Introduction
Open access (OA) to research publications brings with it significant benefits for UK institutions, researchers and research funders.
After several years of concerted effort to implement OA in the UK, following the Finch report in 2012, we have learned, and continue to learn, a great deal about what works well, and what works less well.
In this guide, developed alongside The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL), Research Libraries UK (RLUK), the Association of Research Managers and Administrators) ARMA and the UK Council of Research Repositories (UKCoRR), we have distilled some of this learning into a set of practical steps that institutions can take now, to ease the way.
Levels of open access implementation
This varies from institution to institution. To reflect this, this document aims to provide ‘something for everyone’ offering potential activities to those at the very beginning of their OA journey as well as those who are more advanced.
Notably, the steps outlined here are a deliberate mix of interventions, some of which are wide ranging necessitating high levels of planning and resource, and some smaller incremental changes in order to offer potential solutions to all institutions, no matter how far along with OA implementation they find themselves.
Who is this guide for?
For anyone who is involved in open access implementation or who has an interest in OA more generally.
Practical steps for institutions
Establish policy
Put in place a policy requiring and enabling researchers to deposit outputs as required by the REF.
Why would you do this?
- To enable your institution to gain maximum benefits from open access
- To provide a local policy framework and driver that enables academics and professionals to be clear on what needs to be done and why
- To enable your researchers to meet funder and national policies
- To enable institutional resources to be dedicated to the implementation of the RCUK open access policy
How much effort is it?
- Drafting the policy should be relatively straightforward as there are many examples that can act as a basis for it
- Getting the policy approved will depend on local processes
Where to get more information and support
- Top tips for developing an effective open access policy
- REF2021 Open Access Policy
- Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of open access
- Good practices for university open access policies
- Registry of Open Access Repository (ROAR) mandates and policies
- PASTEUR4OA report on policy effectiveness
Do a baseline assessment
Baseline your current position on open access.
Why would you do this?
To understand where to concentrate necessarily scarce resources, institutions need to know which aspects of the implementation of OA would most benefit from their attention.
How much effort is it?
Carrying out baseline assessments on how prepared and ready institutions and researchers are for OA compliance should require their involvement in jointly conducting these exercises; for instance through a workshop facilitated by the institution.
Where to get more information and support
- Jisc OA good practice project - baselining resources
- Jisc OA good practice pathfinder projects - Oxford Brookes University, Nottingham Trent University and University of Portsmouth: Collaborative Institutional Assessment of open access (CIAO)/My Individual Assessment of open access (MIAO)
Develop a communications plan
Develop a clear and effective advocacy/communications strategy with researchers, which helps them understand the opportunities and obligations of OA.
As part of this put in place a standard email mechanism, for example: openaccess@institution.ac.uk.
Why would you do this?
To ensure researchers are aware of the benefits of OA and are actively involved in OA workflows which are interconnected with the institution’s OA policy and related processes.
To ensure that the institution’s professional OA services offer clear benefits to researchers.
To make it easier for academics, publishers and others to contact the right unit at the institution - for example: academics could contact the institution for support in implementing OA, which will enhance relationships between academics and professionals; publishers might provide institutions with information about publications. Jisc and other service providers can do the same.
How much effort is it?
- Not trivial; likely to need expert professionals visiting academic departments, research institutes, etc, and having discussions with academics about their concerns, awareness, obligations, etc
- Technically straightforward to set up the email address, but will require a time and resource commitment to set up the triage and workflow arrangements that would be needed to make it work
Where to get more information and support
- Open access advocacy toolkit (pdf) from the Pathways to OA project
- Jisc OA good practice project - advocacy resources
- Jisc OA good practice pathfinder project: Coventry University, University of Northampton, De Montfort University - OA lifecycle: guide for researchers
Implement ORCID where possible
For example, as a member of the Jisc national consortium agreement.
Why would you do this?
As an essential research management tool, ORCID provides a unique, persistent internationally accepted identifier for researchers.
One of its many benefits, this allows institutions to manage better workflows around OA, for example, the implementation of offsetting agreements with publishers of hybrid journals, and to handle REF returns for researchers who move between institutions.
Jisc has made it easier for UK institutions to join ORCID and to get the full benefits of it via the national consortium agreement.
How much effort is it?
- Joining the consortium is relatively straightforward, with low costs based on Jisc bands
- Integration with local systems depends on what you want to achieve, but is likely to involve:
- Consideration of workflows, technical and legal implications
- Technical development and/or upgrades of institutional systems
- Advocacy campaign, guidance for researchers
Where to get more information and support
- UK ORCID technical and community support
- Further information and sign-up for ORCID
- Checklist for UK HEIs considering implementing ORCID (pdf)
Use SHERPA services
To assess the implications of funder and journal OA policies in particular cases.
Why would you do this?
- Using SHERPA/FACT minimises both risk of non-compliance with grant funder policies, and the burden of checking a myriad of complicated policies and their interactions
- Both the former Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Research Councils made explicit statements that universities and authors should feel comfortable relying on SHERPA services
How much effort is it?
Assessing the implications of the OA policy landscape for a particular paper is unlikely to be a straightforward or error-free process, but it can be done. Using Sherpa/FACT is the easiest way to do this.
Where to get more information and support
- Sherpa/FACT website and FAQ
- Sherpa/FACT accuracy testing: findings and announcement from key stakeholders
- Sherpa/RoMEO website
- UKRI information on open access
Ensure your repository has the right technical capacity
Ensure it can make reporting and harvesting of metadata easier.
