Drop-in sessions for Open Access and Research Data Management

As part of the Library strategy to extend our support for open access and research data management we are organising a series of drop-in sessions open to University of St Andrews researchers from all Schools.  During the sessions, members of staff and research students will be able to drop-in at any point and ask any questions relating to funders’ requirements on open access and research data, how to upload manuscripts and data into Pure and general research data management queries.

With the new Open Access policy for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) fully in force very soon and already adopted across the University, we need to ensure all researchers know the essential steps to ensure eligibility for the next REF. We also want to make sure researchers know how to gain all the benefits of Open Access. The increasing requirements to manage data as part of funded projects, and new policies on data sharing in place from funders such as EPSRC, mean we want to ensure our community knows how to get the support they need.

St Andrews researchers are welcome to drop in and ask any questions regarding:
-          Open Access for REF2020
-          Uploading your publications in Pure
-          Funding for ‘Gold’ Open Access
-          Open Access options for specific publishers
-          Funders’ requirements on research data and publications
-          Data Management Plans
-          Uploading your data in Pure
-          Sharing your data
-          Storing your data
-          General data management
-          Any other topic


The Library’s Open Access (OA) and Research Data Management (RDM) drop-in sessions are on:

•    Mon 1 February, 13:00 – 15:00, Buchanan Building Room 103
•    Fri 5 February, 12:00 – 14:00, Hebdomadar’s Room
•    Mon 22 February, 13:00 – 15:00, Buchanan Building Room 103
•    Fri 26 February, 12:00 – 14:00, Hebdomadar’s Room

Please do come and meet members of your OA and RDM support teams!

University of California open access policy

The University of California recently announced that they are issuing a Presidential Open Access Policy that will cover all future scholarly articles published by UC employees.

The Presidential Open Access Policy extends the previous institutional open access policy which was adopted in 2013. The Presidential policy extends the 2013 Academic Senate Open Access Policy by covering all UC authors, including non-senate members. The new policy allows all UC authors to maintain legal control of their research outputs and also commits all UC authors to deposit their works in a repository for free public dissemination.

"The Presidential OA Policy represents the culmination of significant effort among UC faculty and staff to support increased access to their research publications, from the adoption of the first UC senate OA policy (UCSF) in 2012, to the establishment of the more comprehensive UC-wide Academic Senate policy in 2013." University of California Office of Scholarly Communication. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 licence.

Christopher Kelty, professor of Information Studies and Anthropology at UCLA explains the need for the new policy:

"Until now, tenure-track faculty have had the privilege of passing such policies to govern themselves, but at most universities, such faculty are a fraction of the people who do research and publish articles[...]Extending the same rights to those who aren’t part of a faculty governance system is an important and difficult step–I’m thrilled we have accomplished it.” University of California Office of Scholarly Communication. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 licence.

The UC's Open access policy creates a contract between the University and its authors that is prior to any contracts signed between authors and publishers. This means that UC authors can make their research open access via the University's repository, eScholarship, whilst also publishing in journals as normal. Authors are also granted rights of reuse under the UC open access policy that might otherwise be given over to publishers.

The University of California is a huge institution with nearly 200,000 employees and is responsible for over 2% of the world's research publications. UC clearly casts a large shadow, so this move represents a significant step in the evolution of scholarly research to open access.

Quotes are taken from University of California Office of Scholarly Communication Press release which was licensed under a CC BY 4.0 Licence. The press release can be found here: http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/10/groundbreaking-presidential-oa-policy-covers-all-employees/

Reflections from an intern: research data, open access, and etheses

Earlier this year we welcomed a postgraduate student to the University Library to carry out an Erasmus internship. This guest blog post by Juan Mosquera Ramallo provides a flavour of his time spent working with research data, open access publications and e-theses:

