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.

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.

Royal Society call for submissions for new open access journal

The Royal Society will launch its second fully open access journal Royal Society Open Science in September of this year and is now calling for submissions. The journal is comprehensive in its scope covering life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and computer science. The journal also aims to publish work without the length and scope restrictions observed by more traditional journals.

What is of particular interest is that the publishing model aims to offer open peer review as an option, will offer open access to data, implement article level metrics and offer researchers the opportunity to add post-publication comments.

Papers are made open access on publication on the Royal Society Open Science website and are deposited in PubMed Central on behalf of the author. Authors also retain copyright of their work and papers are made freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution License  (CC BY 4.0). The journal is therefore fully compliant with funder open access mandates.

Open access charges for Royal Society Open Science are waived by the publishers for an introductory period. If you are publishing after this initial period do not fret. The Library has Open Access membership with Royal Society Publishing and this will continue to give University of St Andrews authors a 25% discount on standard article processing charges. Contact open-access-support@st-andrews.ac.uk for details. 

To find out more about the journal and to submit research, visit the Royal Society Open Science website.

St Andrews journal becomes member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

The Journal of Terrorism Research has just become a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). JTR is  published by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at University of St Andrews and hosted by University of St Andrews Library Journal Hosting Service.

OASPA was established to represent the interests of Open Access (OA) publishers globally in all scholarly disciplines. It does this through 'exchanging information, setting standards, advancing models, advocacy, education, and the promotion of innovation'. The organisation has just announced standards for 'legitimate journals' and the criteria for membership of OASPA. The Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing includes expectations for peer review and governing bodies:

1. Peer review process: All of a journal’s content, apart from any editorial material that is clearly marked as such, shall be subjected to peer review. Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers expert in the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. This process, as well as any policies related to the journal’s peer review procedures, shall be clearly described on the journal’s Web site.
2. Governing Body: Journals shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope. The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors shall be provided on the journal’s Web site.

See the OASPA blog for further details

See the latest issue of Journal of Terrorism Research

Impact of open access on teaching

During this year's Open Access Week, BioMed Central highlighted a number of open access articles that address questions of impact on society. Having just caught up with the collected tweets, we are delighted to see an article in BMC Bioinformatics by St Andrews authors Daniel Barker et al. mentioned as a way that open access can benefit the public:

.@univofstandrews lecturers use @raspberrypi & #OpenAccess materials to teach bioinformatics http://t.co/PZLjSxUdKw #OAWeek #imFact
— BioMed Central (@BioMedCentral) October 23, 2013

The article is about teaching bioinformatics to biologists at the University of St Andrews with a low-cost computing environment, and an embedded open access course:

By including an explicit Open Access licence, and removing or replacing material incompatible with this from 4273π Bioinformatics for Biologists, we have been able to share it with anyone interested, the world over, in such a way that they can – with minimal care – re-use and adapt it without accusation of plagiarism or copyright violation.

The article is of course open access itself, paid for by the University's membership of BioMed Central

The full list of stories are available from the BioMed Central blog

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

'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

Highlighting open access outputs in School of Classics

Following collaboration between the Library repository team and School computing officers, the University of St Andrews School of Classics has developed new web pages highlighting content from Research@StAndrews:FullText.

Using RSS feeds and scripts to repurpose the data, the new Classics site provides a dynamic list of completed theses, with options to view abstracts and link to the full text. There are also handy links back to Library web pages with further information on finding theses and general advice on open access. (Note, not all theses are available to download immediately due to embargoes).

In addition there is a page that links to open access research publications by staff in Classics, all of which have full text available in Research@StAndrews:FullText

Our embedded usage stats show healthy downloads for some of these research outputs, for example 'Written Into the landscape : Latin epic and the landmarks of literary reception' (PhD thesis by James S McIntyre, 122 downloads) and 'Training athletes and explaining the past in Philostratus' Gymnasticus' (Book chapter by Dr Jason Konig, 70 downloads).

Link to School of Classics Postgraduate research and staff publications from http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/research/

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.

Free ebook explores women and wills in French history

NEW published Aug 2012:
"For the salvation of my soul": women and wills in medieval and early modern France edited by Joëlle Rollo-Koster and Kathryn L. Reyerson
ISBN 978-1-907548-09-3

We are delighted to announce the publication of volume 5 in the St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series, available from Research@StAndrews:FullText. This open access ebook is the latest to be published by the St Andrews Centre for French History and Culture, free for consultation, downloading, printing or circulation, either for private use or for educational purposes. The earlier volumes have had a high number of downloads and initial indications are that this new title will continue this success.

This volume seeks to investigate the testamentary practices of women in medieval and early modern France, examining the experience of a cross-section of the population, from artisans to the elite, in Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Marseille, Montpellier, La Rochelle, Brittany, and Burgundy. The making of a will was perhaps the single most prominent moment in women's lives for the assertion of agency. Though constrained to some degree by customary practice and the increasing influence of Roman law, women demonstrated remarkable initiative in the formulation of their last wishes. Wills permitted women to reward friendship and loyalty, to designate universal heirs as major beneficiaries, to stipulate conditions of inheritance so that last wishes were carried out, and, perhaps most importantly, to make pious donations to the Church for the salvation of the testators' souls. They chose their burial sites and arranged for funeral processions, and they endowed anniversary masses for their souls in perpetuity. Individual testamentary decisions differed, as did spousal strategies, but the reinforcement of family ties, even the assertion of relationship, was possible in wills.

The series can be accessed online from our repository and is also available as print-on-demand from the Centre for French History and Culture.

