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Category: Open Access

UQ Open Access Initiatives

We are very pleased to announce that the draft UQ Open Access Policy for Research Outputs, which has been authored and championed by the Library, has passed another procedural milestone by getting Academic Board approval. Assuming approval by the Senate, it will go into effect on 1 January 2014. The policy, which applies to all UQ research publications, is based on the ARC and NHMRC policies already in effect. The Library will coordinate and provide support for compliance (deposit of OA versions of research publications in UQ eSpace, or creation of links to OA version on publisher site.)

The Library is also working with the Graduate School RHD committee on an OA policy for theses: we would like OA would become the default for theses deposited in eSpace, with options for delayed access or embargo upon request (subject to approval of Graduate School).

Inaugural UQ Open Access Eminent Speaker Forum

Wednesday 30 October 2013
Open Access Eminent Speaker Forum - Professor Alma Swan, Director of European Advocacy, SPARC*
10.00 - 11.00 am lecture
"Is Open Access just another fad?"
Venue: The Sir Llew Edwards Building (no. 14), Auditorium - ground floor University of Queensland, St Lucia
FREE morning tea to follow lecture

OAWeek-ASwansmall.jpg

*The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.

Alma has BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Southhampton and a MBA from Warick Business School. She is a Fellow of the Society of Biology (UK), and as a Chartered Biologist is an elected member of the Governing Board of Euroscience.

Open Access in the fast lane

At UQ after approval from the UQ Research Committee the draft Open Access for UQ Research Outputs Policy and Procedures, championed by the UQ Library with the UQ office of the DVC (Research) as the custodian, will be tabled at the September UQ Academic Board. We will keep you posted on the progress of the drafts.

In the UK, Heather Joseph cleverly sums up that both the Finch Report and RCUK revisions placed a significant priority on using paid publication in Open Access journals (termed "Gold OA") as the primary compliance mechanism, while giving the so-called "Green OA route" - the deposition of articles in Open Digital Repositories - short shrift. The new BIS Committee report is the culmination of an inquiry started in January, when the Committee undertook a significant public consultation across broad groups of stakeholders to ensure that the Open Access Policies adopted in the UK effectively serve their intended purpose.

The press release issued with the report states: "Government mistaken in focusing on Gold as the route to full open access, says Committee…..While Gold Open Access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the transition to a fully Open Access world is a mistake," and calls on the Government and the RCUK to give "due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green Open Access and repositories have to play as the UK moves forward."

Elsewhere…In case you missed the announcement, The Australian Open Access Support Group has added a summary of "Developments in OA monograph publishing" - the page is an excellent summary of initiatives that are underway in Australian and internationally.

Open access - procedures to be piloted before wider roll out at UQ

UQ Open Access Service - Pilot

Roll out of the UQ Open Access service, managed by the UQ Library and the Office of the DVC(R), will be piloted during July-September 2013. The pilot will start work on capturing the scholarly publications of researchers from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), the School of Business and the School of Languages & Comparative Cultural Studies.

The pilot will seek to:
1. Ensure UQ compliance with NHMRC and ARC mandates (already in effect); 2. Encourage self-archiving of researcher publications in eSpace; 3. Establish efficient workflows and centralised support that minimises compliance overhead for researchers; 4. Negotiate UQ-specific agreements with key publishers (e.g., Elsevier), to facilitate bulk deposits to eSpace;

Based on the scholarly output at the pilot sites we will report on the number of peer reviewed articles published since the period July 2012 based on NHMRC funding, the number of other peer reviewed articles and the number of other scholarly outputs that are available for OA. The pilot will be based on UQ eSpace metadata entries for each of the pilot sites. The report will include the OA status/options for each publication and report upon the trends that are identified.

For help regarding open access publishing at UQ queries can be sent to openaccess@library.uq.edu.au

blog written by Lisa Kruesi

Inaugural UQ Open Access Eminent Speaker Forum - SAVE THE DATE notice

Alma Swan.png Professor Alma Swan

  • Wednesday 30 October 2013
  • Open Access Eminent Speaker Forum - Professor Alma Swan
  • 10.00 - 11.00 am lecture
  • "Is Open Access just another fad?"
  • Venue: The Sir Llew Edwards Building (no. 14), Auditorium - ground floor University of Queensland, St Lucia
  • FREE morning tea to follow

UQ Open Access Developments

Summary of effort to date

• Open Access discussion paper presented to VC's Committee by UL in late March 2013
• VC's Committee endorsed concept of OA and recommended policy be drafted for Research Committee
• Draft policy prepared and submitted to 9th April meeting of Research Committee
• Working party established to report back to Research Committee in June 2013
• First Meeting of the UQ OA working party meeting held 23 April
• Minor edits to the Draft Policy, specifically the wording related to the transfer of copyright was edited from "should" to
"recommends" the transfer of copyright to the publisher be avoided.
• Wanted more information about the procedures
• Agreed OA Policy would not dictate where to publish
• Wanted more information about their disciplines and self-archiving
• Wanted the process to be EASY!
• Agreed to undertake a pilot to determine best practice

