12 Gifts from Open Research at AU

Red background with reflective stars on the table. There are 2 rolls of wrapping paper, a ball of twine and scissors sitting on the table. With hands holding a wrapped present.

On the FIRST day of Christmas Open Research gave to me a Research Publications Policy

This policy will come into effect in May 2023 and has the concept of rights retention at its heart. In accordance with Aberdeen’s Intellectual Property Policy, researchers will retain the copyright over their research publications

On the SECOND Day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Two twitter platforms and a Research Publications Policy

Twitter logo wearing a Santa hat

We now have an Open Research twitter account @OpenResearchUoA, with over 300 followers. AUP have also recently launched a twitter account, @AbdnUniPress tapping into an active online University Press community.

On the THIRD day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a Research Publications Policy.

Training animated all colourful. Starts in red and ends in green.

Open Research are planning a new series of training sessions starting in the New Year, in Open access, Open Data and Metrics

On the FOURTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Red logo with a tick with the word licensed

To make your research open, always try to publish CCBY for publications and CC0 for data. The MIT license can be useful if you’re happy to make your code openly available and GNU licenses can be used if you need to retain more control over open code. We are planning training sessions on this in the New Year too.

On the FIFTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS ! four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Shooting star animation

In October this year we held five days of events to celebrate International Open Access Week. These included speaker events, a roundtable, the launch of AUP and drop-in information sessions. The week was a success, and we would love to do something similar in 2023. View the slides and recordings from OA week here:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/support/international-open-access-week.php

On the SIXTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me, Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Illustrations in black and white of our Open Research Team . There is some holly in red and green at the top to make it festive.

The six awesome Open Research and AUP team members

On the SEVENTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me, Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

During our events week we worked with seven super AU teams to offer researchers a one-stop information shop

On the EIGHTH day of Christmas, Open Research gave to me, Octopus primary research record (eight legs!), Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, Four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Octopus logo with an animated Octopus on the right with a turquoise background. Text reads: Octopus. all of science in one place

Octopus is a way to publish and register a version of your research, allowing others to build on your work and encourage peer review. Octopus plan to roll out more information in 2023

On the NINTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Nine ways to make your research open, Octopus primary research record, Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, Four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

  1. Publish OA, 2. Use a pre-print server 3. Share your data in a repository 4. Make your data FAIR 5. Publish your methods 6. Publish your code 7. Engage with open-peer review 8. Join an OR community or working group 9. Pre-register your research on OSF.

On the TENTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me 10 months till the next OA Week Nine ways to make your research open, Octopus primary research record, Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Clock frosted over with a Christmas wreath with red baubles surrounding it.

Watch this space… we hope to be back with more engagement events in 2023

On the ELEVENTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Eleven amazing speakers, 10 months till the next OA Week Nine ways to make your research open, Octopus primary research record, Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

Thankyou to Cameron Neylon, Stephen Curry, Josh Sendall, Chris Jackson, Clare Bond, Paula Vega, Paula Masuzzo, Mark Hahnel, Ian Watt, Jess Butler and  Hazel Hay for contributing to UoA Open Access Week.

On the TWELFTH day of Christmas Open Research gave to me Twelve metric indexes Eleven amazing speakers,10 months till the next OA Week Nine ways to make your research open, Octopus primary research record, Seven Teams to work with Six OR staff, FIVE DAYS OF EVENTS, four copyright tips, three new training topics, two twitter platforms and a research publications policy

We have created lots of information on our website explaining how metric indexes can be used. Bibliometric measures | Library | The University of Aberdeen (abdn.ac.uk) They must always be used in the correct context as article and author metrics can be misleading if used out of context.

by Lesley Macrae

International Open Access Week

International Open Access Week is less than a month away! From the 24th-28th October, please join the University of Aberdeen’s Open Research team in promoting open research and access for all academics, students and researchers alike. The week will kick off with our “Fresh Perspectives” online conversation with 6 academics and advocates leading the discussion on the latest in Open Research.

Blue poster with the University of Aberdeen logo in the top right corner. The text reads, International Open Access Week, 24-28 October 2022. The image has line drawings of The Sir Duncan Rice Library and King's College.

