REF2020 open access policy: guides and deposit video now available

The REF2020 Open Access policy comes into force on the 1st of April 2016. To recap, the REF2020 Open Access policy requires UK academics to deposit their peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts for articles and conference proceedings in a repository. The policy also states that deposit should occur as close to the date of acceptance as possible. We are using our research information system Pure to comply with this policy as it links to our institutional repository. The University has called for early compliance to ensure all researchers know how to comply, and all outputs will be eligible for submission to the next REF.

To assist researchers with the deposit process the Open Access Team has produced a Deposit Guide for Academics. This is a step by step guide showing the information needed for REF Open Access compliance, as well as providing further information about the Pure record fields. We also have a similar guide for administrative staff who have responsibility for updating Pure records on the behalf of researchers, this is available from the Open Access Team on request.

We have also produced an updated screencast of the deposit process demonstrating how to create a Pure record, input the publication information, and deposit the accepted manuscript:

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The deposit guide and screencast, along with further instructions on how to deposit in Pure, can be found here: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/services/researchsupport/openaccess/deposit/.

How to publish a journal article, a Springer guide

Today, we thought we would share a fantastic publishing resource created by Springer. It has been remarked before here on the Open Access blog that there is sometimes a lack of transparent information about publishing systems on publisher websites. So, when a member of the team stumbled across a  step-by-step publishing guide on the Springer website we just had to share it!

© Springer

The guide begins with the questions researchers will want to ask of themselves early on in their article's life cycle. These are questions like: are there any ethical ramifications to the research? What will be the likely impact of the paper? What are the copyright rules at Springer? Will it be Open Access, and if so, where will the funding for this come from? This last point is obviously very important for us in the Open Access team, as being informed early on in the publication process allows us to offer important advice at the best possible time.

Step two of the guide concerns the article creation process: from the Preparation of a manuscript, to Submission to a particular journal, to Production (including copy-editing and typesetting), and then finally Publication. Step 2 is perhaps the most widely appealing section of the guide as it walks you through the processes involved in creating an academic paper at Springer. Crucially, step 2 also reflects the general processes of other publishers, so serves as a useful general guide to academic publishing.

© Springer. An interesting tool in the Preparation stage is the Journal Selector which uses semantic technology to find the most relevant journal for a paper based on the abstract.

The third step of the guide goes into some detail about the post-publication services offered. Of particular interest here is the information about Article-level Metrics, as Springer incorporates the statistics gathered by Altmetrics to offer more detail about the impact of articles.

As a resource describing the life cycle of an article from a raw manuscript to a publisher Version of Record the Springer guide is a rather exemplary introduction, so we highly recommend that anyone interested should take a look.

Information about Creative Commons added to libguide

Are you new to open access or hearing about Creative Commons for the first time? Do you want to know how to find content that has a specific open access licence? Have you had an article accepted for publication and need to know which Creative Commons licence you should apply to your work?

As part of our Open Access Week inititatives, we have added another page to our open access libguide which addresses these questions and points to useful resources where you can find out more.

See the new page of our guide on Creative Commons licences at http://libguides.st-andrews.ac.uk/oalicences

Information about open access books added to libguide

To start this year's Open Access Week, the Library has added to its Libguide on open access with a page about open access monographs.

In addition to developments in journal publishing, there are many exciting things happening with book publishing. We have provided some basic information, with links to details on recent developments including new business models. You can also find information about projects and publishers, and how to search for open access books.

See the new guide at http://libguides.st-andrews.ac.uk/oabooks

Open Access training workshop

Are you confused by 'Green' and 'Gold'? Unsure what your research funder requires or whether your publisher allows it? When can you get funding to publish open access? How can you deposit your work in our institutional repository, and where doe PURE fit in to all this?...

These questions and more will be answered at our workshop for St Andrews academic staff, held as part of Open Access Week 2013.

Open access: publishing options, funder policies, support services and more
Wed 23 Oct, 1400-1630

This workshop, presented jointly by the Library Academic Liaison Team, Research Policy Office (RPO) and with information from Financial Advice and Support (FAS), will give an introduction to open access and new publishing models.  It will give an overview of the publishing options available to researchers in the open access environment.

Suitable for Academic staff, postdoctoral staff, and support staff

For more details, and to sign up, go to PDMS Course booking site

RCUK Open Access Policy - guidance for St Andrews authors

The new RCUK Policy on Open Access was implemented on 1st April 2013.  We have updated a short two page document which describes the key points in the new policy and gives useful guidance information for St Andrews authors on how to comply.  The document: RCUK OA policy briefing is available along with further details from the Library web pages. The full RCUK Policy on Open Access is available from Research Councils UK.