A whole summer has passed after my two-month internship at St Andrews’ University Library and I think the time has come to reflect on what this experience has taught me. As a mature Postgraduate student (I am in my forties) at the Erasmus Mundus Masters programme ‘Crossways in Cultural Narratives’, supervised by the Modern Languages Department, I believed that St Andrews’ University Library was an interesting place to learn about academic information and resources. Working in the library is an excellent way to learn about the problems and issues of organizing, cataloguing and disseminating those data. I learned a lot during these two months about these issues but if there is a word which has been emphasized through all the tasks I had to perform there is this (and I write it in capital letters): ACCESSIBILITY. I was amazed at how all the staff in the library are committed not only to preserving and storing knowledge, but also to finding new ways to make that knowledge easily and freely accessible. All this was done in accordance to the policy shift towards Open Access (OA) which is being promoted by the British government in an effort to make all new knowledge available to the general public as soon as possible. In a certain way, the main lesson I have learnt is to avoid becoming “selfish” with the knowledge I will produce (in my hypothetical future academic career), but trying to spread it as much as I can using all the tools at my disposal.

During my internship, all the different tasks I was assigned were related to OA policy; therefore I will describe how my performance was contributing to the development of OA.


1.    As the Open Access policy involves not just free access to articles that are the result of researches funded by public bodies, but also free access to the data used in these researches, it is important to check whether this access is actually free or not. Therefore, part of my task in collaboration with the Head of Research Data and Information Service was to introduce myself into the online journals to examine the articles produced by researchers from the University of St Andrews.  Though the articles were freely available on these websites, it was necessary to observe whether the relevant data used in the research were available as well. This meant verifying whether or not the supplementary information related to the articles included figures, diagrams, statistics, materials, etc. which constituted both the primary data from which the research was based, and the results which were the product of the specific research addressed in the article. This supplementary information could be included as an appendix to the article itself in the form of a file which contained all this data information, as a link to another website where this data information was stored, or in the form of a statement within the article explaining how to access this information. This verification was not only a matter of seeing whether this information was freely accessible or not, but also a matter of how easy it was to reach, if the accessibility was clear and straightforward.

2.    This is a moment of transition in the implementation of the Open Access policy, so the different institutions linked to research supported by public funding are still organizing their own protocols and ways to access research articles. As a result of this policy, an increasing number of educational institutions and public bodies are setting up repositories as a way to make the research outcomes funded with public resources freely accessible; this is concomitant with, rather than a replacement of the traditional publishing through academic journals. My task was to examine different online repositories established by diverse institutions (mainly universities) and to see how these repositories were organized in terms of the accessibility of articles and data, the different identifiers used to classify the stored items and the available links to additional information. In this way it would be easier to identify the strengths and weaknesses of repositories regarding the successful application of the Open Access policy and to take this into account in the re-design of the University of St Andrews’ repository.

3.    Under the supervision of the Head of Metadata and Content Acquisition, I had the opportunity to work with the theses produced at University of St Andrews that, in accordance with the University Postgraduate Code of Practice, have to be deposited in electronic format.  This accessibility implies not only the possibility of having printed theses at the public’s disposal but also the inclusion of the theses in the St Andrews’ repository where everybody can read them in a digital version, facilitating the  diffusion of knowledge originating from the University’s PhD research. Since 2007, the University of St Andrews’ PhD theses have been produced both in paper and digitized versions. Due to the huge number of pre-2007 PhD theses which are still only in paper versions, these theses, in collaboration with the British Library’s EThOS service, are digitized on request of the individuals who want to access them. My task involved the inclusion of these digitized versions in the University’s repository after downloading the theses files from the Ethos database. At the same time, it is necessary to create metadata records in the repository that provide information about the content of the diverse theses and allow an easier identification and labelling of the topics addressed in them. The inclusion of this metadata in the interface of the University’s library was an essential part of my work as well.

