Discovering open access repository contents

Our Library e-resources blog recently described how you can now find full text resources from OAIster through our Discovery Service SEEKER. See the full details in this post.

OAIster harvests records from worldwide institutional repositories including Research@StAndrews:FullText and makes them easily searchable.

A similar service that allows you to search and find open access resources in repositories is BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). Outputs from a specific repository can be found by refining your search results in the Collection drop-down list.

The Directory of Open Access Repositories OpenDOAR also provides a search service for material in its directory at http://www.opendoar.org/search.php

HEFCE and RCUK agree on need for Open Access strategy

The Times Higher Education has reported that "Research Councils UK and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have agreed to work together to advance the transition to open-access publishing of research". The full statement from HEFCE is available at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2011/rcuk.htm

The bodies will look at how to support the practice of depositing papers into open access repositories, as well as the 'gold' method where researchers pay to publish in a journal that makes their article open access.

St Andrews researchers can currently deposit author versions of research publications into PURE so that they can be made publicly available in our institutional repository Research@StAndrews:FullText http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/

St Andrews researchers - we want your views on OA

Unlocking attitudes to Open Access Survey

We are launching a survey to find out what you think about Open Access and how you use the University’s digital repository. This is part of a national initiative to create a body of evidence about researchers’ attitudes, and will help us develop our services to support research activity in the University.


Research@StAndrews:FullText is the University’s digital repository, where the full text of research publications and theses is securely stored for the institution and made freely and publicly available.  PURE is the University’s research information system where researchers can add their research publications and deposit the full text of those publications for transfer to the repository.

The survey will run from 3 May 2011 to 30 June 2011 and can be accessed at http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/standrews/openaccess2011

New look for Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has launched a new interface. It is now even easier to navigate around DOAJ to find open access journals and related information.

The 'About' section gives clear definitions on the journals included in the directory:

"Open Access Journal: We define open access journals as journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. From the BOAI definition [1] of "open access" we take the right of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory. [1] http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess

Quality Control: The journal must exercise peer-review or editorial quality control to be included."

The statistics section shows that journals are being added to the directory at a rate of over 100 a month. In total there are now 6436 journals listed, with over 500 based in the UK.

For anyone thinking of setting up an open access journal, there is a really useful resource: Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing 

Authors rights to deposit in repositories

The UK Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) have made a statement supporting the rights of authors to deposit a copy of their published work in repositories. "Do you know your publishing rights?" is a response to recent changes in the policies of some publishers.

If authors want to investigate how to retain certain rights, the JISC/SURF Copyright toolbox provides practical suggestions.

OAIG: http://www.open-access.org.uk
"The aim of the UK Open Access Implementation Group is to add value to the work of the member organisations to increase the rate at which the outputs from UK research are available on OA terms."

New report on OA models from RIN

The Research Information Network has just released a new report analysing various possible scenarios for how open access might be achieved.

Heading for the open road:costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications investigates models including 'Green' open access (archiving in repositories); 'Gold' open access (open acess journals which usually charge publication fees); licensing and transactional options, and concludes with key implications for national policy-making.

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