Tuesday will see the re-launch of Aberdeen University Press as a fully online open access publisher and on Wednesday a Roundtable discussion takes place with the 5 Interdisciplinary Centre Directors. These will be followed by a drop-in session for our Postgraduate Students on Thursday, offering the chance for students to chat with experts in many different elements of research and learn how the University can help throughout your entire research project. Finish the week off by attending our online session, “Open Data – the next 10 years”, with a panel of Open Data experts sharing their predictions for what happens next.

The week invites countless opportunities, for newcomers to the topic of Open Access and Research and for those more familiar with it, to engage in discussion and present any questions or ideas to experts in the field.

Now’s your chance! Book your FREE tickets at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/university-of-aberdeen-international-open-access-week.

View the full programme of events

Janine Awunyo

New UKRI Open Access Policy

UK Research and Innovation logo

UKRI will implement a new open access policy in 2022 that will allow more opportunity for the findings of publicly funded research to be accessed, shared and reused. There are some significant changes so it is important that you are aware of this. The new policy will apply to peer reviewed research and review articles and conference papers submitted for publication from 1st April 2022 to publications with an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) and will be extended to include monographs from 1st January 2024. UKRI will provide increased funding to support compliance with this policy for both research articles and in-scope longform publications with further information on the block grant due in December 2021.

Authors can publish their output in the journal or platform they consider most appropriate for their research, provided UKRI’s open access requirements are met via one of two open access routes.

Gold Open Access – the final published article is published immediately open access on the publisher website, free to read, download and reuse under licence, usually requires payment to publish.

  • publish in an open access publication or platform where the version of record (VoR) is made immediately open access on publication
  • apply a CC BY licence or where an article is subject to Crown Copyright, An Open Government Licence (OGL)
  • CC BY-ND licence allowed by exception agreed with funder
  • may require payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC); see here for information on the block grant
  • the University has signed up to a number of transitional open access publisher agreements where you can publish your research gold open access at no cost to you
  • use of the block grant for publishing in an ‘hybrid’ journal that is not part of a transitional agreement will no longer be permitted

Green Open Access – a version of the article, usually the unformatted manuscript as accepted for publication after peer-review, is deposited in an institutional or subject repository. Free to publish but requires a subscription to read the VoR.

  • deposit the author accepted manuscript (AAM) in a subject or institutional repository immediately on first online publication. The AAM is the author’s final draft including corrections resulting from peer review but before the publisher formatting has been applied
  • apply a CC BY Creative Commons licence or where an article is subject to Crown Copyright, An Open Government Licence (OGL)
  • CC BY-ND licence allowed by exception agreed with funder (UKRI will outline process in November 2021)
  • embargoes on making the manuscript publicly available are no longer permitted
  • submissions taking the green route must include a statement in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter/note accompanying the submission stating that a specific licence (e.g. CC BY,  OGL, CC BY ND) will apply to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising

For either open access route, biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding are required to be archived in Europe PubMed Central, in accordance with MRC’s Additional Terms and Conditions and BBSRC’s Safeguarding Good Research Policy.

Published outputs must include a statement to specify how the underlying research data can be accessed.

From 1st January 2024 the open access policy will apply to in-scope monographs, book chapters and edited collections. See the UKRI open access policy for further information on whether your output is in-scope.

  • the VoR or AAM must be free to view and download via an online publication platform, publishers’ website, or institutional or subject repository no later than 12 months after publication
  • a Creative Commons licence must be applied, a CC BY licence is preferred but other Creative Commons licences will be permitted (or OGL where required) which allow the reader to search for and reuse content, subject to proper attribution
  • the open access version should include, where possible, any images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content but where copyright for these is held by a third party and require a more restrictive licence the policy does not apply
  • where an Author’s Accepted Manuscript is deposited, it should be clear that this is not the final published version

The Scholarly Communications Team in the Library are here to help you ensure that your research outputs comply with the UKRI open access policy. We will provide communications to our researchers as more information is made available by UKRI. Key resources for community engagement are to be made available by UKRI in January 2021.

You should continue to send details of newly accepted papers to paperaccepted@abdn.ac.uk to ensure deposit in Pure/AURA in compliance with funder and current REF policy. See our webpages or contact us for more information.