4.    The RCUK (Research Councils UK) is a strategic partnership of the UK’s seven Research Councils and invests millions of pounds every year in research. Different institutions carrying out research receive funding from the RCUK in order to make the result of their works available through the application of the Open Access policy, which asks for Open Access immediately at the time of the on-line publication when payment is made to a publisher. Due to the funding support, the RCUK monitors how institutions use this money and asks from them evidence to observe how the Open Access policy is working. St Andrews University Library manages the grant assigned by the RCUK and checks the compliance of all the requirements for the Open Access documents published. My task was the compilation in a standard spreadsheet of the relevant data asked by the RCUK so that it can serve as evidence of the implementation of the Open Access policy and of the rational use of the grant. Eventually this data will be made public so that the whole University sector and UK funding bodies will see what is being spent (and the compliance rates) from as many institutions as possible.

In conclusion, my work placement was a very interesting experience which made me reflect on the relationship between researching, publishing and accessibility, and how institutions like university libraries play a relevant role in these activities. In a certain way, I have changed my mind: prior to this experience, the research ended for me at the moment the paper with the results were written; now I consider that the researcher has to work to make that paper visible and accessible, not just for professional reasons, but also to share this new knowledge with others. Researchers working at universities have an ally in the libraries that can help them to do this. I really enjoyed my internship there and I would like to thank the library staff who helped me during my whole stay, being patient with me and introducing me to a whole new area linked to the dissemination of new knowledge. Their professionalism and kindness created a friendly atmosphere which contributed to a very pleasant and stimulating experience, and to change my mind regarding university libraries: there is so much happening behind those quiet rooms!

Open access in the United States: land of the free (access to research)

Yellowstone national park, © Quan Yuan/Getty Images

In 2013, a memo from John Holdren, director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House, was sent to all heads of executive departments and agencies:

“The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government. This includes any results published in peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from Federal funds” OSTP memo p.2

Affected agencies were to be responsible for coming up with a plan to open up research outputs as well as data in line with the agenda set out in the memorandum. Plans would be required to have a number of key elements: fostering public/private partnerships, improving public access to data, improving access to research through searching and archiving facilities, etc.

The memo asked agencies to ensure that the public are able to read, download, and analyse peer-reviewed manuscripts and final published versions within a suggested 12 month time frame. The twelve month time frame mirrors that of both Canada and China (blogged about previously). Agencies should also ensure that metadata for research is made publicly available immediately upon first publication with a link to where final versions are available.

The US National Institute of Health has required research outputs to be publicly available after 12 months since 2008. Recently the US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) took steps to further implement the plans set out in the OSTP memo. The HSS plans are designed to increase public access to the results of publicly funded research across five of its operating divisions. These HSS divisions include: National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

The HSS plans for public access to research involve two main areas:
•    Peer-reviewed outputs must be publicly available. Researchers funded by any of the 5 agencies will be required to deposit their publications in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication.
•    Data must be publicly available. Researchers will be required to produce a data management plan outlining how their data will stored and shared.

“A major focus over the coming year will be the policy development processes necessary to turn these plans into practice.  Several agencies, such as FDA, AHRQ and ASPR, will be developing public access policies for the first time. Other agencies, such as NIH and CDC, will be updating existing policies [...] We look forward to working together with all of the stakeholders to increase the usability of health research funded by HHS, and to creating an information ecosystem that will catalyze improvements in health and healthcare for all Americans.” HSS idea lab blog

Individual action plans can be found here:
•    NIH’s Public Access Plan
•    FDA’s Public Access Plan
•    CDC’s Public Access Plan
•    AHRQ’s Public Access Plan
•    ASPR’s Public Access Plan

Sources:
http://www.hhs.gov/open/public-access/index.html
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/02/us-white-house-announces-open-access-policy.html
http://www.hhs.gov/idealab/2015/02/27/hhs-expands-approach-making-research-results-freely-available-public/

Open Access in Canada: “It’s all about choice”

© Copyright 2014 – Canadian Science Publishing.

