Month: November 2015

HHuLOA has launched a survey to investigate the links between Open Access and research support processes and strategy within institutions.  We hope to provide guidance on how Open Access can be better embedded within research support in institutions, both to support the need for HEFCE policy compliance and see the benefit of Open Access for research dissemination.

To complete the survey, please visit https://hull.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/open-access-and-research-support.  The survey should take no more than 15 minutes.

The survey is informed by a project event HHuLOA ran in June 2015 that attracted staff from a range of organisational units within universities.  The outcome of this day has been written up in other blog posts (see links below), and this survey seeks to build on the discussions on that day.

https://library.hud.ac.uk/archive/projects/hhuloa/2015/11/12/hhuloa-project-event-blog-piece-part-1/

https://library.hud.ac.uk/archive/projects/hhuloa/2015/11/12/hhuloa-project-event-blog-piece-part-2/

The day highlighted the important role being filled by different staff within Open Access workflows, depending on how research support is structured, including Library, IT, Finance, Marketing, HR, and research support offices.  The survey explores this stakeholder involvement further.  As such, responses from across different organisational units within institutions are welcome to ascertain the picture from different perspectives.  Please pass the survey link onto any colleagues also working with Open Access who can feed in their view.  Looking beyond day-to-day Open Access practice, the survey also then considers the place of Open Access within institutional strategy: how much is Open Access a strategic driver in itself as well as a means to an end?

Thank you in advance for taking part in the survey!

The institutions that have volunteered information for the baseline assessment spreadsheet (13 including the project partners) have, through their own openness, provided some useful insights to how and what open access developments are taking place. Based on information received up the end of the summer, a top 10 (although not necessarily in order) of themes and trends were identified for a presentation at the Northern Collaboration conference in September, and have been expanded for this blog post. A further analysis will take place after the latest information updates from the autumn have been added.

1. QA of research output records sits with the Library, irrespective of how deposit is carried out.

Quality Assurance seems to be a role that libraries are being recognised for as part of the open access process. This may be because no one else wants to do it, of course, but it does flag up that there is a very definite and important role that libraries are being called to undertake. This theme also highlights the role of libraries in research information system management, and it would be good to understand how this is panning out more broadly.

2. Text-mining is a largely unexplored area, with a major sticking point being the default use of PDF as the filetype being deposited.

Maybe not so surprisingly, text-mining hasn’t hit the radar yet, or at least not in the institutions providing data. There is interest, certainly, but possibly a lack of awareness of how to engage and support this in research outputs within repositories. It is recognised that the default use of PDF (or, at least, PDF image files if created this way) doesn’t necessarily help with this, and the main purpose of the repository being to facilitate easy access rather than machine processing. It would be good to hear of examples where repository contents have been used in text mining to understand how this can be best enabled.

3. The heaviest focus is on Green Open Access, with Gold Open Access as an add-on.

This is perhaps not surprising given the pronouncements from many institutions in this area. Pragmatism is winning out over policy preference (at least in RCUK’s case). It does raise the issue of how institutions might better support Gold Open Access (assuming costs can be managed).

4. Reporting is an underdeveloped area.

Whilst libraries have focused on getting content deposited, and some repository systems have good reporting tools, it seems that this has been put on the back burner in many cases, at least for now. Given the audit requirements for HEFCE and RCUK, this is an area that will require development, and internal reporting will also help raise the profile of what Open Access through the repository can enable.

5. Metadata entry does use automated tools (e.g., CrossRef if supplying a DOI), but much effort is still manual.

The inconsistency in information and policy from different publishers makes this manual effort almost inevitable. Nevertheless, if systems can be used to provide metadata, and maybe event the appropriate full-text, then they can be successfully exploited for this. This area of development in Jisc to help support HEFCE policy compliance is thus a key area to assist with ensuring repository records are managed in a timely fashion.

6. There is widespread availability of polices for Open Access, informed by an institutional body.

It was good to see that almost all those providing information have a local Open Access policy to inform their local practice. To some degree, then, institutions have accepted the need to highlight and communicate the benefits of Open Access and the need to act on this. It remains to be seen what type of teeth such bodies have when trying to enforce the policy.