Why would you do this?
A standard way of recording information relevant to compliance with OA policies, from REF, UKRI and the EC, makes the management and reporting burden easier.
RIOXX has been developed with those funders to enable this process for UK institutions, and can now be implemented in most repositories and many current research information systems (CRISs).
Standard metadata also makes research papers and research data easier to discover, and so it increases its visibility and potential reach.
OA content is most visible and usable when aggregated. This also offers the potential for analytic services, eg policy compliance tools.
CORE is the UK open access aggregation service. It supports such tools, for example, passing UK RIOXX records to the EC OpenAIRE service, making UK Horizon 2020 research projects compliant with the EC OA policy.
How much effort is it?
- Technically straightforward to implement the RIOXX metadata profile in most repositories and in some research information systems, though some platform versions and local customisations might require some additional work and systems updates
- Changing workflows to provide the information needed by RIOXX takes more effort, but it will be needed in some form to prepare for reporting on OA policy compliance
- Apart from RIOXX, it is technically straightforward to ensure correct harvesting by CORE, requiring some technical configuration of the repository / CRIS
Where to get more information and support
- RIOXX website and guidelines
- RIOXX 2.0 plugin for EPrints ready to install - scholarly communications blog post
- REF compliance checker for EPrints ready to use - scholarly communications blog post
Record details of all article processing charges (APCs) paid in a standardised way
This will aid reporting and analysis.
Why would you do this?
Recording APC data enables the institution to account to funders for this expenditure. This is also vital information where APC payments are offset against subscriptions in agreements with publishers, directly saving money for institutions.
APC data has to be reported to several funders, including Research Councils UK (RCUK), the Wellcome Trust and other medical charities. Jisc has worked with them to develop a single agreed format for this reporting. This, therefore, reduces the administrative burden for institutions.
How much effort is it?
In principle using a single format is relatively straightforward, and is less cumbersome than what would be needed for many formats.
However, ensuring that all APCs paid from an institution are recorded centrally is a significant challenge, as many APC payments may be made from departmental or project budgets.
Changes might be needed in APC payment workflows, which will require discussion with academics and academic departments to raise awareness of the issues involved.
Where to get more information and support
- Jisc report on article processing charges and subscriptions
- Collection and sharing of APC data
- Jisc Monitor Local service
- Jisc OA good practice - cost management resources
- Jisc OA good practice pathfinder project: University of Bath, University of Bristol, University of Exeter, Cardiff University - open access reporting checklist and sample APC payment workflows for institutions
- Jisc OA good practice pathfinder project: Northumbria University, University of Sunderland - APC cost modelling tool
Share article-level APC data
Why would you do this?
A new market is emerging for OA article publication. Open APC data makes this market as transparent as possible, and therefore of most benefit to customers (institutions). Institutions and authors can then benchmark the APC costs they face against those faced by others, or for other journals. There is no legal reason not to do this.
Recognising the sector-wide value of this data and its potential effects on the market, our Monitor UK service has developed a UK aggregation of APC data from institutions.
How much effort is it?
Providing the data is recorded, it should require a relatively low time commitment to share the data. Many institutions already share this data on Figshare.
Where to get more information and support
- Article processing charges in 2016 – a blog post on UK trends
- Figshare: Jisc Collections aggregated APC data 2013-2014
- Figshare: APC data for 25 UK higher education institutions – 2014
- Jisc Monitor UK aggregation service
Implement “copy request” button in your repository
Why would you do this?
This is to enable potential readers to access research outputs from your institution, even if they are not currently OA. This should lead to greater readership of outputs from your institution, to wider reach and potentially to increased impact.
This will also alert researchers to unmet demand for their papers, and so encourage them to make more of them OA.
How much effort is it?
Technically straightforward for many, but not all, repository configurations. However, researchers would need to be asked to expect and act on requests passed via the button. This might be particularly difficult for older papers recorded in the repository.
It is possible that a view on legal risks might need to be taken by the institution, though these seem to be very low.
Where to get more information and support
- DSpace request copy add-on documentation
- Request EPrints button
- HEFCE, Elsevier, the “copy request” button, and the future of open access
Download data available to IRUS-UK
Ensure download data from your repository/CRIS is available to IRUS-UK by installing the tracker code. Or ensure that your supplier does the same.
Why would you do this?
Being able to record download data and to view reports of these, eg compare them with other repositories or compare them by journal title, offers insight and demonstrates the reach of the repository and the institution’s research.
How much effort is it?
Technically straightforward; most eligible institutional repositories have already taken this step. It involves adding a small piece of tracker code into the repository.
Where to get more information and support
Further information
The value of OA is becoming clearer, but there remain many routes to achieving it.
A key role that institutions can play, as well as benefit from during this transitional period, is to join local, national and international discussions on OA implementation and best practice. There are many ways to do this.
In the UK: through the OA good practice community email list, through the relevant groups within RLUK, SCONUL and ARMA, and through the UK Council of Research Repositories.
Internationally: OA discussions occur via email lists such as Jisc repositories and the SPARC OA forum, through organisations such as the Confederation of OA Repositories (COAR), and initiatives such as the Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges (ESAC).
You can explore our work in open access on our website, or by following our scholarly communications blog.