“[O]pen access is a worldwide phenomenon. However, the urgency of implementation has greater impetus in some nations because of strong OA mandates from large, centralised funders.” Martin Paul Eve, Open Access and the Humanities, p.5. CC BY-SA 4.0

The OA mandates from large funders that Martin Paul Eve mentions in the quote above no doubt refers, at least in part, to RCUK and Wellcome trust open access mandates that have helped to drive OA in the UK. The pace of change gained even greater urgency after HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) released its open access policy for the next Research Excellence Framework. In many respects the UK can be seen to be leading the way in open access, however there are many international initiatives happening as well. So, over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing some international developments in open access. First up is Canada where there have been recent developments akin to those in the UK with large centralised funders mandating OA for papers resulting from funded research.

In Canada there are three main state sponsored funding bodies:

“The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (“the Agencies”) are federal granting agencies that promote and support research, research training and innovation within Canada. As publicly funded organizations, the Agencies have a fundamental interest in promoting the availability of findings that result from the research they fund, including research publications and data, to the widest possible audience, and at the earliest possible opportunity. Societal advancement is made possible through widespread and barrier-free access to cutting-edge research and knowledge, enabling researchers, scholars, clinicians, policymakers, private sector and not-for-profit organizations and the public to use and build on this knowledge.” Government of Canada, Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications Science.gc.ca*

All grants awarded after May 2015 (and all grants from 1st January 2008 for CIHR funded authors) are required to comply with the harmonised open access policy of the three funders. Grant holders will be required to make peer-reviewed journal articles freely available within 12 months of publication. Authors can choose “green” open access and deposit their accepted manuscript in an online repository, or authors can choose to publish in a journal that offers immediate open access via the “gold” route.

There are similarities between the Canadian funding agencies' OA policy and the RCUK open access policy, but there are divergences as well. One such difference is where RCUK stipulate an embargo of between 6 and 24 months depending on which of the 7 research councils has funded the research, the Canadian OA policy stipulates that only a 12 month embargo is allowed. The two policies differ in their approach to APC payments as well; unlike RCUK who have elected to supply UK institutions with funds to pay for immediate “gold” open access, in the Canadian model the cost of OA publishing can come directly from the grant as an eligible expense.

The Canadian funding agencies' open access policy is predicated on the firm belief that spreading the reach and impact of academic research is beneficial to society, both at home and abroad. Aligning the open access policy of the Agencies with international funding agencies such as RCUK was a principal concern.

“Momentum for open access has been growing as numerous funding agencies and institutions worldwide implement open access policies. The Agencies strongly support open access to research results which promotes the principle of knowledge sharing and mobilization – an essential objective of academia. As research and scholarship become increasingly multi-disciplinary and collaborative, both domestically and internationally, the Agencies are working to facilitate research partnerships by harmonizing domestic policies and aligning with the global movement to open access.” Government of Canada, Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications Science.gc.ca*

The UK is not going it alone, and to paraphrase the Canadian funding agencies, open access is a global movement. Over the next few weeks we will highlight other countries around the world that are actively making commitments to open access.


*Quotations are reproduced from an official work that was published by the Government of Canada. The reproduction has not been produced in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Government of Canada.

Collabra: a new journal that pays reviewers

Copyright Collabra

University of California Press will soon launch a new fully open access mega-journal* called Collabra. The new journal is set to launch in March 2015 alongside a new open access book program called Luminos:

“As part of the world’s greatest public research university we knew that we needed to make a significant investment to meet the changing publishing and dissemination needs of our audiences,” said Alison Mudditt, Director of UC Press. “These programs have been shaped by hundreds of conversations with faculty, librarians, and other key stakeholders. With Luminos, we will combine the global reach and visibility of OA with our unwavering commitment to publishing superior scholarship to create a speedboat, not a life raft, that will carry monographs forward and allow them to remain a vital resource.” University of California Press

Collabra is a fully open access journal that requires authors to pay APC charges in order to get papers published. This charge covers the cost of production, as well as operating costs, staff wages, etc. In most fully open access journals there is significant profit to be made through APCs and these margins are increased as reviewers are traditionally unpaid. It is sometimes said that unpaid reviewing is simply part and parcel of academic culture, however the innovative payment scheme of Collabra proves that this doesn’t have to be the case. At Collabra, the APC costs $875, $250 of which goes towards paying the reviewers. The reviewers can then decide what they would like to do with the money. They can choose to keep the money, put the money into an APC waiver fund for researchers unable to pay the fee, or pay it forward to their institution’s open access APC fund.

