UK Government creates working group to review how publicly funded research can be more widely disseminated

A working party set up to review academic publishing and research dissemination, including open access, will meet for the first time in October 2011 and report back in Spring 2012. The working party is chaired by Professor Janet Finch, University of Manchester and includes researchers, funders, libraries and publishers. Speaking at the British Science Festival in Bradford, David Willetts, Science Minister, emphasised the working group will play an important role in reviewing research dissemination, saying "Transparency is at the heart of the government’s agenda and it should apply to published research. We do fantastic research in the UK, of which we can be rightly proud, but I want to ensure that people are given the opportunity to know more about the projects that government funds. Research stimulates and fuels innovation and economic growth. So, to maximise UK innovation we need to maximise access to and the use of research findings.”

Department for Business and Skills news release

If you are a White Rose researcher, maximise access to your research by making it available through White Rose Research Online.

IncReASe Project Questionnaire Findings

Back in February / March this year we carried out an online questionnaire across the 3 White Rose institutions. We were interested in what people currently did with their publications and whether they put them up online. We also asked about awareness of WRRO, funder and institutional mandates and what services WRRO should be offering.

We offered a prize of £50 voucher or an iPod Shuffle. Here's a picture of Dr Tom Webb, the lucky winner, receiving his voucher.

We have produced a findings document which has just been sent out to those who responded to the questionnaire. Over the next couple of months we will be producing a report aimed at the repositories community.

Harvard Arts and Sciences Faculty recognized as newest SPARC Innovators

SPARC is the Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition. Twice a year, SPARC names an "Innovator" - an individual or group - which has been "..working to challenge the status quo in scholarly communication for the benefit of researchers, libraries, universities, and the public." The latest SPARC innovator is the Harvard Arts and Sciences Faculty. There has been widespread coverage of the Faculty's decision to make research outputs openly available (a similar policy has also been adopted by Harvard's Law Faculty).

The Harvard researchers want to assert more control over the dissemination of their work and ensure wider access to their research than is the case for papers locked behind solely subscription-based access.

Some extracts from the agreed motion:
"..The Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University is committed to disseminating the
fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment,
the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to the President and
Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to
exercise the copyright in those articles...
"To assist the University in distributing the articles, each Faculty member will provide an
electronic copy of the final version of the article at no charge to the appropriate representative
of the Provost’s Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost’s
Office. The Provost’s Office may make the article available to the public in an open-access
repository."

The full agreement is online at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/February_2008_Agenda.pdf

The research is deposited in Harvard's open access repository. The equivalent system for Leeds, Sheffield and York is White Rose Research Online.

Repository Support Project Summer School 2008

I’ve just got back from the RSP summer school held at Thornton Manor in the Wirral. Well, nearly 10 days ago now I suppose. It was a very interesting couple of days, not least because of the fabulous venue and great food! In fact there must have been almost as much talk about food and Lord Leverhulme’s old house as there was about repositories.

RSP held a summer school last year that was aimed at new repositories and those just in the process of setting up. This year’s was for those with already existing repositories. A good range of topics were covered in the sessions including interoperability, copyright, advocacy, preservation and statistics.

A number of the break out sessions were extremely useful as they offered the chance to discuss the issues directly with other people doing the same / similar job. I know it’s been said many times before but it is fascinating how different institutions staff their repositories. There is such a variation in the number of staff employed, the amount of their time dedicated to the repository and also the other demands repository staff have on their time.

Perhaps one of the most interesting sessions for me was Niamh Brennan’s paper on advocacy. Niamh works on the repository at Trinity College Dublin and there they have integrated the repository with their Current Research Information System (CRIS). Academics must upload details of their publications into the CRIS, and they are now offered a button to add full text. Take up seems to have been very high, and now the repository has a lot of content to deal with. Much of the work around repositories has been about raising their profile and advocacy work. Perhaps the key is actually to make repositories invisible!

WRRO launch new blog

This is the new blog for White Rose Research Online (WRRO), the open access research outputs repository for the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. We have been running a blog for the past year so if you want to see what we’ve been doing up to now please check it out. It won't be updated any more as we've relocated here.

Just a brief bit of background info - WRRO has been live for about 4 years now. It was developed as part of the Sherpa project and has enjoyed steady progress, now containing about 3000 records. Last year WRRO gained JISC funding for the IncReASe project. The aim of the project is to increase the content in the repository and develop services so it is easier to use and becomes part of depositors’ regular workflows.

As part of the IncReASe project we have undertaken a web survey of publications across the 3 university websites and an online questionnaire of academics’ existing depositing habits, knowledge about open access and funders’ OA policies. We are currently interviewing academics further about how they disseminate their research outputs, and what services they would like WRRO to offer. We are also working closely with the ESRC to develop our aim of “deposit once, use many times”. The aim is that ESRC grant holders will be able to deposit with us and we will send their research outputs to the ESRC to fulfil their grant requirements.

We will use both the project website and here to disseminate our findings for the IncReASe project.