RoMEO Service & Developments Peter Millington & Jane H Smith Centre for Research Communications University of Nottingham JISC Conference 2010 RoMEO: An

RoMEO Service & Developments

Peter Millington & Jane H SmithCentre for Research Communications

University of Nottingham

JISC Conference 2010

RoMEO: An online database of open access self-archiving rights.

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Why RoMEO?

• Constraints on access to scholarly publications– Subscribers only– Copyright controls on re-use – even by the author

• Which is bad because…– Limiting the extent of dissemination– Slowing the speed of dissemination– Cost issues– Sense of moral injustice


Solutions

• Open access publication– In open access journals – DOAJ – http://www.doaj.org/– ‘Author pays’ open access in established journals

• Self-archiving by authors in open access repositories– Institutional repositories – e.g. Nottingham ePrints– Subject-based repositories – e.g. ArXiV, Pubmed Central

• Mandatory open access– By research funders as condition of grant– By institutions (REF implications)


RoMEO – Behind the Scenes

• Each Publisher– Copyright Transfer Agreements/ Policies– Communication – Interpretation

• Journal information, courtesy of:– British Library Zetoc Database– DOAJ, Lund University– Entrez (Abbreviations)– NCBI (National Centre for

Biotechnology Information)


RoMEO Featureshttp://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php?id=25&fIDnum=|



Who uses RoMEO, and what for?

• Research funding agencies– Checking publishers who comply with mandates– Recommending or black listing journals

• Academic authors– Checking that journals comply with mandates– Checking self-archiving rights prior to deposit

• Repository administrators & Librarians– Checking archiving rights when acting as agents

• Publishers & Societies– Checking best practice – what others do


Demo Overview

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo

• Journal Search• Publisher Search• Browse Features• Research Funders’ Compliance• Special Pages






Application Programmers’ Interface

• REST-ful queries– Same query options as for interactive RoMEO

• Returning XML output– Structured RoMEO data– German output option• Other languages to follow

• Local processing of RoMEO data– Notably language translation


API Output for ISSN 0340-2398


API Example Application


Future Improvements


Journal Level Rights - Variation

• Publishers’ policies may differ by journal– General policy insufficient

• Multiple or joint publishers– e.g. “Published by … on behalf of …”– If policies differ, whose take priority?

• Journal listed in two or more sources– Problems of equating name variations– Which do we trust?


RoMEO’s Journal Level Plan

• Compiling our own journal database– Harvested directly from publishers’ websites– Our ‘most trusted’ journal-publisher look-up table

• Hierarchical list of all publishers– Statuses: parent, imprint, copyright holder, etc.– Rules and guidance on precedence– Warnings on assumptions


Journal Level Rights - Prototype


Journal Level Rights - Prototype


Improving Standardisation

• Current phrases– Variations reflect publishers policies– Need for greater clarity– Obstacle for translation into other languages

• Planned improvements– Simpler clearer terminology– More structured data – pick lists, checkboxes, etc

• Potential for a Publishers Policy Tool


Internationalisation

• Current non-English versions of RoMEO– Germany, Spain, France, Japan– Foreign language interface but data in English– Would like data in local languages

• Two-way partnership– Sharing data on local publishers– Handling translations to and from English

• Other potential partners in the pipeline– Australia, Norway, Portugal, France.



Any Questions?RoMEO: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo API: http://www/sherpa/ac/uk/romeo/api

Blog: http://romeoblog.jiscinvolve.orgE-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @SHERPAServices

Jane H Smith: 0115 95 14341Peter Millington: 0115 84 68481

Documents

RoMEO Service & Developments Peter Millington & Jane H Smith Centre for Research Communications University of Nottingham JISC Conference 2010 RoMEO: An