“The journal model is not just about paying reviewers but also about directing some of the value generated back into the research community.” Collabra

We approached Dan Morgan, the Digital Science Publisher at Collabra for a quick explanation of the Collabra process:

"By assigning a percentage of the APC for the research community, Collabra spreads revenue and tangibly shows the value of this work, creating a true partnership. Collabra is enabling the research community to decide what to do with this value that it generates. Reviewers and editors can elect to pay themselves, or pay it forward to the Collabra waiver fund, or their institution's OA fund - in the latter instances creating more OA opportunities for more people. We'd love it if they did that, but importantly it is their choice, and not ours." Dan Morgan

Dan recently spoke at FORCE 2015, a conference centred on highlighting new trends in research communication and e-scholarship. His Creative Commons licensed presentation is available for free on figshare here: http://figshare.com/articles/Introducing_Collabra_OA_Journal_from_University_of_California_Press/1305201

Traditional publishing practice sees value directed solely back to the publisher (Dan Morgan)

So, the journal will put more emphasis on the value added by academics, who mostly work for free for publishers when reviewing and editing. By offering an APC waiver the journal can also serve as an open access publishing platform to those “priced-out” by the often high APC charges demanded by publishers.

Collabra will focus on three main disciplines at launch: life and biomedical sciences, ecology and environmental science, and social and behavioural sciences. To find out more about Collabra why not visit the website (http://www.collabraoa.org/), or share your thoughts and opinions using their twitter handle @CollabraOA (https://twitter.com/collabraoa).

*A mega-journal is a journal that has a number of key characteristics. It will be fully Open Access (with no subscription options), it will not judge articles based on perceived importance, instead judgement will be based on “scientific, methodological and ethical soundness and credibility” http://www.collabraoa.org/faq.php#article-processing-charges. Mega journals also often have a fairly broad coverage. A good example of a scholarly mega-journal is PLoS one http://www.plosone.org/

**We extend a special thanks to Dan Morgan and Lorraine Weston of Collabra for providing information and permission to reuse image and video content

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.

Elsevier: a look inside a publishing leviathan

To our enduring frustration, much of the academic publishing process is hidden from view unless of course you are having a paper published. At first thought this makes perfect sense, especially as an information overload is an affliction best avoided. However, for us in the OARPS (Open Access and Research Publications Support) team such information is extremely valuable. As we commented in a previous post, having detailed information about the payments process can increase the effectiveness of the service we offer. This is why we were so pleased when our close liaison with authors meant we were able to see screen shots of the publishing process at Elsevier.

Firstly, the author is sent a link to this page, where they can add additional details like funder codes and Open Access payments, as well as sign the publishing agreement. Crucially, this link can also be sent to us and a member of the OARPS team will complete the subsequent steps and sign on behalf of the author.

The author is then required to enter information about funding. This is hugely important in order to ensure that the research output is compliant with funders' open access policies. It is also very encouraging to see the prominence given to grant numbers as this is a further requirement made by many funders. However, as the screenshot shows this can be a daunting form to complete.

 

It's great to see that the system automatically prompts authors to select a particular license that complies with the chosen funder's policies (in this case an RCUK research council was chosen). However, troublingly authors are able to circumvent the funder's preferred option by choosing one of the other 2 Creative Commons licenses available, neither of which are acceptable to RCUK research councils. What is perhaps more troubling is the use of the word "preferred", when it should really say "required".

 

The author will then have to agree to the rights statement and publishing agreements, after which they will be given an order summary:

Armed with this sort of information we can better support researchers who come to us with questions as we can talk them through the process and see exactly what they see.

