’re ready
31 March 2015, 12:30 - 13:30: Register for a place
30 April 2015, 12:30 - 13:30: Register for a place

This informal session will give you the basics of what you need to know – and what you need to do – about Open Access for the next REF.  You will have the chance to ask questions and clear up any concerns you may have.

HEFCE has a new policy for Open Access in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF). In order to be eligible for the next REF the new policy requires peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings to be available through an institutional repository when they are accepted for publication. The policy will be fully implemented in April 2016. The University is introducing this policy to researchers now, by asking that you upload your accepted manuscripts in Pure.The session will cover questions such as:

1. Depositing papers in Pure
2. Versions and timing – what does ‘accepted for publication’ mean?
3. Exceptions and embargoes – what happens if a publisher doesn’t allow open access?
4. Terminology – what does green OA mean?
5. Cost – will I have to pay for open access?
6. Copyright – am I allowed to do this?

Library Event page: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/university-of-st-andrews-library-4894319079

St Andrews Library contributes case study to Ebooks in Education

Readers might remember the SPARC Europe Open Access in the Humanities Roadshow that visited St Andrews in November last year. We blogged about the St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series available Open Access on Research@StAndrews:FullText. The Library answered a call for content with its case study of this partnership with the Centre for French History and Culture.  Creating open access books: a partnership between a university library and research centre was successfully shortlisted for inclusion in a new book after approval from a review panel. Ebooks in education: Realising the vision was published by Ubiquity Press in November last year.  The case study examines how the partnership grew organically as the desire for the development of a new scholarly research publishing platform naturally combined with the Library's evolving Open Access services.  It benefited from valuable advice and comments from the editor-in-chief of the series, Dr Guy Rowlands.  Dr Eric Nelson, Professor in the History Department of Missouri University, provided helpful insights from an author's perspective.

The book is edited by Dr Hazel Woodward with a foreword by Professor Madeleine Atkins, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. It proposes that ebooks are rapidly becoming an acceptable medium for scholarly communication. Topics addressed include further education, distance learning, teaching, accessibility, the mobile user experience and library services. The case studies provide valuable supporting evidence and include contributions from stakeholders all over the UK.  Peter Suber, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, also contributed a chapter.

Figure 1 BIEN, D. D., SMITH, J. M., & BLAUFARB, R. (2010). Caste, class and profession in old regime France the French army and the Ségur reform of 1781. Image from the title page reproduced by kind permission of the owner (from the case study)

Head of Cataloguing and Repository Services, Janet Aucock, who authored the St Andrews case study said "The ebook case studies show how units, staff and students can work together to harness new and existing technologies that let users explore how they can successfully produce, disseminate and use new formats in teaching and research".  Since publication on 28 November 2014 the book has been downloaded 1366 times which is very high for this type of book.  PDF downloads have far exceeded ePub and Kindle which suggests a user preference for a format that can be easily shared and used on the widest range of devices. 

Have you read the book?  If so, why not leave a comment below?

SHERPA/REF author survey

SHERPA/REF is a resource currently under development that is designed to help authors and institutions demonstrate compliance with the HEFCE open access policy for the next Research Excellence Framework. It is expected that the resource will be able to furnish authors and library staff with information about journal compliance with the HEFCE OA policy.

The author survey can be found here: http://fluidsurveys.com/s/SHERPAauthor/

Since the service is still very much in the development stage the team behind SHERPA/REF are looking to make sure that the resource develops in the right direction and includes all the functionality that the research community would like/expect.

The survey takes around 15 minutes to complete and there is a chance of winning a £50 shopping voucher.

The survey will close at midnight on 28 January 2015.

Looking ahead to the next REF

The results for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) are due in this week, but work is already well under way to prepare for the next one!

What is the REF?
The REF is a system for assessing the quality and impact of research outputs by UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The reasoning being that there needs to be an impartial method for evaluating public investment in research. The results will also be used to inform the distribution of future public investment in HEIs. The 2014 REF assessed research outputs produced between 2008 and 2013 (inclusive).

