Open Access Week: The LRA Team

Thinking back over this week, I think the one thing I’ve forgotten to highlight are the people here whom make the LRA work.  First off the core team, myself, Margaret – and from this week our newest member Valérie.  Margaret and Valérie are your first line of contact as a Leicester academic or postgraduate student when you want to get material onto the LRA.  They can also help out with general questions relating to your retained author rights, mandates and locating open access materials.  The easiest way to contact them is via email lra@le.ac.uk or ethesis@le.ac.uk.

The LRA Team’s full contact details can be found here: http://www.le.ac.uk/li/research/archive.html#contact

Then we have the supporting staff members, those people who aren’t working with the LRA on a day to day basis, but whom have more than a little understanding about the issues and common answers to questions relating to it.  First among these is Rob, our current Copyright and Coursepacks Administrator.  Rob can be reached at copyright@le.ac.uk.

His full contact details can be found here: http://www.le.ac.uk/li/about/CopyrightandResearch.html

On top of this the LRA is supported by our colleagues in the rest of the newly formed Document Supply & Repository team, and whom if you ring the LRA you may well get on the line.  As well as these staff, I must also acknowledge the work that the members of LRA Progress Group (LRAPG) from the library, ITS and Research Office play in supporting out work, and helping to discuss the often complex developing world of scholarly communication.

That’s it, a brief guide to the team and supporting staff that help us run the LRA here at Leicester.

Open Access Week: Federal Research Act

Those following the developments in open access and scholarly research publication often look to the US and Australia, and to a lesser degree the Scandinavian countries, whom are generally a year or so ahead of the situation in the UK.  Interestingly in the States at the moment there is a bill, the Federal Research Access Act of 2009, which is looking to legislate the following:

“…require researchers with grants from certain federal agencies — those that fund more than $100 million in extramural research annually — to make their final peer-reviewed manuscripts openly available in digital repositories within six months.”

Okay, it does look like this is a successor to a similer defeated bill back in 2006; but since then both the political landscape and the open access movement has seen considerable developments.  Funders mandates are now very much a central theme now, where as in 2006 we were only seeing the first ones emerge.  Would we see a piece of legislation like this in the UK?  Probably not anytime soon given the run up to the general election in 2010; I find it unlikely that with the state of the economy anyone’s going to be able to bring scholarly research access up the political agenda.  I certainly don’t think the vast bulk of public are aware, or even overly concerned, that so much of their taxes goes to pay for access to research we’ve given away. 

Maybe this is something that OA advocates should be doing – reaching out to the general public and getting the OA debate out of the ivory towers and into the press and media?  Perhaps it’s a role for UKCoRR or the reformulated RSP?

Either way, the reception and progress of this bill is certainly one to watch with interest.

Open Access Week: UoL OA Event 28th October

While it’s not falling within open access week there is still a chance for University of Leicester academics, researchers and postgraduates to find out more about the current developments in open access and scholarly publishing.  The Research Office (RSO) and the University Library are presenting an Open Access Information Event, Wednesday 28th October 1pm onwards (that’s a week today). 

The afternoon is broken into two sessions:

Session 1 is suitable for staff and research students in all disciplines.  Speakers include Christine Fyfe (UoL), Astrid Wissenburg (ESRC) and myself.  The focus is on the requirements of the UK HE funding councils and the Leicester open access perspective.

Session 2 is aimed at staff and research students working in disciplines covered by UK Pub Med Central (principally biosciences, health and medicine).  Margaret Hurley and Alison Henning (Wellcome Trust) will be speaking about their specific funding policies and the new UKMPC grant reporting services.  Finally Juliet Bailey (RSO) will talk about the Wellcome Trust OA fund at Leicester.

There will be a break for refreshments in the middle, as well as a chance for formal and informal questions to all the delegates.  The LRA team will be there in force, so it’ll be a really good chance to talk with us about what we can do to help you fulfil the various institutional, funding and theses mandates here at Leicester; as well as making sure your publications are read as widely as possible.

To reserve a place and for a full programme contact Laura Roberts

Open Access Week: JISC OA resources

JISC has rolled out a very useful page and set of resources today in support of open access week.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/openaccess

In clear, plain english the page details the case for open access as well as the role JISC has been playing in supporting and developing the infra-structure in the UK to make it happen.  As well as the general overview of the benefits of OA there’s also a selection of resources for researchers, institutions and publishers; detailing why OA matters for them.  It includes a link to a wide range of resources and reports giving the scholarly background information that so many academics crave.  I’ll certainly be reading through some of these over the coming weeks.

The section for publishers is aimed mostly at those whom are embracing open access publishing – be it as a pure OA journal or a more traditional one offering a pay-up-front option (a fee to make an article available as open access where normally it would be available to subscribers only).

Interestingly the site also offers a section on the business case for open access, something that I know is close to the hearts of many senior institutional administrators.  I think this economic case is one I’d certainly like to know more about myself, as some of the discussions and 1-2-1 meetings I have with academics and staff at all levels move away from the philosophical “Open access is good for the research environment” and into the realm of “But what does it mean for the university as a business”.

The site also offers all the reports on a single page at the end, and while I know I’m never going to have a chance to read them all myself – they are certainly a worthy resource.  I can see that this site will be helping me shape the workshop I’m running in December for new academic staff, as well as those I offer to PhD students.

Open Access Week: Success Stories from Glasgow

I was pleased to see that the University of Glasgow is running stories about individuals who have experienced academic success on the back of making their work available on their Enlighten repository.  The first one concerns Dr Katherine Forsyth from the Department of Celtic and Gaelic who has had a phenomenal number of downloads of her out of print book (50,000). 

I wonder if there are any authors of out of print books here at Leicester who might like to consider exploring the possibility of making their texts available to all via the LRA?  Please get in touch if you are!