We would like to extend a special thank you to our confidential informant for providing us with this information, keep safe out there.

Charity alliance launches open access fund

An alliance of charities including Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK has launched a fund to make charitably funded research immediately free to access and re-use. The Head of Digital Services at the Wellcome Trust said "This approach helps to ensure that this knowledge can be built upon and used in a manner that maximises health and public benefit."

The Charity Open Access Fund (COAF) will provide single combined block grants to UK research institutions to meet open access article processing charges for peer-reviewed research publications resulting from research funded by one or more of the six partner charities: Arthritis Research UK, Breast Cancer Campaign, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and the Wellcome Trust.

The University of St Andrews already receives a block grant to support open access for Wellcome-funded research papers, and this joint fund will make it even easier to comply with these funders' open access policies.

For more information see the COAF frequently asked questions for researchers or contact the University Library's Open Access team.

For details on the existing criteria for Wellcome Trust funded authors, including the policy extension to cover monographs and book chapters from Oct 2014, see our Library web pages.

Why Open Access Really Matters

Wondering why your funder has an open access policy? Trying to decide if that hybrid open access journal is for you? Come and hear the expert view on open access:

‘Why Open Access Really Matters: A Discussion with Professor Stuart Shieber.’ Old Library (School of Psychology), University of St Andrews,
Thursday 5 June, 9.30-10.30 am



Stuart M Shieber is Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and Faculty Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication.

Open Access to research outputs is a way of scholarly publishing which began as a philosophical and moral choice for academic authors, but has become – at least in the UK – an increasingly stringent requirement of research funding by Research Councils, funders like the Wellcome Trust, and now the Funding Councils as they look ahead to the next REF.

Stuart Shieber is Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and Faculty Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication. He is an academic author who has been involved with the Open Access movement for many years, and is an acknowledged expert and blogger on the subject.  Come and hear him give his views and answer questions on the future of Open Access and the development of Harvard’s open access policies in a conversation with University Librarian John MacColl.

Tea and coffee provided.

See the University Events page for more information

Workshop on Open Access for St Andrews staff

Do you want a better understanding of what open access means for you? Do you need to know how to comply with your funders' requirements for open access? Would you like an understanding of how using PURE relates to open access publications?

Why not sign up for our course for St Andrews staff:

Open access: publishing options, funder policies, support services and more

Date: Wed 14 May 2014
Time: 1400-1630
Programme: Academic Staff Development Programme

See more details and sign up on PDMS

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/pdms/index.php?Mode=Search&AudienceID=2&CourseID=3968

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

Mission statement on quality-assured OA research publishing system

The Max Planck Society has presented a draft mission statement in support of the continuing growth of open access.

Ten years since the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was written, the Max Planck Society hosted the Berlin Open Access Conference (#Berlin11), 19-20 Nov 2013. These conferences have taken place annually, and have been dedicated to support adoption of the Berlin Declaration principles. During Berlin 11, the new mission statement was announced "in order to exploit the innovative and transformational potential of OA", and includes this call:

We call on the signatories of the Berlin Declaration and on all other organisations that perform or support scholarly research to:

1. increase the support for and interoperability of OA repositories for scholarly materials, while reducing and where possible eliminating embargoes, and improving the ability to re-use works;
2. support new and innovative OA publishing models that meet the highest possible scholarly standards, and invest into a publication infrastructure optimised for the needs of research and scholarship; and
3. cooperate with one another to ensure a smooth transition to a stable and functioning, truly open scholarly publishing system, including access to scholarly source and cultural heritage data, where the full text of every research work is open immediately upon publication.

It also urges a strategy that should address standards, quality, stability and a coordinated transition, and concludes:

We believe that a stable, competitive, and quality-assured OA research publishing system offers immense benefits not only to scholarship but also to society as a whole. Scholarly publishing is a global activity, and organisations that perform and support research, particularly those using public money, have a responsibility to work together globally to realise these benefits. It is time to return control of scholarly publishing to the scholars.

