Research@StAndrews:FullText NEW download statistics

We are pleased to announce that we can now report on downloads from Research@StAndrews:FullText via Google Analytics.

Since 2009 we have been able to count visits and page views for our repository. Now, with the help of our developers at the Scottish Digital Library Consortium, we can include figures for full text downloads. We are still working on further improvements that will allow us to display results in the repository itself, and we hope to make these publicly available by the end of the year.

In the short time that these statistics have been available, we can already see some exciting results.

The latest CREEM Technical Report, deposited only 3 weeks ago, has been downloaded 16 times.

A recent thesis, Variation in habitat preference and distribution of harbour porpoises west of Scotland has had 486 views and 290 downloads in only 2 months.

“Proven patriots”: the French diplomatic corps, 1789-1799, the third ebook in our St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series, has been downloaded 24 times in 2 months.

We have recorded 2,705 full text downloads "since records began" (22 Aug 2011). In this period over 100 items were downloaded more than 5 times each.

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.

Supporting Open Access initiatives

Open Access Week 2011 is a global event now in its 5^th year, promoting open access as a new norm in scholarly communication. To mark the event, which runs from 24 – 30 Oct 2011, the Library would like to share some of the results from a survey we ran earlier this year. The survey was part of a national initiative to create a body of evidence about researchers’ attitudes to open access. 

As well as seeking opinions about open access in general, the survey asked about 'self-archiving' - "the open access route where the author makes a version of his/her publication available in a repository or other online open access service" and use of our Research Information system Pure.

See the Open Access survey results

New approach to mandating open access

A world-renowned University introduces a new development on the path towards open access, and aims to put pressure on publishers.

Princeton University has introduced a new policy that requires their researchers to retain some rights in their scholarly outputs, rather than assigning all copyright to journal publishers. The aim is to widen access to the University’s research outputs. Under the new policy, Faculty must grant the University a licence to use their publications for non-commercial purposes, including posting online. In order for them to grant this licence, authors would need to ensure there is provision for this in their copyright agreement.

See further comment in The Conversation report , headlined ‘Princeton bans academics from handing all copyright to journal publishers.’

Unlike most institutional mandates on open access, Princeton do not require their academics to post their articles to a University repository – in fact they do not currently have one. Instead they see this as a voluntary but logical extension of their policy, allowing academics to choose where they put their work as appropriate to their discipline.

With the weight of this University’s policy in place, it will be interesting to see if large publishers will bend their policies to fit. There is provision in the policy to obtain a waiver so in practice many copyright transfers will continue as before. However, this kind of mandate plants the idea that open access should be the norm, rather than at the will of publishers.

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.

Extending the open access debate at Repository Fringe

Another interesting and stimulating Repository Fringe was held in Edinburgh last week, coinciding as usual with the start of the Edinburgh Festivals and held right in the heart of the Fringe action. The theme was 'Repositories building bridges and social innovation', and we were treated to a wide variety of presentations and discussions. I attended Day 2 and my highlights are:

Anna Clements and Janet Aucock presented on the opportunities at St Andrews created by our Pure-Repository integration, emphasising the benefits of close working relationships as well as technical infrastructure.

The best audience reaction was undoubtedly for the presentation delivered entirely in song (Robin Burgess on the enhanced repository at Glasgow School of Art). Most interesting innovation for me was FigShare, a tool allowing researchers to 'publish all their data'. Developed by Mark Hahnel from a personal desire to share all the figures and datasets generated during his PhD, the FigShare repository now contains over 50,000 searchable, citable and reusable figures. Read more about FigShare FAQ.

I attended the round table discussion on Open Scholarship which explored ideas for 'opening' the whole research process, not just data and outputs. There was some difficulty in deciding whether a definition of Open Scholarship could ever be relevant across all disciplines, but we agreed it was about aspirations for sharing global knowledge rather than open access to 'stuff'.

Finally we were given a detailed insight into the motivation for Open Access in the humanities and the work of Gary Hall and colleagues, including Open Humanities Press and Liquid Books.

The trip to Edinburgh was nicely rounded off with some non-repository Fringe activities, the best one being a free show (just goes to show quality stuff can be free!).