FAIR Synthesis: Cultural Issues
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FAIR projects are exploring the cultural issues of developing repositories
as well as the technical issues, and advocacy is an important component of
most projects. Each project has had to address how to ‘sell’ the
concept of open access repositories and develop strategies for populating
them. They have developed a wealth of advocacy materials that will be
useful to others. This section explores some of the cultural
issues being addressed and approaches being taken. The
advocacy section provides information on the actual materials
developed to address these cultural issues.
Publishing practices
Publishing practices are one of the greatest barriers to populating
institutional repositories with e-prints. There is pressure for
academic authors to publish their research in quality peer-reviewed
journals, partly due to requirements of the Research Assessment Exercise
(RAE). Most journal publishers will not consider articles that have
been published previously and many consider pre-prints to be prior
publication. Many publishers have restrictive copyright transfer
agreements that prevent authors from archiving their articles as
e-prints. The FAIR programme has done much to stimulate a debate with
publishers on open access and some have changed their policies to allow
archiving.
Advocacy has been a feature of many FAIR projects. Using events,
websites, FAQs, and other materials, projects have promoted the concept of
open access and encouraged authors to look closely at the copyright
agreements they sign. Resources like the RoMEO directory of publisher
copyright policies allow authors to check policies before they publish and
encourage them to select publishers that allow archiving.
Similarly, FAIR projects have lobbied publishers to change their practices.
SHERPA in particular has lobbied publishers collectively and individually
with some success. Two of the largest publishers, Elsevier and
Springer, have now changed their policies and permit authors to archive the
‘author final version’ of their paper in an institutional repository.
Institutional practices
In the long term, it’s likely that there will need to be changes in
institutional practice to populate repositories. This is already
happening for ETDs. The Robert Gordon University (Electronic Theses)
and University of Edinburgh (Theses Alive!) have both approved policy
changes to allow the submission of digital theses as well as paper ones.
In the area of e-prints, establishing links between institutional
repositories and academic departments may become important. DAEDALUS
and TARDis are exploring how interfaces with the publication databases of
academic departments can facilitate the import and export of data about
research output. For example, academic staff will be able to use the
repository to easily create publication lists for grant proposals and
CVs. The university will use the repository to extract data on
research activity for the RAE.
Getting users to deposit
FAIR projects developing repositories have had to develop strategies for
populating them. Most have held events and developed advocacy
materials to explain open access and why academic authors should deposit
their research materials. In the short term, practical measures may
also be needed to ‘make it easy’. DAEDALUS and TARDis are both using
mediated archiving, where academics are assisted by staff to archive their
e-prints.
The University of Edinburgh (Theses Alive!) will require print and
electronic submission of PhD theses from academic year 2005-06. In the
meantime, students completing PhDs are strongly encouraged to deposit an
electronic copy in the Edinburgh Research Archive on a voluntary
basis. As an incentive for doing this, the Library will only require
one hardbound printed copy of the thesis rather than the two required
previously, and will arrange to have that copy printed and bound from the
electronic master in the repository.
DAEDALUS has also been proactive in contacting academic authors about
depositing their e-prints. This has involved identifying
publishers/journals that allow archiving and contacting the authors, and
identifying authors who want to archive and checking the copyright position
for their articles. Though the approach is unlikely to be sustainable
in the long term, it’s provided the opportunity to build relationships with
authors, their departments, and publishers.
Embedding resources
The Fair Enough project has undertaken studies to embed JISC collections
and services within its consortium of FE institutions, both technically and
culturally. A series of experiments were designed to identify the reasons
that collections may be underutilised and to provide solutions to increase
their use. Resources were embedded into the consortium’s existing VLE
(Teknical Virtual Campus) using a number of delivery mechanisms, and Moodle
for comparison. Drop in sessions provided a mechanism for
practitioners to discover more about the resources available and ways to
exploit the technologies available within the colleges.
Investigations confirmed that there is no definitive solution, but that a
variety of delivery methods should be available to each
individual. This element of choice was proven to be important but it
was also found that ongoing support and reminders about the resources were
necessary to ensure their use became embedded in teaching and learning
across the organisation. The studies are described on the FAIR Enough website, and
outputs of interest to the community, forthcoming in 2005, will
include:
-
Toolkit relating to Embedding Resources
-
Toolkit relating to Cultural Challenges
-
How to run a Drop-In Session
Sharing resources
The FAIR Enough project explored issues related to embedding JISC
collections and services within a consortium of FE colleges. An
important aspect of the project was to encourage effective collaboration
and sharing of finished learning resources. Curriculum Collaboration
Events were held to investigate attitudes to producing materials in
cooperation with others and to sharing the results. By providing each
participant with the opportunity to create a learning object specific to
their needs and to subsequently benefit from those created by others, the
team was able to highlight the advantages of collaboration and of using
existing resources. These events also provided the project team with
a forum to showcase some of the online resources available to
participants. The project web site describes the collaboration
events and results of the associated survey on attitudes to
sharing. Future outputs to be posted on the web site in 2005 include:
-
Toolkit relating to instilling cultural change
-
How to run a curriculum collaboration event - a guide to enable other
institutions to hold similar events in their own environment
FAIR Enough has demonstrated the value of collaboration and sharing, and
during the timeframe of the project, the sharing of e-learning resources
has become part of the national agenda.