See the full Mission Statement at the Berlin 11 Open Access Conference of the Max Planck Society

Horizon 2020: open access to be achieved via repositories

The European Commission has launched its Horizon 2020 programme of research funding. Open access remains a core principle, and the model grant agreement describes the expectations for grant recipients.

All peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to results of a project must be made open access, either by publishing in an open access journal (gold OA), or by self-archiving in a repository (green OA). In either case, a 'machine-readable electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication' should be deposited into a repository for scientific publications. If the researcher chooses 'gold' open access then the deposited final version will be made open access immediately. Where researchers choose 'green' open access, then the manuscript (usually the author's accepted version) should be made open access within 6 months.

For St Andrews authors, the usual mechanism of depositing into PURE will allow the Library to help with making your publication open access. Contact open-access-support@st.andrews.ac.uk for advice.

The Open Access in Horizon 2020 factsheet provides more detail, including information about related research data: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon2020/files/FactSheet_Open_Access.pdf

The text of the Model Grant Agreement regarding 'Open access to scientific publications' can be found on page 58, section 29.2: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/mga/gga/h2020-mga-gga-mono_en.pdf

University of St Andrews Open Access Policy

To coincide with Open Access Week 2014, the University of St Andrews has published a position statement on open access. John MacColl, University Librarian & Director of Library Services introduces the new Open Access Policy:

Open Access to scholarly outputs is one of the key challenges for those of us working in research institutions at the present time. Researchers want to have their words read, their data presented and their ideas disseminated. The machinery which makes this happen is complex, necessarily involving businesses, funders, library customers and web-based content providers. What is a reasonable price to pay for research dissemination, and at what point in the transaction chain between reviewers accepting an output for publication and the world getting sight of it is it fair to say that the work has been paid for and can now be made open? Which model best suits different academic disciplines with varying cultures of confidentiality and review? Despite the significant difficulties in finding a way to balance the multiple interests involved, the UK has sought to face up to these challenges in order to arrive at systems of open access which are economically viable and provide for public good and the advancement of knowledge. With research funding now being utilised to develop the Open Access agenda, it is important for us to have a shared vision as an academic community on the means as well as the ends of the publication of research by this University. Our new Open Access Policy provides a statement of that shared vision.

The University of St Andrews Open Access Policy states:

Our preference in respect of publishing in journals is for Open Access by means of the Green route.[...] To achieve Green Open Access compliance, researchers should record their publications in PURE at the time of acceptance, and deposit a postprint in the University’s repository via PURE - or in another appropriate repository.

We also support ‘Gold’ Open Access which usually involves paying Article Processing Charges to publishers of Open Access journals. [...] The Library administers Open Access publication funds which are available to academic authors in certain cases where Article Processing Charges require to be paid.

The policy also encourages academic authors to "consider Open Access publication of monographs where possible".

See the full policy at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/services/researchsupport/openaccess/oapolicy/ [print version]

Open Access support and further information is available from the Library webpages and from the Open Access Support team

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

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

Collective approach to open access by Science Europe

Science Europe has just released a position statement on the transition to open access. Their press release states:

Science Europe’s 51 member organisations are all committed to ensuring that results of publicly-funded research and innovation in Europe are available through an unrestricted, online access system, and have identified a list of ten principles that will ensure consistency and coherence in their efforts towards Open Access.

The principles include recognition for the role of repositories and the mixed approach of 'green' and 'gold' routes to open access. They also stress that 'the hybrid model, as currently defined and implemented by publishers, is not a working and viable pathway to Open Access.' The short position statement and shared principles can be found at http://www.scienceeurope.org/uploads/Public%20documents%20and%20speeches/SE_OA_Pos_Statement.pdf

Science Europe is an association of European Research Funding Organisations (RFO) and Research Performing Organisations (RPO), based in Brussels. It includes the UK Research Councils and aims to promote a collective voice for the European Research Area.

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