Summary of OA Good Practice Pathfinder Outputs
August 2015
This document is intended to give an at-a-glance overview and links to the range of Pathfinder outputs that have been developed up until August 2015, so
that you can easily see which of these resources/ reports/ tools would be of most use to your institution. We have brought together the work of the OA
Good Practice Pathfinders under relevant themes/headings so that it is easier to see how they are addressing key areas of concern around OA
implementation.
Please note that a fuller update from Spring 2015 is available here and the next full update will be released in September/ October 2015.
OA Advocacy Pathfinder support resources
These resources support how OA implementation is being communicating/ advocating across the institution, but mainly to its researchers
All Pathfinder Advocacy outputs can be found here: http://bit.ly/1UijE5y
Pathfinder project
UCL/ Newcastle/ Nottingham
Pathfinder (Pathways to OA)
Output title/ link
Advocacy toolkit
Description
This OA advocacy toolkit sets out good practice recommendations and practical advice for
UK HEIs.
Coventry/ Northampton/
DeMontfort (O2OA)
OA lifecycle: Guide for
researchers;
Researcher ‘Needs analysis’;
This visual guide provides support to researchers in preparing for, and taking advantage of,
open access to research.
This report highlights the range of attitudes/ knowledge/ barriers outlined by researchers
which will underpin the development of technical and behavioural workflows.
Intervention approaches teach us that to make real changes, approaches need to address
the underlying problems. This involves understanding what the difficulties are (from the
user perspective), what type of change is needed, and what solution will be most useful.
The aim is to work with users to acknowledge how they may engage with something, and
strategically help overcome barriers. This simplified approach draws on intervention
development techniques to give research support staff tools to better understand the areas
they are needing to change
MIAO is a self-assessment tool for researchers to assess how prepared they think they, and
their institution, are for Open Access (OA) compliance.
Nottingham Trent univeristy, one of the partners of the Oxford Brookes Pathfinder,
interviewed over 50 researchers across the institution in order to give them some insights
Intervention mapping guide
for understanding researcher
behaviour and worksheet
Oxford Brookes/ Nottingham
Trent University/ University of
Portsmouth (Making Sense of
OA)
MIAO;
Researcher interview data/
methodology;
Portsmouth REF poster
Edinburgh/ Heriot-Watt/ St
Andrews (LOCH)
case studies, templates
into how researchers viewed and were responding to OA funder mandates. Results from
the research behaviour analysis were coded in order to identify trends, which could be built
on through enhanced advocacy work.
University of Portsmouth, one of the partners of the Oxford Brookes Pathfinder project,
was one the first Pathfinder institutions to adapt the HEFCE guidance to suit local
workflows
College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Open Access Implementation Case Study:
Communication Planning - Exemplar Emails:
College of Medicine
School of Mathematics
Open Access and REF in Humanities & Social Sciences: Example School OA Plan
OA Facilitator Job Description
OA Structural Workflows
These resources support the processes/ workflows/ lifecycles related to the implementation of OA across the institution
All Pathfinder workflow outputs can be found here: http://bit.ly/1MI0DIp
Pathfinder project
Manchester/ Edge Hill/
Salford/ Liverpool/ John
Moores (opeNWorks)
Output title/ link
Case studies
Toolkit (coming soon)
Hull/ Lincoln/ Huddersfield
(HHuLOA)
Northumbria/ Sunderland:
OA Lifecycle
Glasgow/ Lancaster/
Southampton/ Kent (E2EOA)
Lancaster OA workflows
Case studies
Description
These case studies provide a baseline level of Open Access (OA) activity at each of the
opeNWorks project universities (Manchester, Edge Hill, Liverpool, Salford and John Moores)
during the period 2013-14 based on set criteria, eg, number of staff supporting OA, number
of deposits in the institutional repository, number of article processing charges (APCs) paid.
This toolkit will be designed to meet the needs of institutions with limited resource as they
prepare to support the implementation of the HEFCE Open Access policy
This visualisation diagram gives a comprehensive matching of Jisc and above campus OA
services against institutional workflows
This is a series of case studies highlighting OA good practice in four HEIs with a range of
different backgrounds. Each case study will focus on progress towards OA implementation
across five broad areas: Costs; Structure and Workflows; Institutional Policy and Strategy;
Advocacy, training and awareness; Systems and compliance
This blog post outlines how Lancaster University has made changes to its workflows as a
result of the E2EOA project so far.
Edinburgh/ Heriot-Watt/ St
Andrews (LOCH)
St Andrews Lean case study
This case study looks at the Lean Exercise undertaken by the Open Access and Research
Publications Support Team at St Andrews last year.
OA Cost Management
These outputs relate to the approaches projects have taken to managing costs related to the management of OA implementation.
All Pathfinder cost management outputs can be found here: http://bit.ly/1E4wIlJ
Pathfinder project
Bath/ Bristol/ Exeter/ Cardiff
(GW4)
Output title/ link
Functional Cost Analysis report
Northumbria/ Sunderland
APC Cost Modelling tool
Bath/ Bristol/ Exeter/ Cardiff
(GW4)
Guide to using credit cards,
Description
This is an analysis of the administrative costs of processing APC payments in the four
universities of the GW4 alliance: Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter. Functional Cost Analysis
(FCA) methodology was used to investigate labour costs per APC payment and identify
resource intensive functions with a view to later improvement.
This tool is intended to help establish an internal business case to set up an APC fund for
Open Access publishing. It allows you to model different cost projections based on variables
such as FTE, number of articles, REF submission targets, and % Green vs Gold OA.
This guide is intended for institutions that are considering (or currently using) purchase
cards for APC payment. The guide outlines some of the benefits and issues around card
use.
Open Access Reporting
Checklist
This checklist is intended to assist institutions in identifying data required for OA reporting
to Jisc for RCUK (APC spreadsheet) and HEFCE for REF OA.
Sample APC Payment
Workflows;
Mapping workflows at the four collaborating institutions identified a generic series of
‘steps’ in each payment scenario used by each institution. This led to the development of
sample workflows for each payment method which it is hoped will provide a useful aid for
institutions developing new, or adapting old, workflows. Institutions may need to adapt the
sample workflows to suit their own requirements, systems and processes.
FAQs for Publishers;
These ‘FAQs for publishers’ are intended to assist publishers in processing APC payments
for Gold Open Access on behalf of authors and their institutions. It is hoped they will
provide answers to commonly recurring questions, explain issues and promote
understanding between all parties involved in APC payments.
OA Policy and Baselining
These outputs relate to how institutions can capture and baseline information on all aspects of open access activity that may be taking place within
institutions and thereby identify areas where more work needs to be done to support OA implementation.
All Pathfinder workflow outputs can be found here: http://bit.ly/1DmKFAF
Pathfinder project
Hull/ Lincoln/ Huddersfield
(HHuLOA)
Output title/ link
Funder policy mapping
Description
This tool aims to aid navigation of the OA policy landscape, to inform OA practitioners and
researchers.
Oxford Brookes/ Nottingham
Trent University/ University of
Portsmouth (Making Sense of
OA)
Hull/ Lincoln/ Huddersfield
(HHuLOA)
CIAO ;
‘CIAO (Collaborative Institutional Assessment of Open access) is a benchmarking tool for
assessing institutional readiness for Open Access (OA) compliance
Baselining Tool
This baselining tool helps institutions map their current OA activity as a way of identifying
areas that require attention, and also to highlight where there has been progress as we
move towards April 2016. All institutions are invited to fill in their data/ information.
UCL/ Newcastle/ Nottingham
Pathfinder (Pathways to OA)
Baselining report
This report surveys OA implementation across all partner institutions (UCL, Newcastle and
Nottingham) and identifies that despite their differences in size, research focus and open
access infrastructure, all encountered extremely similar issues and challenges with
delivering compliance with funders’ open access policies.
OA Systems and metadata
These resources relate to how projects have been improving their management of systems and metadata related to OA implementation
All Pathfinder systems and metadata outputs can be found here: http://bit.ly/1OKZtJL
Pathfinder project
Output title/ link
Description
Edinburgh/ Heriot-Watt/ St
Andrews (LOCH)
PURE OA Metadata Spec (link
unavailable)
OA metadata specification for PURE (CRIS) that is intended to enable customers to better
manage OA compliance and reporting for the next REF, with the side effect of improving
compliance for RCUK and Wellcome Trust requirements too.
Glasgow/ Lancaster/
Southampton/ Kent (E2EOA)
Eprints OA metadata spec
Hull/ Lincoln/ Huddersfield
(HHuLOA)
RIOXX review and proposed
practice
This OA metadata spec allows institutions to capture Open Access information in their live
EPrints repository and generate reports that can be used for Charities Open Access Fund
and other reporting purpose. The code is publicly available on GitHub to download, try out
and fine-tune.
This report is an analysis of the RIOXX elements, with proposed practice on applying these
and capturing the information for them.
Pathfinder Realignment activities
Over recent months, the Pathfinder projects have been considering how they keep pace with the rapidly evolving OA landscape, in order to remain
responsive and continue to offer the most value possible to their own institutions and the sector more widely. To support this, the UCL/ Newcastle/
Nottingham (Pathways to OA) project and the Manchester/ Edge Hill/ Salford/ Liverpool/ John Moores (opeNWorks) are in the process of redrafting their
workplans to consider the following issues:
Manchester (opeNWorks):

