Transcript No Slide Title
Institutional repositories and SHERPA
Stephen Pinfield University of Nottingham
Key point
The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.
Report and Response
Select Committee Report – Recommendation 44: “…We recommend that the Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all their articles in their institution’s repository…as a condition of their research grant…” – Other recommendations: 7, 42-48, 50, 52-56, 58, 75 Government response –
“
The Government recognises the potential benefit of institutional repositories and sees them as a significant development worthy of encouragement.” – “The Government has no present intention to mandate…” – Ongoing activity: JISC, RCUK etc
Key point
The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.
Key questions
What are “open-access repositories”?
Why “institutional” repositories?
What should be deposited in them?
Why do they “improve” scholarly communication?
Why make deposition mandatory?
Who should mandate deposition?
Who should do the depositing?
What would happen then?
What happens now?
OA repositories
What are open-access repositories?
Institutional repositories: “Online archives set up and managed by research institutions to house articles published by authors at these institutions.”* *Select Committee Report, para. 108, p. 56
O… what?
OA: – Open Access – Free, unrestricted and immediate availability (and re-use) OAI: – Open Archives Initiative – Systemic “openness” – OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI PMH) interoperability standard OAIS: – Open Archival Information System – Digital preservation model
Institutional
Why institutional repositories?
Institutions have: – technical infrastructure – expertise – policy frameworks – incentives • shop-window • information asset management • accreditation measurement • wider accountability – long-term commitment Other repositories also important Institutional (and other) repositories
plus
services subject-based search
Content
What should be deposited in them?
E-prints – “… a digital duplicate of an academic research paper that is made available online as a way of improving access to the paper.”* – pre-prints – post-prints – book chapters – etc.
Other digital objects eg. data (R.7) *EPIC and Key Perspectives Ltd report for JISC p. 2
Content issues: e-prints
Whose file?
– author-produced – publisher-produced Copyright (R. 50-51) – rights transfer – copyright retention Quality – quality control – quality flags - kitemarks (R. 54)
Benefits
Why do IRs improve scholarly communication?
Dissemination: – Quick – Easy – Wide – Cheap Value-added services – author services – search services – analysis – quality assessment – plagiarism detection Better communication means better science/scholarship Other wider benefits Lowering access and impact barriers
Benefits: evidence
Existing repositories Open-access and impact – direct evidence: OA means more citations – indirect evidence: OA means more downloads and downloads correlate with citations
Key point
The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.
Mandatory?
Why make deposition mandatory?
“Best” way, not only way Accelerate change Help overcome cultural barriers Language issue – “mandatory”?
Who can mandate?
Who should mandate deposition?
Institutions?
– centre – departments/schools Funders?
– HEFCE… – Research councils – other funders Condition of grant
All institutions?
Within reach of most institutions – free software – support networks Consortia Commercial providers Subject based Co-ordination (R. 43, 55-56)
Who should deposit?
Who should do the depositing?
Authors School support staff Strength of institutional LIS staff Hybrid approach
What will happen?
What will happen then?
Major improvements in scholarly communication – improvements in scholarship itself Wider benefits Possible changes in publishing processes and economics
What happens now?
What happens now?
Select Committee Report Government Response Ongoing debate - second Government response?
Ongoing work: JISC, RCUK, CURL, SCONUL, SPARC etc
Key point
The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.