ANALYSIS AND NEWS HELPING HEIS UNLOCK RESEARCH
It will not be easy to establish the new order of open access, says Neil Jacobs of
Jisc, but UK institutions and other stakeholders are showing the way
U
nfettered access to research outputs is the goal of the open access (OA) movement and the benefits that this will bring – to researchers, institutions, funders and the public
at large – are pretty familiar to all. The things we have learned over the three years since the publication of the Finch Report offer a rich source of fail-safe methods and shortcuts for other UK universities and colleges. Working with HE research sector bodies ARMA, RLUK, SCONUL and UKCoRR, Jisc has distilled its experiences with OA to date into a series of tips.
In light of the recent OA policy review by Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the release of the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE) updated requirements for next year’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), we hope they’ll help universities and researchers to reap the benefits offered by OA practice.
Draw up an OA policy that requires researchers to make their research outputs available in line with the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Developing a workable policy should be straightforward as there are lots of resources to draw on. The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) offers lots of examples to browse and reuse. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has published some guidelines. At Jisc, the OA Good Practice Pathfinder projects have been working on a range of outputs focused on developing approaches to implement an effective OA policy. Getting the policy right is fundamental because it will enable your institution to commit resources to implementation of the REF policy and its researchers to gain as much as possible from OA. It will help to ensure that
academics understand both what has to be done and the advantages they can enjoy when they do it.
Assess your current position on OA Explore your institution’s OA preparedness and then do the same for its researchers. Planning some joint activities, such as workshops, will help to break down barriers and develop a team-working approach. Work up a baseline assessment so you can identify priority areas that need resources and also quick, cost-effective wins.
The Oxford Brookes/ Portsmouth/ Nottingham Trent (‘Making Sense’) Pathfinder project has created a useful OA benchmarking tool to help institutions assess their readiness for OA compliance – Collaborative Institutional Assessment of Open Access (CIAO). Other resources are also available on Jisc’s open access good practice guide.
Get your communications strategy right
The OA movement may be the result of a democratic urge to open up knowledge to all but, to a researcher, the extra admin and pressure for compliance can make it seem less like the key to the sweetshop and more like a millstone around their neck. But a really good, clear programme of advocacy will ensure that researchers understand the benefits of OA and also encourage them to become willingly involved in the necessary workflows. Take a look at the advocacy toolkit developed by the UCL/Nottingham/Newcastle (Pathways to OA) pathfinder project.
4 Research Information OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015
‘Standardising the way information is recorded makes it much less burdensome’
Setting up a standard OA email mechanism for use by publishers, academics and other participants in the process is also a straightforward way to improve communication channels. Admittedly, setting up the email address is the easy bit – you may need to commit time and resources to establish systems to monitor the address and manage workflows.
Resolve the identity issue – implement ORCID The ORCID system of unique, persistent personal identifiers enables researchers to manage their own professional identity efficiently. It can help to automate many processes for their institutions, such as managing and maintaining records and reporting to the REF. It is now the internationally recommended system and Jisc has recently brokered a national consortium agreement to help the UK’s HEIs implement it quickly, cost-effectively and with an enhanced level of technical support.
Exploit tools that will help researchers navigate their way around OA policies For example, SHERPA/FACT enables researchers to check whether the journal they plan to publish in is compliant with their research funder’s OA policies. The policy
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