On 26 June 2016 Paul Stainthorp presented at the final Jisc Open Access Good Practice pathfinders event on “Workflows & Structures” in Manchester on the work done by HHuLOA in work package 8, “Open Access and e-resource workflows“.
His slides (PDF format) are available to download from here.
Open Access workflows are often seen as a separate add-on set of processes. However, libraries already have processes in place to manage the e-resource life cycle. Therefore, as part of work package 8 (Library processes and open access), the HHuLOA team decided to investigate how open access workflows could be embedded into e-resource management. We looked at two established resources, TERMS (Techniques in E-Resource Management) (1,2) and OAWAL (Open Access Workflows for Academic Librarians) (3, 4, 5).
TERMS began in 2008 and grew out of a discussion between the authors over a lack of consistency in e-resource management practices. TERMS aimed to set out the e-resource life cycle and to define a set of best practice using real world examples gathered from libraries in the UK and US. The 6 TERMS (described below) were crowdsourced for a number of years before a first draft was launched in 2012. During this period a number of very positive and constructive comments were gathered. This version of TERMS was recorded in Library Technology Reports during 2013.
The 6 TERMS are:
Like TERMS, OAWAL was aimed at new staff. OAWAL was aimed at those new to the area of open access, particularly those that were working in other parts of the library to the open access team and therefore may not have an in depth understanding of the processes involved. The 6 areas of OAWAL are:
OAWAL was essentially an answer to a question posed at a TERMS event. Namely, how does open access fit into the e-resources management life cycle? Broadly speaking, OAWAL was developed around the same time that the Jisc OA Pathfinder projects. As such it seeks to explain some of the aspects of the open access life cycle rather than describe the life cycle itself – something that the HHuLOA project went on to do for the UK and US in conjunction with OAWAL (6, 7)
For this reason the HHuLOA team decided try to map the OA life cycle onto TERMS, rather than OAWAL, in order to see where various parts of the workflow fitted with the established e-resources workflow. However, the version of TERMS that the team used was a nuanced version first suggested in 2014 by Liam Earney at Jisc Collections after mapping Jisc Collections library support services to TERMS (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Jisc Collections library support services mapped to TERM (8)
In particular this exercise identified an area that TERMS had not covered, preservation (see Figure 2). TERMS now plans to alter the 6 headings to include a section on the preservation of electronic resource content whilst consolidating two of the existing sections, Ongoing Evaluation and Access with the Annual Review section.
Figure 2. Preservation strand of Jisc Collections Library support services
Therefore, the elements that the HHuLOA team looked at were:
What follows are the outcome of a group discussion where the team attempted to map areas of the OA life cycle to TERMS. We decided to split open access into hybrid and full open access as there appeared to be themes unique to one or other for many of the headings. There is also an overlap between them in some cases, where some of the points under open access could also apply to hybrid OA.
The following relate to validation for OA content regarding collection development
While this is relevant to publication in hybrid OA regardless of whether a subscription to that title is held, for hybrid titles that do come as part of a package publication in these titles could be seen as part of the implementation of the subscription. Therefore, the following questions and tasks need to be completed:
For the next three parts of the TERMS cycle the distinction between hybrid and full open access was less clear, as they deal with how to manage open access materials once they have been acquired. Hence, the discussions addressed the general issues and are provided as a single list.
The HHuLOA team hope that the points above can be used to promote discussion and further development on how to embed open access into e-resource management workflows.
It is also hoped that after the completion of the HHuLOA project that these points will be taken on by the TERMS as part of a planned revision, which is due to start in summer 2016. In keeping with the origins of TERMS, it is proposed that this revision will be crowdsourced to develop and mature it for future use.
For further comment please contact the HHuLOA blog or TERMS
And so, into the final few months of the HHuLOA project. The project has been a curious mixture to date of institutional developments informing and being informed by the specific project activities that the three partner institutions would have been unlikely to take forward without the project. This update mirrors this, and highlights that Open Access developments within our institutions go beyond what HHuLOA is covering, but also the value of the project activities.
The project has had a particular interest in how our systems can manage the metadata they need to. Within the project this has been taken forward through the analysis of RIOXX. An analysis of REF metadata (RIOXX+, so to speak) is forthcoming, and is being guided by our mutual understanding of how this can be implemented and presented through our repository systems (Hydra at Hull, hosted EPrints at Huddersfield, and local EPrints at Lincoln). Working towards a recognised metadata standard for display is also being explored at Huddersfield, focusing on APA 6th. Lincoln is focusing on the ongoing development of Repository Bridge, a system that can be used to more effectively flag the Open Access status of outputs in the repository.
Aside of repository concerns, both Hull and Huddersfield are in the process of selecting and implementing a new Research Information System. The work to understand the metadata required for our repositories will play into the RIS set-up, as it is likely that the RIS will be used to collect the metadata required in the first instance.
Another area that all three partners are looking at in more detail is ORCiD. Lincoln has a first iteration of a university-wide system for authenticating and handling ORCiD identifiers, whilst Huddersfield has implemented the EPrints plugin for testing. Hull will be rolling out ORCiD as part of the RIS implementation, and then capturing the identifier in the repository.
As the HEFCE policy deadline approaches, all sites have been looking at ways of spreading awareness of what academics and support service colleagues need to do, and why. Lincoln has been liaising with the local REF Office and Planning & Business Intelligence on reporting on citations and usage of OA outputs. Huddersfield is looking at making use of the CIAO and MIAO tools in training sessions (focusing on MIAO for researchers). Hull has been disseminating a postcard with instructions and attending as many staff meetings as possible to raise awareness prior to a series of open meetings and panels of academics telling their Open Access stories in Feb-Apr.