©h_pampel via Flickr

CC BY-SA

So what's going to be different?
The rules for the next REF include a specific policy on open access which states that in order to be eligible for submission, articles and conference proceedings are to be deposited in a repository as soon as possible after the acceptance date. The version to be deposited must be the accepted manuscript, which has been peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited. The new policy is led by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and supported by all four UK higher education funding bodies. And, although the policy will come into effect in April 2016; HEFCE strongly urges institutions and researchers to follow the requirements as soon as possible in order to ensure all outputs are eligible for the next REF.

The Open Access team have already started contacting researchers by email in order to advise on the use of PURE to comply with the policy. We have also been going out to Schools directly to deliver presentations on the new HEFCE policy, most recently at the School of Chemistry. So far, we have been delighted with reaction we have received, one researcher even reported a time of 2 minutes 30 seconds for creating a Pure record and depositing his accepted manuscript!

If you want to know more about making your research compliant with the HEFCE Open Access policy please email the Open Access team openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk. We also have a new website which offers guidance and useful links.

The Repository: helping to feed the impact of research

Over the years, the OARPS team has spent a great deal of time acquiring academic manuscripts and releasing them to the world through the repository.

Much of our current work involves assisting academics with complying with funder open access mandates. For instance, the RCUK mandate states that RCUK funded research papers should be made Open Access either by choosing "Gold" and paying an APC charge, or by choosing "Green" and uploading the accepted manuscript of the final article to Pure (and then the library can transfer the paper to the repository).

Presently, the team focus has incorporated the new HEFCE open access policy for the next REF as well. The HEFCE open access policy states that in order to be eligible, the accepted manuscripts of articles and conference proceedings (with an ISSN) must be deposited in a repository. The HEFCE open access policy does not come into effect until 2016, but we are tying to push the message now so that we are 100% compliant by that point.

With both these cases the result is more content in the repository. But with deposit being imposed from on high the other benefits of depositing can sometimes play second fiddle. In light if this, we have chosen to show some of the usage metrics from a recent article in the repository. We hope this demonstrates that archiving in the repository can greatly benefit the Impact of research.

A great example is The meanings of chimpanzee gestures which received a lot of media attention when it was published. The authors deposited the accepted manuscript for the article into Pure, which then allowed the OARPS team to get the manuscript into the repository.

Here are some of the repository usage stats for the article:

With statistics like this you have to read between the lines a little bit, but one thing they definitely show is that the article received a lot of attention in July (this was when the article was being covered in the media). Crucially, the stats also tell us that the vast majority of those visiting the page ended up downloading the document. This reliably indicates that the majority of people visiting the page did not have access to the publisher version.

So, with the manuscript in the repository a wider range of people, who do not have a subscription to the journal, can read the full article. This means it can be distributed more widely through society, thus widening the reach of the paper and helping to feed the impact of the research.

HEFCE's OA policy: guidance on key issues

Following the announcement by HEFCE of open-access requirements in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework, guidance is being offered to the research community on practical steps towards implementation.

Ben Johnson, Research Policy Advisor, HEFCE and Neil Jacobs, Head of Scholarly Communications, Jisc will deliver a webinar on 15 May 2014.

This Webinar will provide delegates with an overview of HEFCE’s OA policy for the post-2014 REF and the implications on research and the assessment of research. It will also consider what services, tools and guidance are available or are forthcoming to support institutions in the implementation of this policy and what key issues will need to be addressed if full implementation is to be fully realised. 

Date: 15th May 2014
Time: 1400 GMT
Duration: 45 minutes including Q&A

Jisc Open Access Implementation Community Webinar: HEFCE's Open Access requirements for REF
Sign up at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jisc-open-access-implementation-community-webinar-hefces-open-access-requirements-for-ref-registration-11446421555 

HEFCE policy on open access announced

The UK has taken another huge step towards open access of its research outputs, with the announcement of a new policy from HEFCE on behalf of all 4 UK funding bodies. The policy describes new eligibility requirements for outputs submitted to the post-2014 REF.