Approaches to deposit- Institutions are taking a range of approaches to deposit, with varying roles for researchers, library staff and departmental
administrators. At present there is no clear evidence of the relative costs and benefits of each approach. A summary of the pros and cons of each
approach, based on actual pilots completed in different departments, would be extremely valuable to other institutions trying to determine the
most appropriate deposit workflow.

Benchmarking of institutional OA support services: Many institutions are seeking to increase resource in order to meet the requirements of the
RCUK and REF policies, but lack access to benchmarking data in this area. Institutions would therefore value benchmarked data on levels of
resource to support OA, both in terms of FTEs and costs, but also the skill-sets, backgrounds and responsibilities of staff members, and the use of
permanent, fixed-term and temporary staff.
UCL (Pathways to OA):

Exploration of the proportion of outputs treated as REF exceptions: Institutions are very unsure what would be a ‘reasonable’ or ‘acceptable’
number of exceptions for the REF, and concerned at the work that might be involved in evidencing these. Development and sharing of a
representative sample of publications, identifying what % fall into each type of exception, would give institutions and HEFCE a better understanding
of how many exceptions should be expected

REF OA policy and the use of subject repositories: Deposit in subject repositories is permitted under REF OA policy, but institutions are unsure how
they could monitor this, and which subject repositories would comply with the HEFCE criteria. Could offer significant scope to reduce administrative
burden on authors if deposit in subject repositories can be effectively tracked and monitored.

Payment of APCs on multi-author/multi-institution papers: RCUK review has recommended that RCUK revisits its guidance on this point in
dialogue with the sector and a Pathfinder project would be well placed to take this forward. UCL would be keen to invite involvement from other
institutions around this.
UCL also plans to look into the Springer off-setting deal in terms of how it affects issues of APC management as part of the ‘big deal’.
More information will be made available on the OA Good Practice blog in due course