Preliminary Findings

A sample of the top 60 ERA journals (mainly Science, Technology and Medicine) and the top ten journals in each 2 digit FoR code (Built Environment, Education, Economics, Commerce, Human Society, Law, Creative Studies, Language, History and Philosophy) has revealed that:
Mostly STM 13/60 = provide delayed or immediate access. Only eight of the sixty allow the publishers PDF to be made available via the repository and some allow the post print to be loaded subject to publisher agreement. Of the non-STM titles reviewed only 1 allowed delayed or immediate OA. Based on this we are preparing for challenging times ahead when the UQ policy is implemented.

We are proposing that an OA pilot will be managed by the UQ Library and the Office of the DVC(R), working with three UQ Schools or Institutes, covering different disciplinary areas, over three months. The pilot will commence after the HERDC data has been submitted (around mid-June 2013)

Pilot will seek to:

- Ensure UQ compliance with NHMRC and ARC mandates (already in effect)
- Encourage self-archiving of researcher publications in eSpace
- Establish efficient workflows and centralised support that minimises compliance overhead for researchers
- Negotiate UQ-specific agreements with key publishers (e.g., Elsevier), to facilitate bulk deposits to eSpace

A librarian will be seconded to work fulltime in the SPADS/eSpace team to undertake the pilot and this staff member will report on the key performance indicators set for the project.
A second Working Party meeting is scheduled for Friday 31 May and will be followed by a discussion on the work at the next Research Committee in June.

Recent OA newsworthy items

• The controversial Open Access policy implemented by the Research Council UK continues to cause major frustration for those trying to meet the requirements. Richard Poynder's blog expands upon the situation, detailing concerns about publishers who are exploiting the RCUK's policy to increase their profits, which are already excessive, for more details: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-uks-open-access-policy-controversy.html

• Presentations given at an outstanding, one day event on implementing Open Access Funders' Policies held 23 May 2013, at Goodenough College, UK are available from http://rsp.ac.uk/events/implementing-open-access-fundersu2019-policies/ (relevant to repository managers, librarians and grant office staff)

• UNESCO have announced their open access policy for all of their new publications, which will be made available via a UNESCO repository. A press release about the policy is here: http://www.unicmanila.org/index.php?mod=press_releases&id=140
The policy itself is here: www.unesco.org/new/en/openaccesspolicy

• "Notes on the National Scholarly Communications Forum" are available: http://aoasg.org.au/2013/05/16/notes-from-the-national-scholarly-communication-forum-may-3-2013/
The NSCF was held on Friday 3 May at the Australian National University on the topic: "Open Access Research Issues in the Humanities and Social Sciences". The forum is an annual event supported by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

• Elementa http://elementascience.org/ is an open-access, nonprofit journal, founded by BioOne and five collaborating academic institutions: Dartmouth, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington. Elementa will publish original research reporting on new knowledge of the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological systems; interactions between human and natural systems; and steps that can be taken to mitigate and adapt to global change. Embracing the concept that basic knowledge can foster sustainable solutions for society, Elementa is organized initially into six knowledge domains, each led by a prominent Editor-in-Chief. (Copied from the Elementa press release)

eSpace Update: What's New?

UQ eSpace What's New?

  • Social Media - A social media badge has been added to the view pages of eSpace records - now your favourite records can be "Liked, Tweeted and Shared".
  • Scope and Policy document updated - The eSpace Scope and Policy document has been updated.
  • 'Daily Snapshot' - The order of items in the 'Daily Snapshot' on the eSpace homepage now defaults to 'Recently Added ' rather than to 'News' and the order has been changed to give more prominence to the former.
  • Sherpa/Romeo - Sherpa/Romeo provides publisher information, links now display in eSpace on the pages from all journals listed in Sherpa/Romeo.
  • Improved usability of view pages - Usability of 'View Pages' in eSpace has been improved by moving Document-type, Sub-type and Collections to the foot of each record and relocating the DOI to the top.
  • For Unit Publication Officers - The Unit Publication Officer Guide has been significantly updated.

For further information go to UQ eSpace.

Open Access News

  • The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has launched a new platform with improved searching features. DOAJ now contains 8869 journals with 4550 journals searchable at the article level.
  • The Research Councils UK (RCUK) policy on open access came into effect from the 1st April 2013. The policy states that all peer-reviewed published research articles and conference proceedings funded by RCUK must be open access. A video from BioMed Central has a helpful explanation.
  • Updates have been made to the "Where to Publish" page with Lists of journals which allow free access to the published version within 12 months: Highwire Press, Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell.
  • De Gruyter have released a video showcasing their new open access model for libraries, "The Art of Paper Planes".