We hope that you will find this guidance useful. It will continue to be updated as new information and processes are developed.

When contacting the Library to check how to comply with the RCUK OA policy, please provide the following details:

    Your name, School and email address
    Journal and publisher
    Article title, manuscript ID or DOI if available
    RCUK funder name and external Grant ID acknowledged in the paper

Help and guidance is always available by contacting open-access-support@st-andrews.ac.uk

'Open Access' now open access

Essential reference book Open Access, by Peter Suber, is now available in multiple open access formats from MIT Press:

In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn’t, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. Distilling a decade of Suber’s influential writing and thinking about open access, this is the indispensable book on the subject for researchers, librarians, administrators, funders, publishers, and policy makers.

Peter Suber is  Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication Office at Harvard, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, a Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Senior Researcher at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). He is widely considered the de facto leader of the worldwide open access movement.

The book continues to be available in paperback, and is now freely available in ePUB, Mobi, PDF and HTML from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/open-access

RCUK Open Access Policy briefing

1st April 2013 is the start date for the new RCUK policy on Open Access. We have compiled a short two page document which describes the key points in the new policy and gives useful guidance information on how to comply for St Andrews authors. The RCUK OA policy key points and guidance document is available from the Library web pages at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/information/furtherhelp/openaccess/ .

The latest RCUK open access policy revised on 6th March 2013 is available at http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/outputs.aspx

RCUK are expected to issue revised guidance early in April 2013 as a result of further consultation with stakeholders. We will keep you updated on announcements through this blog and on our webpages. Help and guidance is always available at open-access-support

UPDATE: Latest revisions to the policy guidance and new FAQ available from RCUK OA policy page at http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/outputs.aspx

Guide to open access policies

In advance of worldwide Open Access Week, the Harvard Open Access Project released version 1.0 of a guide to good practices for university open-access policies. The new guide has been compiled by OA and scholarly communication experts Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber and is designed to evolve as new experiences of good practice emerge.

As well as recommendations on drafting, adopting and implementing an OA policy, the guide is full of useful examples and practical suggestions, including strategeies for increasing 'green' open access through repository deposit > Filling the repository

Access the guide here: Good practices for university open-access policies

The open access spectrum

The open access movement has been growing for 10 years since Open Access was first clearly defined in 2002. There is now a range of methods for making scholarly publications free to readers, and there is debate on the precise elements that make research outputs truly 'open' for all types of reuse.

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has released a new guide called How Open Is It? which describes the components that make up open access and analyses where a journal lies on the open access spectrum. The guide lays out Reader rights, Reuse rights, Copyright, Author posting rights, Automatic posting and Machine readability in a simple matrix and aims to help authors make informed choices about where to publish.

How Open Is It? is published with a request for public comment.

Guidance for researchers on funder mandates

As part of our Open Access Week initiatives, we are launching new web pages to support our researchers.

We have created a guide to the open access policies of major research funders to ensure that you are fully informed about the ways you can comply with grant conditions.

See Research funders: open access policies on the Library web pages.

This guide is part of a range of new Library web pages designed to support researchers in all areas of open access, for example:

• Summary of funder open access policies
• Open access FAQ
• Open access definitions
• Quick guide to deposit full text in PURE

With thanks to colleagues from the University of Glasgow Enlighten repository service for allowing us to base our guide on their information.

Practical steps for implementing Open Access

Anyone interested in finding out what they can do in a practical way to achieve Open Access to research outputs will find the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook a valuable tool.

The site provides relevant and current information for researchers, funders, publishers, librarians, students, policy-makers... in fact anyone who has an interest in the possibilities offered by OA.

One of the latest resources to be added is a brief guide to Copyright and authors' rights which describes actions that academic authors can take. See lots more on the benefits for research dissemination including topics such as Open Access Repositories and Citation impact.

JISC Open Access site

JISC explores a hot topic in the area of Open Access each day this week. Visit their Open Access Week site to find out about policies, funding, exploring the benefits of Open Access and copyright issues.

A New Model for Scholarly Communications

SPARC Europe provides a very short guide to Open Access, and how to achieve it, called An introduction to the new model for scholarly communication.


They note the benefits for authors: "Rather than their paper being seen by readers at the few hundred institutions lucky enough to have a subscription to the journal, the paper can now be seen by all interested readers. This increases the dissemination and impact of the papers and so raises the profile of the authors and their institutions."

The guide also highlights the 2 routes to Open Access: Self-archiving and Publishing in Open-access journals

A useful resource supported by SPARC Europe, is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).