Latest open access content from journal hosting service

The latest open access issue of the Journal of Terrorism Research has been published. The journal is hosted by the University of St Andrews Library Journal Hosting Service and published by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

The aim of this Journal is to provide a space for academics and counter-terrorism professionals to publish work focused on the study of terrorism. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the study of terrorism, high-quality submissions from all academic and professional backgrounds are encouraged. Students are also warmly encouraged to submit work for publication.

Each article is published in PDF and HTML, and the complete issue is also available as a single PDF. All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Journal of Terrorism Research, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2012) Special Issue: Assessing the Emergency Response to Terrorism

EU and World Bank provide boost for open access

The European Union has thrown its weight behind a transition to open access for publicly-funded research outputs, with a proposed requirement for all peer-reviewed research funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme to be made freely available.

This will mean all researchers receiving funding from the EUR80 billion Horizon programme between 2014 and 2020 will be expected to publish either in an open access journal, or in a journal that allows a version to be deposited in a repository. This is currently the case for some projects in the EU FP7 programme, under the OpenAIRE pilot.

THE reports the latest move to back open access in the article 'Muscle from Brussels as open access gets an €80bn boost'

This follows a recent announcement from the World Bank on its plans for a new open access policy to be implemented in July 2012. The World Bank launched its Open Knowledge Repository in April and will use the repository to publish research including books, journal articles and data under a Creative Commons licence.

Discovery service for open access books

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) has just been launched with over 750 academic books available under an Open Access licence.

Books are available in a range of subjects with a particularly strong presence in History and Social Sciences.

DOAB ensures that books are available to readers with as few restrictions as possible, and requires that academic books in the directory are peer reviewed prior to publication.

DOAB is a service of the OAPEN Foundation, and policies have been developed in conjunction with the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).

Press release:

http://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=news&nId=2&uiLanguage=en

US Research Works Act: threat to open scholarly communication

The Research Works Act seeks to stop organisations from having conditions in their grants that require research outputs to be made open access. At a time when the UK Government are raising their commitment to open access, and increasing recognition of OA mandates from UK funders, the RWA would reverse the NIH Public Access Policy which requires outputs from publicly funded research to be made freely available on the internet. Further explanation in these posts, and updates to follow:

Stop U.S. legislation that would block public access to publicly funded research, Creative Commons blog http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/31184

Trying to roll back the clock on Open Access: Research Works Act introduced, ALA Washington Office blog http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/01/trying-to-roll-back-the-clock-on-open-access-research-works-act-introduced/

Research bought, then paid for, New York Times opinion pages http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?_r=1

Can AAP Members stay neutral in the row over the Research Works Act?, Richard Poynder ‘Open and Shut?’ blog http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-aap-members-stay-neutral-in-row.html “the RWA would be a major setback for the Open Access movement…”

Mendeley's response to RWA and SOPA http://www.mendeley.com/blog/academic-features/on-sharing-research-and-the-value-of-peer-review-mendeleys-response-to-sopa-and-the-research-works-act/ 

Publishers acting as barriers to research

In a recent piece in the Guardian, George Monbiat took on academic publishers and the business models that prevent access for many to scholarly publications. Ben Goldacre takes up the story a few days later in similar hard-hitting style.

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist
Academic publishers run a guarded knowledge economy

Increasing access to outputs of publicly funded research

Science minister David Willetts has announced that the UK Government is setting up an independent working group to look at how UK-funded research findings can be made more widely available. This follows the transparency agenda, which should apply to published research "to ensure that people are given the opportunity to know more about the projects that government funds".

The news has been welcomed by RCUK, saying "this new working group will help in the endeavour to make publicly funded research available to the public now and remain accessible for future generations.”

The InPharm.com portal comments that David Willetts is unhappy about published data resulting from publicly-funded research projects sitting "behind a pay wall".

It is interesting to see open access objectives appearing prominently on the Government's agenda.

Recent St Andrews open access ebook highly accessed

The latest open access ebook in the St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series is in the Top 3 most viewed items from Research@StAndrews:FullText for the last month.

Proven patriots”: the French diplomatic corps, 1789-1799 by Linda S. Frey and Marsha L. Frey is the third in the series of midigraphs produced by the St Andrews Centre for French History and Culture.

Highlighting their open access availability, the introduction to the series states: "In keeping with the mission of the Centre to enhance public understanding of the Francophone world, these publications are free at the point of delivery and come with no charge for consultation, downloading, printing or circulation, either for private use or for educational purposes. Copyright is asserted merely in order to protect the works as the intellectual production of individual scholars."

The series covers the full span of historical themes relating to France: from political history, through military/naval, diplomatic, religious, social, financial, cultural and intellectual history, art and architectural history, to literary culture. Titles in the series are rigorously peer-reviewed through the editorial board and external assessors.

The series can be accessed online from our repository and is also available as print-on-demand from the Centre for French History and Culture.

Significant new Open Access journals

Several announcements have appeared over the last few months introducing new, completely open access journals from major publishers. It would appear that publishers are recognising the need to change business models, and while there is still uncertainty over how funding streams will work to pay for open access publishing fees, the moves should have significant impact on access to quality research outputs.

Announcements include:
Wiley
SAGE open
Nature's Scientific Reports
BMJ Open

As Peter Suber notes in his monthly newsletter, this represents a 'watershed' for Open Access.

Most publishers will also continue or extend their options to make individual articles open access in their standard journals, for example see the statement from IEEE

Toolkit addresses researchers concerns

In the midst of Open Access Week the JISC Scholarly Communication Action Handbook has been released:

"This handbook addresses scholarly communication concerns and provides actions that individuals can take to help make positive changes. These actions are targeted for use by key stakeholders, such as researchers, librarians, research mangers, and senior managers, and can also be used by advocates to recommend actions to those they are lobbying."

With helpful navigation and full of useful, practical suggestions this guide is well worth a look. You might want to start with the hot topics section.

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).