RLUK/SCONUL response to BIS statement on access to publicly funded research

The Government has announced that it has accepted all the recommendations of the Finch report except the recommendation on reducing the VAT on e-journals.   It stresses Government’s preference for “gold” over “green” open access. Its response can be found here:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/science/docs/l/12-975-letter-government-response-to-finch-report-research-publications

RLUK and SCONUL welcome the commitment of the UK government to ensure that publicly funded scientific research is made available for  anyone to read for free.  They agree with Science Minister David Willetts that “Removing paywalls that surround taxpayer funded research will have real  economic and social benefits.”

They point out that the transition from older models of publishing  to open access (OA) will take some time and will have serious cost implications. They also have concerns about the length of embargo periods for green open access suggested in the Finch Report. They would like to see more modelling of the potential transition scenarios – in particular focussing on the interplay between and interdependence of green and gold OA, and the possible role of national licensing.

Read their response here:
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/news/rluk_sconul_response

Expanding access to research publications

The report of the Working Group chaired by Dame Janet Finch published on 18 June recommends a programme of action to enable more people to read and use the publications arising from research. Better, faster communication of research results will bring benefits for public services and for economic growth. It will also bring improved efficiency for researchers, and opportunities for more public engagement with research.

The internet has brought much better access to research results for members of the academic community. But the full benefits of the digital and online revolutions have yet to be realised, especially for business, the professions, and the general public. Many people have expressed the ambition for a worldwide open access regime. The key policy questions are how to promote that shift in an ordered way which promotes innovation and maximises the benefits while minimising the risks.

The report recommends actions which can be taken in the UK which would help to promote much greater and faster access, while recognising that research and publications are international. It envisages that several different channels for communicating research results will remain important over the next few years, but recommends a clear policy direction in the UK towards support for open access publishing. This means that publishers receive their revenues from authors rather than readers, and so research articles become freely accessible to everyone immediately upon publication.

At the same time, the report recommends extensions to current licensing arrangements in the higher education, health and other sectors; and it welcomes recent moves by publishers to provide access to the great majority of journals in public libraries.

The full report is available for downloading, along with an executive summary.
http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/

Launch of Theses Collection Wales

In February the Welsh Repository Network held a launch event for ‘ Theses Collection Wales‘. The collection allows users to view both electronic and paper copies of theses and dissertations from every Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Wales through a dedicated catalogue.

Screen shot of ‘Theses Collection Wales’

The Theses Collection Wales includes approximately 50,000 theses and dissertations which have been presented for postgraduate degrees in Welsh HEIs. The collection comprises theses and dissertations arising from PhD and research Masters degrees, as well as taught Masters dissertations which have a Welsh interest or have gained a distinction.

Participants at the launch

 

The vast majority of the current collection is in paper format, but electronic deposit is becoming increasingly common. Through the WRN every HEI in Wales has developed an institutional repository to store and provide online access to their research output, including electronic theses and dissertations – more commonly referred to as ‘e-theses’. In 2009 the NLW and the WRN began work on the ‘e-theses harvesting service.’ This service enabled the NLW to collect, through harvesting, copies of the full-text e-theses and to provide continued access to them through preservation management.

 

 The project team

Anyone may search Theses Collection Wales but to access the resources within the collection it is necessary to register as a NLW reader. This will enable you to request to view a print copy of a thesis in the Library Reading Rooms or alternatively to view and download an e-thesis within the catalogue.

All of the electronic PhD theses that have been collected by the NLW from participating institutions will be further harvested by the British Library’s EThOS service. EThOS aims to provide access to all theses produced by UK higher education. For more information regarding EThOS visit
http://ethos.bl.uk/

The presentations delivered during the event are now available online - find them on the WRN blog at
http://welshrepositorynetwork.blogspot.com/2011/02/launch-of-theses-collection-wales.html
 

Thanks to WRN for the text and the photos.

AEIOU – increasing the visibility of academic research in Wales

We are pleased to announce that the WRN consortium has been successful in their bid for further JISC funding.

The AEIOU (Activity data to Enhance and Increase Open-access Usage) Wales project will run for six months and starts this week. 

Project Summary
The AEIOU Wales project will provide a cost-effective and sustainable shared national service based on open standards that will benefit Welsh HEI partners by improving the quality, impact and productivity of their academic research.

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that the majority of user traffic into an institutional repository is generated through hits from Web search engines such as Google. Searchers will be directed towards a single item or record having no additional incentive to look for further relevant information within the repository.

The purpose of the proposed AEIOU Wales project is to increase the visibility and usage of all academic research by aggregating Welsh institutional repository activity data to provide a “Frequently viewed together” recommendation service, such as those used by Amazon and many other e-commerce websites.

The project will utilise existing relationships and build on the national repository infrastructure established through the WRN.

The project will create a shared recommendation service by aggregating activity data from each WRN repository. Searchers accessing an item within an institutional repository will be presented with recommendations to further Welsh research outputs and will be directed to those items via a Welsh Research Gateway. The recommendation service will also promote relationships between cross-institutional, collaborative research groups within Wales.

Open Access Week competiton – WRN

The week of Monday 18th – Sunday 24th October has been allocated as Open Access Week across the globe. Now in its 4th year, this dedicated week aims to promote ‘Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research’.

To mark the occasion the WRN are running a competition for partners with an Open Access theme.

They are looking for your best repository success story. Whether it’s a story of success convincing an academic researcher to interact with the repository, or a tale of success regarding a deposited item that ended up proving the wide-reaching audience of the repository.