The policy is interesting in its approach; separating out deposit, discovery and access requirements. It applies to journal articles or conference proceedings (with ISSNs) which are accepted for publication after 1 April 2016, with encouragement for institutions to work towards compliance as soon as possible. Certain exceptions will apply, provided these are justified in the eventual REF submission.

At the heart of the policy is the requirement to deposit publications in a repository within 3 months of acceptance. Bibliographic metadata should be made available to allow discovery by readers, and access to the full text must be provided as soon as possible (unless an exception applies). The full text is expected to be an author’s accepted (peer-reviewed) manuscript, and embargo periods are allowed.

Further details on how to comply and support available for St Andrews researchers will be available soon.

Policy for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201407/#d.en.86771

Report from BIS inquiry on open access

The UK Government's Business, Innovation and Skills Committee published their report today following an inquiry into open access.

Parliament announced the report, emphasising the role of repositories:
"The Government’s commitment to increasing access to published research findings, and its desire to achieve full open access, are welcome, says the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in a Report published today.  However, whilst Gold open access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the transition to a fully open access world is a mistake, says the Report.

The Report calls on the Government and RCUK to reconsider their preference for Gold open access during the five year transition period, and give due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green open access and repositories have to play as the UK moves towards full open access."

SPARC Europe welcomed the report with this response, stating that "we expect the research community now broadly to support the recommendations contained in this new report."

Among other things the report recommends that RCUK realigns its policy to match that of HEFCE’s post-2014 REF proposals, which mandates immediate deposit in an institutional repository.

HEFCE proposals on open access - consulation

On behalf of UK higher education funding bodies, HEFCE has announced a consultation on open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework. The funding bodies are committed to a policy that supports increased public access to research outputs. Advice was sought on developing a joint policy in Feb 2013, and an analysis of the advice received will be available from HEFCE's page on open access to publicly funded research.

Proposals for implementing an open access requirement in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework have now been published, with responses invited by 30 Oct 2013. Proposals [PDF]

The policy covers journal articles and conference proceedings, and the main criteria proposed are:

• Outputs should be accessible through a UK higher education institution (HEI) repository, immediately upon either acceptance or publication, though the repository may provide access in a way that respects agreed embargo periods.
• Outputs should be made available as the final peer-reviewed text, though not necessarily identical to the publisher’s edited and formatted version.
• Outputs should be presented in a form allowing the reader to search for and re-use content (including by download and for text-mining), both manually and using automated tools, provided such re-use is subject to proper attribution under appropriate licensing.

Monographs are not currently included in the proposals, and there will be allowance for exceptions (either on a case-by-case basis or through an agreed percentage compliance) for example when papers have international co-authors or a publication has no open access option. There are 7 main questions in the consultation, including whether a notice period of 2 years is appropriate.

See the full report: Consultation on open access in the post-2014 REF

The University of St Andrews already provides infrastructure that allows researchers to easily make their outputs accessible. Publications can be recorded in PURE, with links to projects and data added where relevant. Full text can be deposited immediately on acceptance, and automated embargo dates can be set to make the output open access in Research@StAndrews:FullText at the appropriate time. Staff in the Library can help with this.

Contact the library for advice: Open Access support
See our Open Access support web pages

Proposals for post-2014 REF open access

The UK funding councils have issued proposals for open access to research outputs in the next Research Exellence Framework after 2014. The proposals recognise "the significant role of institutional repositories in increasing sustainable and convenient public access to research" and do not express a preference for 'gold' or 'green' routes. The proposals also cover funding body expectations, embargo periods, monograph publication and principles of open data.

Times Higher Education article: Funding councils publish REF open-access proposals

HEFCE's letter outlining these proposals (pdf)

HEFCE invites advice and feedback in a consultation process to run until 25 March 2013.