Want news of Oxford’s preparations for implementing Open Access ahead of the next REF?
Good progress during April with our pilot to test new ‘quick deposit’ routes into ORA, and how best to communicate HECFE’s Open Access policy requirements. Since last month’s update, a further 63 manuscripts were deposited by 71 people, bringing the total to 121. Out of the 6 pilot departments, Mathematics and NDM-Experimental Medicine have done the most and get top marks for effort!
Lots of valuable feedback from our focus groups with researchers from humanities and a college, revealing a wide range of awareness & attitudes (and confusion!) about OA and policy and process; many questions, what-ifs and non-standard scenarios. Universal relief that ORA is human not a robot, that staff create the record and check copyright & embargo periods before releasing the full-text. A good opportunity to note that ORA is a compliant repository; networking sites like Academia.edu and ResearchGate are not.
Many thanks to all participants; please continue to deposit and provide your feedback.
This is all part of the university’s Open Access Service design project, whose aim is to ‘take care of’ open access and ensure easy REF compliance for our researchers.
Numerous challenges & key questions remain in the areas of communications & advice to authors, and ‘under the bonnet’ with technical development, system interoperability, compliance monitoring, workflows.
What do I need to do right now?
If you’re not in the pilot, no immediate action is required. Please stay informed and await further advice. Keep an eye on our REF page. Research Committee evaluates our findings in June, and instructions to departments will follow by September 2015.
Policy reminder: ‘act on acceptance’. For journal articles & conference papers accepted from 1 April 2016: deposit the ‘author accepted manuscript’ in a compliant repository within 3 months of acceptance.
Please contact our OA enquiry team for help, information or to request a briefing : email open-access-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
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