Entries can be as long or as short as you want and they are looking to put the best stories together in a blog post and perhaps even in a new advocacy learning object!

The competition is open from now until the Friday before Open Access Week (15th October).

Email: wrnstaff@aber.ac.uk

There will be a prize available for the winning entry.

Good luck!

Learn about other Open Access Week events, contests and resources through www.openaccessweek.org

WRN Repository Stream at Gregynog

The presentations delivered at the repository stream are now available online from the WRN website at:
http://www.wrn.aber.ac.uk/en/gregynog.html
.

In order to evaluate the training we deliver as a project we look to collect feedback wherever possible to feedback to our sponsors JISC. Therefore, if you did attend the repository, and haven’t already filled out and returned the paper version, could we please ask you to take a few moments to complete an online feedback form available from
http://www.wrn.aber.ac.uk/en/gregynogFeedback.html
.

WRN also held a discussion session on the hurdles faced by Repository Administrators when trying to encourage academic buy-in to their systems. As part of the discussions we also suggested solutions for each of the obstacles. We have added the discussions points raised to the WRN blog and we are looking for your input.

Please add comments and suggestions to the blog post, and suggest advocacy ideas that have worked for you. It is hoped this exchange of ideas will aid both our WRN community and the repository community as a whole.

Repositories Strand – Gregynog 2010

Just a reminder that we have announced the repository stream programme at this year’s Gregynog Colloquium. Please book now to attend as delegate bookings are closing at the end of this week (Friday 21^st)!

The full Colloquium programme is available on the Gregynog site at
http://www.gregynog.ac.uk/HEWIT/index.asp?Page=2
 

As in previous years the WRN will be sponsoring places at the Colloquium for 2 participants per partner institution to attend the repository stream. Please book as usual via the Gregynog website but inform the project team that you would like a subsidised place by emailing wrnstaff@aber.ac.uk

Looking forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

Repositories Strand – Gregynog 2010

Tuesday 8th June 2010

15.30-17.00 WRN Business Meeting

Wednesday 9th June 2010

9.15 – 10.00 The power of mandates, Sue Hodges, University of Salford

10.00 – 10.30 Publications Management System at Swansea University – Alex Roberts, Swansea University

10.30 – 11.00 Research Management System at the University of Glamorgan – Leanne Beevers & Neil Williams, Glamorgan University

11.00 – 11.30 Tea

11.30 – 12.00 Developing a repository, caring, sharing and living the dream – Misha Jepson, Glyndwr University

12.00 – 12.30 Encouraging Author self – deposit at Cardiff  – Tracey Andrews & Scott Hill, Cardiff University

12.30 – 13.00 Using statistics as an advocacy tool Nicky Cashman, Aberystwyth University

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

2.00 – 2.30 Repository Advocacy: The theory – WRN staff

2.30 – 3.30 Advocacy Café Society session
3 tables will be laid out each with a facilitator and a topic to discuss, participants are moved on to a new topic every 15 minutes with a 15 minute slot at the end to feedback and present findings. Suggested topics:

A)What are the main obstacles to gathering content in your repository?

B)What are the main misconceptions your stakeholders have when it comes to your repository?

C)Put yourself in the shoes of an objector and outline the main arguments against having a repository?

3.30 – 4.00 Tea

4.00 – 5.00 Advocacy in Action: Workshop/exercise. Participants are asked to work in groups to produce some broad brush repository promotional materials.

Open Access Week underway

Open Access Week is now underway and the Welsh Repository Network has been gathering together some of the news stories they have seen. Read more on their blog at:
http://welshrepositorynetwork.blogspot.com/2009/10/open-access-week-underway.html

They would like to gather together any stories from around Wales to do their own bit of OA promotion, so please do get in touch with the team via wrnstaff@aber.ac.uk if you have done anything to promote OA week.

New Welsh Repository Network (WRN) website

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Welsh Repository Network (WRN) website, available here
http://www.wrn.aber.ac.uk/index_root.html
.

The WRN is a collaborative venture between the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Wales to establish, develop and populate a network of interoperable institutional repositories. The vision that underpins the network is to facilitate and encourage the sharing of resources across the principality and to maximise the impact of Welsh research across the globe.

The establishment of the network was underpinned by the JISC funded WRN Start-Up Project which provided both fiscal and practical support to each WRN partner to aid in the implementation of an effective institutional repository in every Welsh HEI. The current JISC funded WRN Enhancement Project seeks to build on the previous project’s work and is investigating the potential of a collaborative, centrally managed model for accelerating the development and uptake of repository services in Welsh HEIs.

The new WRN website brings you information about the project, news on its current activities, and links to the documents and presentations produced by the project team/ project partners.

Other features of the new site include:

Project partner repository search: Allowing you to search for content across partner repositories by entering the search term in just one place.

Chat with the WRN team: Utilising the Google Chat client to offer instant support to project partner queries.

Partners Links/ WRN button: Clickable map giving the location and providing access to each of the repositories that make up the Welsh Repository Network.

**Coming soon**

Learning Objects: Online learning objects on various repository related topics to work through remotely from your desktop.

We would like to have your feedback on our website so have a look, give things a try and Get in Touch.

Welsh Repository Network Gregynog presentations

All of the Gregynog Repository Stream presentations are now available to view via the Aberystwyth institutional repository CADAIR. A post linking to each individual presentation is now available via the WRN blog at:
http://welshrepositorynetwork.blogspot.com/2009/06/gregynog-2009-presentations-now.html