Open Access - Implications for research funding, management and assessment

ARMA Conference9th June 2010 Bill Hubbard

Centre for Research CommunicationsUniversity of Nottingham

• Bill HubbardHead of the Centre for Research

Communications, bill.hubbard@nottingham.ac.uk

• Dominic TateCoordinator, Repositories Support Project (RSP), dominic.tate@nottingham.ac.uk

University of Nottingham

Overview

• What is Open Access?• Why are funders requesting this from

researchers?• What impact does it have on research

support?• What responses are called for from

institutions?• How can we deal with the issues?• What benefits will this bring?

Open Access

• What is Open Access?• Why is it needed?

– difficulties – opportunities

• Benefits– academic– institutional– funders’

• Two complementary routes– Green – Gold

Sectoral savings from large-scale OA• Houghton Report (Jan 2009)• Efficiency savings for the sector of over

£100m p.a. • Benefits of up to £170m p.a.

• June 15th - UUK/JISC event

• July - 5 regional financial workshops

Individual institutional impact

• Development of Houghton model• Modelling 3 scenarios

– Archiving in repositories (‘Green’ Open Access)– In parallel with subscription journals– Instead of subscription journals

• Open Access journals (‘Gold’ Open Access)

• Consultants applied model to 4 UK HEIs

Open Access - issues

• Initial - clarification and reassurance– not a replacement for journals– does more access=more plagiarism?– cost of repositories– sustainability of OA journals

• Practical - issues around support for researchers– Support processes for deposit in repository– Financial processes for OA Journal fees– Some publishers have restrictions

Why are research funders involved?• Research is funded for social benefit• Wider and less-restricted circulation means

more readers, more use, better take-up and benefit

• Wellcome Trust, NIH, Cancer Research UK, etc

• Virtually all biomedical funded research in the UK now has a mandate

• All RCUK councils have policies• See JULIET - www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet

JULIET

• JULIET introduced in 2006• Lists and analyses Funder mandates• Summarises the mandates and assists

support• 52 funders listed at present

– 51 publication policies– 21 data archiving policies– 19 open access publishing policies

Juliet Home Page

Juliet Detail 1

Juliet Detail 2

What do funders require?

• Open Access to research results as a condition of funding

• Deposit in a particular repositoryand/or• Deposit in the institutional repositoryand/or• Publication in an Open Access Journal

Impact for research support

• Response necessary as a requirement of grant

• Competitive advantage for compliance• Strategic alignment with global changes• Requires different service divisions to work

together• Incentive for more closely integrated

knowledge management

How to respond

• Who is currently aware of these requirements?

• What current structures and processes are in place?

• What level of compliance is currently attained?

Process and support

• Compliance process and work-flows• Support for researchers• Financial processes when required• Compliance checking

Compliance process and work-flows• Publication generally takes place after the

close of a research grant - after the final report - what connections are there between research support and researchers some months after the close of a grant?

• What do these processes look like? • Are researchers aware of their

responsibilities?• How will compliance processes fit into

current work flows?

Support for researchers

• Funding policy requirements• Different types of OA and options• Funding streams for Open Access

publishing• Copyrightand related support for• REF-like requirements• Information reporting for the institution

• Where does this service come from?

Financial processes when required

• Publication normally takes place after a grant has closed - so where does the money for OA publication come from?

• Direct grant• Indirect grant• Publication fund• Changes to grant period

Compliance checking

• As contractual conditions, there is a need for signing off completion

• Compliance will be completed after the research period, after grant closure, after publication

• What is the process by which compliance is checked?

• Who checks?

Discussion session

• Compliance -– identify stakeholders– identify actors– identify structures– identify processes

• Who needs to do what?

External support

• Research Communication Strategy (RCS)• Repository Support Project (RSP)• RoMEO• JULIET

• What joint action is required?• What individual institutional action is

required?

Open Access - Benefits for institutions• Get a more complete picture of research output

from the institution• Ensure compliance with funders’ requirements as

competitive advantage for future funding• Raise citations and enhance intellectual

reputation• Enhance REF and other reporting• Enhance institution’s public image and reputation• Enhance knowledge transfer functions• Support authors in their work within the

institution

What do we need to do?

• Get clarity on financial implications• Collaborate on support given to authors

– Compliance and support are complimentary

• Put in place system to provide consistent, authoritative information from all stakeholders at point of need

• Leverage infrastructure of repositories to benefit authors, researchers, institutions and funders

Questions?

• Bill Hubbard• Head of Centre for Research

Communications• JISC Research Communication Strategist

• bill.hubbard@nottingham.ac.uk