The University Librarian would be also pleased to attend relevant School meetings to listen to views and answer questions.



International Open Access Week 25-31 October

Information on the Open Access Week for 2021
Open Access Week 2021

This week is International Open Access Week. Check out our Quick Guide to Open Research and join us for an online lunchtime overview of open access publishing on Wednesday October 27 at 12 noon. Book your place and get joining details here: www.abdn.ac.uk/coursebooking/11746

Further information on Open Access can be found on our webpages: www.abdn.ac.uk/library/support/open-access-212.php

Elsevier negotiations: update

Previously we told you about the University’s role in the negotiations with Elsevier.

Visit our new page to find out about the most recent developments and get answers on the following questions:

  • What will happen as December approaches?
  • What costs are incurred for authors at UoA?
  • Can we find an alternative, sustainable method of open access publishing?
  • What is Aberdeen University’s contribution in the negotiations process?

Jisc has produced the following video to highlight the key issues:

Elsevier Negotiations at University of Aberdeen

With our current Elsevier contract due to end in December 2021, the University is working with partners across the UK to negotiate a new multiyear agreement for access to Elsevier ScienceDirect which also includes open publishing.

To achieve an affordable and sustainable deal which aligns with Aberdeen 2040 and our commitment to open research and inclusivity, we need to take a clear and firm stance ensuring that our needs are properly reflected.

We are now gathering information in support of planning and analysis to inform an institutional response to negotiations. Simon Bains, University Librarian, is very happy to hear views and questions from researchers at all levels and also invites interest in joining a consultative group to respond to developments in the negotiations and assist in communicating updates across the University. See his recent invitation in the Staff Newsletter.

Watch a short video on Open Access agreements: Jisc and Elsevier negotiations:

Did you know…? – Extensive online access to publications from the British Academy

We thought you might be interested in additional e-resources from the British Academy that have been made available through our subscription to University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO). Recently expanded content includes 207 publications, spanning subjects in the humanities and social sciences, with new items being added as they are published.

Logo of the University Press Scholarship Online and the British Academy

Access to this electronic collection of books, essays and journals includes the series Proceedings of the British Academy, lectures delivered at the British Academy, available online from 2002 onwards.

The Library also has earlier and current print copies of this journal on Floor 2 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library and at other locations.

Access to UPSO is via the Find Databases tab in Primo. Once you are on the UPSO platform, please look for the Sign in via your Institution option.

Details of other collections that remain available on a temporary basis can be found on our designated Library page, which we update regularly.

In addition to highlighting expanded content available via our Library subscriptions, please see here a list of relevant and appropriate Open Access e-resources.

Please email us with any questions you may have as we are always happy to help!
subjectteam@abdn.ac.uk

Jenna Storey, jennifer.storey@abdn.ac.uk

New Open Access Publisher Agreements available

The Scholarly Communications team are pleased to announce that we have added Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press to our publisher open access agreements. Corresponding authors at the University of Aberdeen can publish research and review articles open access in participating journals at no cost. Please see our webpages or contact openaccess@abdn.ac.uk for more information.

Jisc Survey on Open Access Book Publishing – Have your say!

Jisc’s Open research team is carrying out a survey to gather the views and opinions of academics regarding the open access publishing of books (including book chapters and edited collections). We’re keen to find out about:

  • Your publishing habits and motivations
  • How you regard open access book publishing considering the benefits and any concerns you foresee

The survey will take around 10-15 minutes to complete. If you would like to participate, please visit: https://bit.ly/33Bf5jk

Please contact Joanna Adams, Scholarly Communications Officer, with any questions you may have.

Wednesday Information Sessions from the Scholarly Communications Team

What is Scholarly Communications?

Wednesday 18 November at 14:00 will give an overview of our services and provide information on how we can help you navigate the process of making your research open access.

Introduction to Open Research on Wednesday 25 November at 14:00 will  provide advice, guidance and support to help you make your research open. This session will give an overview of our services and what you can do to improve open access to your research. 

Aimed at academic staff and postgraduate researchers the sessions will be delivered via Teams and are available on the course-booking system. To book a place, please visit: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/coursebooking – select category ‘Library and Information Skills’.

For more information, please contact Joanna Adams: openaccess@abdn.ac.uk