Open Access Update - a snapshot of OA this week

OA logo.jpgA constant flurry of open access developments are underway at UQ, national and international levels.

At UQ

  • UQ Library made Peter Suber's Open Access book available via ebrary. The catalogue description: A concise introduction to the basics of open access, describing what it is, showing that it is easy, fast, inexpensive, legal, and beneficial.
  • Helen Morgan, Andrew Heath and I have prepared materials for a talk we are giving at the School of Pharmacy, spotlighting open access and pharmacy.

Presentation / Download OA Table Feb13 (3).pdf Two Tables (249.6 KB) illustrate how we can achieve open access without paying commercial publisher rates.

In Australia

Around the World

On 22 February 2013 the Obama administration announced a New Open access policy known as the White House Directive.

Increasing Access (USA - Fed Funded Sci Research)

  • "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research"requiring Federal agencies that spend over $100 million in research and development to have a plan developed by 2014 to "support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government." This policy incorporates both scientific publications and digital scientific data, and limits embargo periods to twelve months post-publication.

Fair Access (USA - Sci and Tech Research Act)

  • "Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR)" was introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in February after three unsuccessful previous attempts. This Bill is also restricted to agencies with research budgets of more than $100 million and it requires deposit of research findings in a repository in a format that allows for text or data mining. It differs in that it has an embargo of only 6 months.

Read recent open access articles:

Blog written by Lisa Kruesi Associate Director SPaDS

New Open-Access Journal

Just launched is the new open-access scientific journal Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Elementa aims to facilitate scientific solutions to the challenges presented by this era of accelerated human impact on natural systems. It is committed to the rapid publication of technically sound, peer-reviewed articles that address interactions between human and natural systems and behaviors (Elementa, Feb 2013). Submission will be accepted April 2013

Elementa is aimed at six main knowledge domains including:

  • Atmospheric Science
  • Earth and Environmental Science
  • Ecology, Ocean Science
  • Sustainable Engineering
  • Sustainability Sciences

Elementa is supported by BioOne and five academic Dartmouth, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington.

For further information go to the pre-publication site.

ACM - investigating open access

Positioning ACM for an Open Access Future (from Communications of the ACM, February 2013), discusses how ACM can provide free access to some of its publications. ACM has endorsed a publishing policy that expands author rights and provides greater levels of flexibility to open access. Sustainable options are currently being examined.

Latest Open Access News Jan/Feb 2013

  • Sage Open has reduced their open access article processing fee to $99 per article. Announcement Jan 24th 2013
  • The Max Planck Society and De Gruyter Sign Agreement for Open Access Book Publishing. Press release Jan 24th 2013
  • World Allergy Organization Journal is now open access has published its first open access articles with BioMed Central. BioMed Central Blog Jan 31 2013
  • Portland Press adopts Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY) for Open Access papers, which includes journals such as ASN NEURO, Bioscience Reports, Biochemical Journal, Biochemical Society Transactions and the clinical research publication Clinical Science. Press release Feb 2nd 2013

The Latest Open Access News for the Humanities

Open Library of Humanities, propose that research in the humanities should be open and free to read and re-use, provided that authors are cited. To support this proposal they have established a team who will examine some of the key issue of open access publishing in the humanities. With the ultimate aim to provide a platform for Open Access publishing that is:

  • Reputable and respected through rigorous peer review
  • Sustainable
  • Digitally preserved and safely archived in perpetuity
  • Non-profit
  • Open in both monetary and permission terms
  • Non-discriminatory (APCs are waiverable)
  • Technically innovative in response to the needs of scholars and librarians
  • A solution to the serials crisis

Mission statement

News from Figshare

Figshare Partners with Open Access mega journal publisher PLOS

Figshare announced this week that they have gone into partnership with PLOS to host the supplemental data for all seven PLOS journals. For ease of access to view the data, PLOS will provide a widget, which will allow the users to view the data alongside the content.

"PLOS believes in making data as visible and useful as possible," said Kristen Ratan, Chief Publishing and Product Officer at PLOS. "Partnering with figshare is an important step in increasing the accessibility of the data associated with our research articles."

Become a Figshare advisor and get lots in return!

Figshare have invited members of their community to become advisors. In exchange for presenting figshare to your colleagues at a lab meeting or journal club.

  • In return for becoming an advisor Figshare are offering :
  • figshare goodies such as hoodies, t-shirts, mugs, stickers, pens, etc.
  • Early access to new features before they're public.
  • A figshare Advisor badge on your figshare profile.
  • Travel expenses paid by figshare when you give presentations outside of your area.
  • Looks great on your C.V.