7. Creative Commons licences are used widely, but only when required.

The power of the mandate seems to have had an impact here. Responses suggested that the RCUK and HEFCE policies are influencing use of CC licences. However, the responses also suggest that institutions are not promoting their own view of such licences, or looking to make use of them more generally. This feels short-sighted, as if such licences are going to be used, then it will be important for institutions to know and understand how the both make the most of them, and also defend them if they need to (if a licence is breached, for example).

8. Most sites responding now seem to have 1 or more FTE working on Open Access.

It is a while since UKCoRR did a survey of staffing for repositories and Open Access, so it was good to see this evidence. This is not to say the staffing resource is sufficient, particularly, but that there is some substance to how institutions are tackling Open Access that wasn’t present a few years ago.

9. A widespread mix of support services within universities are involved in Open Access.

This was another positive finding at the responding institutions. These connections will be tested further in an [upcoming survey] to unpick further how these relationships are working. It was less positive to note that direct academic involvement was not high, when they are primary stakeholders. Understanding how to involve academics more closely may be an ongoing challenge for all support services.

10. The main concerns noted were: resources, time – and the acceptance date!

No surprises here…

There is no doubt that many of these findings are not new, but it has been useful to have confirmation of them based on the data received. The more institutions provide this, the better the analysis can be, and hopefully lead to more refined investigation and analysis of Open Access trends.

The biannual update on progress with implementing Open Access, and specifically, implementing processes in readiness for the HEFCE REF Open Access policy, has now been added to the baseline spreadsheet to include the latest activity at the three partner sites – Hull, Huddersfield and Lincoln. All those who have added information earlier this year are invited to add their own updates for September 2015. Additionally, the spreadsheet is open to other institutions adding their own data, either from now or retrospectively, to add to the body of content that is amassing within the spreadsheet. Thirteen institutions have now added data, and it would be great to make it to 20 by the next update in March 2016.

Looking beyond this, the HHuLOA project completes at the end of May 2016. Noting the relaxation of the HEFCE policy for the first 12 months to focus on date of publication rather than date of acceptance, we’d like to keep the spreadsheet going so as to maintain a community awareness of progress going forward. Feedback on how we can make this as useful as possible is very welcome.

An assessment of the data gathered so far has been written up as a separate blog piece, focusing on trends and key similarities and differences. Validation of these findings from other institutions is welcome.

Following the morning review of HHuLOA project activity to date, the afternoon session was given over to looking at the link between Open Access and research development.  Open Access is a means by which research can be disseminated; to that end, where does the dissemination of research fit into institutional research practice and development in terms of achieving impact and meeting the University’s aims?  How can we embed Open Access within such institutional processes, thinking, and strategy to make it an established part of research practice and not an optional sideline?

To investigate this, the afternoon used two exercises to unpick ideas:

• Looking at key Open Access themes and how they might relate to research development
• Looking at institutional/research strategy and how Open Access might be embedded within this

This blog post summarises the discussions that took place, which were also noted from the day in the attached file.

HHuLOA project event 150625 notes

HHuLOA project event slides 150625

Open Access themes

The following themes were considered:

• Functional – How is research dissemination put into practice within an institution (other than individually)?
• Financial – How can we assess funding of Open Access as an investment?
• Legal – How can we use licensing to control/manage open dissemination (and avoid the challenge that Open Access gives our outputs away)?
• Technical – What is the repository’s role within the institution as a whole?
• Staffing – What staff resource is needed to make Open Access effective for the institutional investment in Open Access?
• Community – How does the institution wish to be seen in the HE community re: Open Access?

The subtext of each of these is, how do we get Open Access better embedded?  The notes from the session are available here.  It was clear that some were felt to be simpler to address than others, and it depended on the relative operational/strategic perspective you were able to take from your role.  In brief:

• Functional – Discussion focused around whether maintaining a list of proposed journals would help and identifying where to join conversations about dissemination plans. There are clear disciplinary differences as well that need specific attention.  Making use of social media to help promote Open Access wherever it does occur could also be a useful practical intervention.
• Financial – The need to highlight the financial outcomes from Open Access was flagged to raise awareness of the benefits: the collaborations established and economic gains/savings from these, as well as potential journal subscription savings (a long term goal!). Working towards a good REF environment score and building institutional reputation for Open Access as a way of attracting staff and investment were other areas considered.
• Legal – The need to either identify institutional licensing practice or prompt the establishment of such practice was highlighted as the main initial steps for this, so that application of open licences can take place in an acknowledged framework of practice.
• Technical – Given the mixed audience, it was interesting to note that most discussion here focused on the specific roles of the repository and a CRIS. Clarifying this and communicating it seem to be clear areas of ongoing need.
• Staffing – This discussion focused on who is involved, or needs to be involved, in Open Access to get it embedded. The need to reach across different parts of a University was highlighted, and this mirrors the development of different views of the Open Access life cycle to support this.
• Community – Attendees were unsure how their institutions wished to be viewed re: Open Access, but generated a useful list of reasons why institutions should consider positive endorsement of Open Access going forward, including knowledge transfer, value for money, public good, and, of course, research impact.

The outputs from this event were complemented by the findings at an earlier project stakeholder day in April, for which notes were also compiled.

HHuLOA stakeholder workshop 150427

Strategy and Open Access

The second part of the afternoon focused on strategy.  This poses an immediate challenge.  If Open Access is a means of research dissemination, does it merit strategic inclusion (which would more likely focus on dissemination more generally, not the means by which this is enabled)?  And yet, if we believe that Open Access is a substantial shift in research dissemination practice, is this not a strategic change in how we carry out this activity?  Discuss!

Discussion did indeed take place.  Initially, attendees considered potential approaches to having Open Access as part of institutional strategy, and where different institutions might position themselves:

Scenario 1

The University has decided that it would like to lead the world in the open dissemination of its research outputs, making use of a range of open access routes as appropriate to different output types.  Open access management will be embedded as a core part of institutional research support.

Scenario 2

The University recognises the value of open access, both as a means of supporting openness to research generally and as a means of raising the reputation of the institution through marketing of available outputs.  Appropriate support will be put in place to underpin this, acknowledging the compliance with external policies that will go hand in hand with this.

Scenario 3

The University notes the drivers and advocated value of open access, and will support compliance as required with external policies.  The focus of the University, though, is on maximising its research income, and dissemination options are left to individual and/or departmental decisions.

Most considered that they worked at an institution exhibiting Scenario 3.  Scenarios 1 and 2 were considered different levels of Open Access acceptance institutionally.  Moving from one to another was considered to need culture change, reconciliation with academic freedom, a greater focus on research outcomes, and ways of measuring performance against Open Access use to assess activity.  Many of the tools and steps needed were known and recognised, but they need to be drawn together to effect strategic change.

A sample, anonymous, institutional research strategy was also shared and attendees sent away with the challenge of identifying how Open Access might support the elements contained within this (and how this might be reflected in the strategy itself).  This file is shared for your own take on this…

Sample research strategy to assess Open Access connections

It has been too long since our HHuLOA project event at the end of June, but a useful time to reflect back on what was covered at this and how it is informing the ongoing work of the project.

Twenty-two attendees from across the country wended their way to the excellent facilities at the National Railway Museum on Thursday 25^th June to the event, which was entitled ‘How can Open Access support research development?’  Those making the trip came from varied backgrounds, covering both library and research office, and this facilitated a useful exchange of views and ideas from different perspectives.

The morning of the event was given over to presentations of the main outputs from the project to date, which are available through the blog and have been discussed in greater detail elsewhere (See WP1, WP2, WP3).  Feedback was especially invited on the Open Access life cycle, and this has been fed back into the subsequent development of a next version, plus the development of alternative versions from different viewpoints: the existing version is library-focused, but new versions are being developed for publishers, researchers and research offices, noting their essential part in the Open Access process.  A version for IT staff is also being considered.

There was also much interest in the work on navigating funder open access policies.  This is an area where the project has since reached a practical limit in how far it can take the work, and will be presenting a proposed direction of travel for the community to pick up as appropriate; this will also be discussed with Jisc in the light of the clear interest in having a navigation tool to ease compliance across funders.

The baseline spreadsheet capturing information on institutional open access developments was reviewed, and has since been updated by the project partners for September 2015.  Additional entries are still invited, and we are looking at maintaining the record beyond the life of the project to help assess progress across the community.  A separate blog piece will be published analysing the findings so far.

Part 2 of this blog will look specifically at the detail of the afternoon session, which focused more closely on the link between Open Access and research development within institutions.  The slides used on the day are also available – HHuLOA project event slides 150625.

HHuLOA project event 150625 notes