CHSS Library and Academic Computing Committee
Paper 3
Information Services
Progress report on the RCUK-BIS Open Access Programme
Brief description of the paper
This paper provides an update to recent activities undertaken as part of the RCUK-BIS Open
Access programme.
Action requested
For information.
Resource implications
Does the paper have resource implications? No
Risk Assessment
Does the paper include a risk analysis? No
Equality and Diversity
Has due consideration been given to the equality impact of this paper? Yes
This paper only reports on progress.
Originator of the paper
Scholarly Communications Team, Research and Learning Services, Library & University
Collections
Freedom of information
Can this paper be included in open business? Yes
CHSS Library and Academic Computing Committee
Paper 3
Summary
The Open Access Implementation Project is a project being led by the Scholarly Communications team (within Library &
University Collections, Information Services) to substantially increase the volume of 'Green' open access papers available in
Pure and made available for free through Research Explorer. The project will run until December 2013.
Training has concluded in Informatics, Biological Sciences and MVM and is currently in progress in HSS. It is expected
that staff in Science & Engineering will come on board shortly following the release of funds thus concluding that part of
the implementation programme.
The distribution of the RCUK block grant to pay article processing charges (APCs) is still under discussion, but we hope to
be able to communicate the outcome by the end of May.
Funds have been allocated to allow the improvement of the Open Access web pages and a School Outreach programme is
being prepared to increase visibility and understanding of Open Access issues among academics and support staff (see
Appendix). An Open Access Summit for School Open Access staff is planned for June/July. More details will be provided
in the next report.
The quality of uploaded documents is good and project staff understand the work requirements.
New Staff (May)
Staff currently working on the project starting in April
New staff recruited to the project starting in May
Biological Sciences (Inducted – TA/MB)
Andrew Lainson
CHSS (Inducted – MB)
Dawn Hibbert – College OA Advisor
Laura Ennis
Christopher Ferguson
Jennifer Findlay
Rona Gloag
Sonja Marshall
Melanie Saxton
Informatics (Inducted – TA/MB)
Fiona Clark
Tamise Totterdell
MVM (Inducted – MB)
Anna Krzak
Davies Adeloye
Engineering (To be inducted – MB)
Hazel Cox
Existing Staff (April)
Targets
Journal articles and conference proceedings records with
no documents 2009-2014
All records with no documents 2009-2014
CHSS 5793
MVM 7966
S&E
7803
CHSS 9701
MVM 8713
S&E
8348
The priority for June/July is to agree manageable targets for uploads with project staff and their line managers.
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Uploads April (PURE)
Downloads April (Edinburgh Research Explorer)
School .......................... Count
Biological Sciences .......... ... 539
Informatics ...................... ..... 25
Business School ................................ 66 ............................. Clinical Sciences ...... 41
Divinity ............................................... 1 ........................................... MPGHS ...... 31
Economics ........................................ 21 .................................... Royal (Dick) ...... 47
Edinburgh College of Art ................172 ......................... Biological Sciences .... 293
Health in Social Science ................... 16 .......................................Chemistry ...... 99
HCA .................................................. 44 .................................... Engineering .... 160
Law ..................................................... 3 ................................... Geosciences ...... 65
LLS .................................................... 18 .................................. Mathematics ...... 37
Moray House .................................... 14 .....................................Informatics .... 235
PPLS .................................................. 39 ................................................. HSS .... 427
Social and Political Science .............. 37 .............................................. MVM .... 128
Biomedical Sciences ......................... 27 ................................................ S&E .... 961
Growth
PURE Reporting - PURE - Central Wiki Service, Available at: https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/PURE/PURE+Reporting. [Accessed May 20, 2013].
Enquiries
Invoice-related – 13
Source: UniDesk
Appendix
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Non-invoice-related – 16
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Scholarly Communications Team
Report on Outreach Activities March – May 2013
Open Access Implementation Project:
Activities have been focussed on local support staff over the last few months, with Michael Bryce and Theo
Andrew running training sessions for new staff members recruited to input ‘green’ open access publications
to PURE.
Pending clarification about the management of the RCUK funds, the Scholarly Communications Team has
taken a more re-active approach to supporting academics, handling inbound telephone and email enquiries.
Once a decision is finalised on accessing the funds, the team will take a more proactive approach to
contacting academics school by school and arranging slots to speak at departmental meetings.
In addition, the team has been taking a proactive approach to following up with academics who send in
invoices for papers billed to the Wellcome Trust funding, offering information about going ‘green’.
Meetings:
The Scholarly Communications Team has been present at a number of meetings to promote our range of
services, including:



CSE Special Library Committee Meeting for Open Access
CSE Administration Managers Meeting
Open Access Sub-Group
Dominic Tate has also met with a number of staff top discuss our range of open access activities services, as
well as arrangements for the REF, including:



Elizabeth Elliot and administrative colleagues from Informatics
Louise Fleming and Administrative colleagues from Edinburgh College of Art
Richard Battersby & Irene McGowan to discuss coordinated outreach in CSE & MVM
Planned Activities for June and July:
The team are planning an afternoon ‘summit’ for the Scholarly Communications Team to fully plan our
outreach activities once we have a decision on management of RCUK funds. The purpose of this will be to
devise an outreach plan for the whole team and use the afternoon to write this up as a light-touch project
plan to be implemented over six months. The outreach programme can be reviewed after six months.
The team is finalising designs for the following stationary to be used as part of outreach activities:



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Leaflets
Business cards with helpline contact details
Postcards
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A light-touch review of the team web pages has already been carried out with information edited to ensure it
is factually correct, however, the Team is working on a plan to completely overhaul these pages to make
them more user-friendly, in line with similar micro-sites of our competitors, notably the Universities of
Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester.
It is anticipated that following a decision on management of RCUK funds the team will be more proactive in
contacting academics (as well as continuing support for local administrators). The aim is to become the goto centre for information and advice on all areas of scholarly communications. Our supporting materials and
website need to reflect this message.
Michael Bryce is planning an ‘Open Access Summit’ for the new Research Publications Assistants, as well
as existing University of Edinburgh staff enlisted to work on the Open Access Implementation Project. This
one-day event is planned for late June.
External Outreach:
A national Open Journal Systems (OJS) forum has been advertised for Wednesday 31st July. This one-day
event will take place on the eve of the Repository Fringe and has been strongly branded as an Edinburgh
University Library event, and indeed it will take place in the Main Library. We have secured a speaker from
the US, as well as the University of St Andrews, and from parts of the University of Edinburgh including
Library & University Collections and DCC. This event will help to promote Edinburgh University Library
as a leader in using the Open Journals System as a service to complement our wide range of open access
activities.
scholcomms@ed.ac.uk
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