Linked to this has been the work of HHuLOA. Huddersfield has been making use of the Open Access life cycles (of which there are now four from different perspectives) and tube map in internal training sessions, whilst Hull has just concluded a national survey for the project on the links between Open Access and research workflows to better understand how Open Access can be embedded; a blog post on this will follow in February. We are also turning the work on navigating Open Access policies into a journal article to prompt ongoing discussion.
Aside of the work described above, what else has the project been doing?
So, RDM may not be a primary activity for HHuLOA, but a key area of development at each partner. Huddersfield has received its first data from a humanities research project and is refining guidelines with the Research Office. Lincoln continues to develop a business case for a data registry and repository (having tested CKAN in the past), whilst Hull is working with the UK Research Data Discovery Service to enable harvesting of data records from Hydra. A growth area…
We have a number of new life cycles which we welcome feedback on:
OA Life cycle for research Managers
OA life cycle for researchers
OA life cycle for publishers
In addition we have two new concepts for discussion:
OA underground map
Updated February 2016 after comments received
Mapping pathfinder projects to the OA life cycle
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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:
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
The following themes were considered:
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:
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
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:
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.
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.
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…
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 25th 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.
As ever with the ending of the summer period, September leads to a fair amount of head-scratching and wondering where the time went to do all the things you wanted to do in the past few months. Thankfully, the land has not been fallow in regard of open access developments within the HHuLOA project and the three partner institutions.
Project update
It is a year since we started collecting baseline information on open access planning within institutions. We now have 13 institutions contributing to this, and hope to have more this autumn. The partner institutions will be updating their own entries and all institutions willing to share their own information through are very welcome. The advantages of sharing this information have been flagged up as:
A separate blog post is being published on an initial analysis of the data collected to highlight trends that have emerged.
The focus of attention with regard to navigation of funder policies has been on identifying use cases for the information as it is broken down. Ongoing analysis is under way, in particular looking at the comparison of the work with that of PASTEUR4OA and Sherpa JULIET. Additional funders are also being included.
The open access life cycle was published shortly after the last update, and has proved to be a valuable tool in prompting and informing open access discussions. A US version was also produced, and it is planned to develop stakeholder views of the life cycle during the autumn.
The project held a successful event at the National Railway Museum on 25th June. This focused on dissemination of the work described above, and then looked at the links between open access and research development. The findings are being described in a separate blog post, and are informing a forthcoming survey on this topic in October.
Dissemination also took place at the recent Northern Collaboration Conference at Leeds Beckett University, which also promoted the Pathfinder projects overall and encouraged take-up of their outputs.
Local developments
The technical work that is required at each site to ensure we can capture the correct metadata is ongoing, with each site at different stages. We hope to generate use cases from our experiences in the next few months to help guide others.
Systems aside, the work has also helped us better understand the RIOXX metadata profile that will help us capture the information we need for compliance and local open access management. A set of guidelines on using the profile has been produced, and this will be extended to cover REF-specific metadata in due course.
From each site:
The University of Huddersfield upgraded to EPrints 3.3 over the summer and we have spent a lot of time testing the new system before and after the migration. Although the upgrade went well, with virtually no downtime, we have suffered platform instability since. This has meant that we have only just had the RIOXX plug-in installed and this is the next job for us. We plan to use the HHuLOA RIOXX guidelines to help us get the plug-in working successfully in the coming weeks. Next will be the ORCiD plug in, which we are looking forward to getting to grips with. Huddersfield became an ORCiD Consortium Member through Jisc Collections and this will soon become the single point of truth. Huddersfield is currently out to tender for a CRIS, so we will be going quiet on that front for a while. Other activities over the summer were to use the Jisc APC template to report on APC payment, the next step will be to use this for RCUK reporting in the coming weeks. Finally we hope to give the Repository a new coat of paint in the coming months with a refresh of the look and feel of the platform.
The Repository team at Lincoln have been working on the prototype “Research Bridge”, a web-based system for aggregating information from disparate institutional systems (including the Lincoln Repository, staff data, research project/finance data and metrics/usage data systems), and for making this information available through dashboards and reports. This same system is being used to generate HEFCE policy compliance reports. Lincoln has become an ORCID Consortium Member through Jisc Collections, and the Repository team are working with Lincoln’s Human Resources department on processes for generating and storing ORCIDs in the University’s “MyView” staff data system, and on making them available through Microsoft Active Directory for use in other applications including the Lincoln Repository (EPrints).
The University of Hull saw the creation of the new Research Services Team in July, with 3.5 dedicated staff resource (albeit also covering library cataloguing) able to provide more focus on research support, including open access. This has boosted our ability to respond to REF policy submissions in preparation for next April. A communications plan is also coming into play this month to increase awareness, using a structured email campaign and postcards amongst its tools. We have completed the specification for Hydra development to accommodate RIOXX and REF metadata, and will be implementing this in the run-up to Christmas, by which time we shall also be Jisc ORCiD Consortium members. Our Open Access Working Group has provided useful input to our planning, and valuable institutional context for the services we need to provide.
Looking ahead
In addition to continuing the development of the baseline template, funder policy navigation and open access life cycle as described above, HHuLOA will be focusing more on its original elevator pitch in the coming months:
“HHuLOA will focus on good practice to identify and implement a range of OA initiatives across three non-RLUK research intensive partners.”
In doing so, we want to extend the discussions we started at our project event on how open access can contribute to research development and strategy in the context of a small but growing research base. We plan to explore the link between libraries and research offices (and other stakeholders) in managing OA workflows, develop good practice tips for a range of research facets (e.g., finance, legal, community, staffing, dissemination, and technical), and develop a draft MoU to facilitate connections between institutional stakeholders.
We are also keen to understand better how we embed open access in library supply chain workflows, and will be exploring this across the three partners in the New Year. Input on both these areas is very welcome.
Chris