A recent history of Open Access publishing at Bangor University

On the theme of “Open in Action” for International Open Access Week 2016, we would like to give you a short recent history of Open Access publishing support at Bangor University.  If you would like to send us any comments about this blog post or if you would like to share your own reflections on Open Access publishing at Bangor please contact us at repository@bangor.ac.uk and we’ll get your comments up on the blog.

This blog post details what has been happening at Bangor, this [link] previous blog post will give you a very brief timeline of Open Access publishing in the UK.

In 2005, Claire Davis, Research Assessment Manager  (Research and Enterprise Office) started an internal closed access database to record all published outputs by Bangor University staff (this was later developed by the Research and Enterprise Office and IT Services as the internal CRIMS system).  The Publications Database was vital for external reporting and research assessment, and included detailed, validated and enriched bibliographic records, but no open access full text copies. A project was begun to feed the bibliographic records into a DSpace repository with the aim of adding full text copies where possible, however lack of staffing and investment meant this full-text linking was not achieved at that time.

In 2012, Bangor University’s Library and Archives Service established a cross-university working group on Open Access publishing; launched a new set of informative webpages on Open Access; and drafted a new publishing policy for the University which encouraged Bangor’s researchers to publish Open Access.   This work was led by Sue Hodges (Director of Library and Archives) and Tracey Middleton (Digital Services and Development Manager, at the time Electronic Resources Librarian).

In 2013, Graham Worley (Research Co-ordinator, IT Services) and Dr Beth Hall (Research Support Librarian, Library and Archive Services) did a thorough review of repository software and proposed that rather than trying to revive the original DSpace repository, that instead we move to using the E-Prints open source repository solution. (This decision was largely based on requirements for research data as driven by EPSRC expectations on research data management from the 1st May 2015).  We took a fresh import of data from the Research and Enterprise Office’s Publications database and fed this into E-Prints.

In 2013, the first year that we received RCUK block grant funding, we aimed to make all RCUK-funded outputs open access via the Gold route as the Green route was not available to Bangor researchers until 2014 when the new E-Prints Repository, eBangor was launched.  In 2014, Dr Michelle Walker joined the Library and Archives Service in a new post as Repository and Research Data Manager (Michelle was previously Publications Officer in the Research and Enterprise Office). Michelle, along with maternity cover provided by Marjan Baas-Harmsma, started the process of linking bibliographic records with full text copies in the new repository eBangor.

Promotion and awareness-raising amongst academic staff at Bangor University on open access publishing options and funder requirements has been vital.  Since 2012, we have visited University Schools and Colleges, provided training sessions via the staff training and doctoral school training programmes, briefed the University’s Research Strategy Task Group, and continued to advocate for open access at every opportunity.  We have also arranged annual events for International Open Access week with excellent guest speakers.

We have benefitted from agreements that JISC have reached with a number of publishers to off-set open access charges, particularly SAGE from 2012.  The Royal Society for Chemistry open access vouchers for their “Gold package” subscribers is also a scheme we have benefitted from. We continue to engage publishers in discussions about off-setting of open access costs during renewals of subscriptions. We make use of the excellent Springer open access agreement and we would like to see more publisher agreements like this one.

In direct response to the new REF requirements for Open Access applying to publications from April 2016, we have seen an increase in the number of items being sent to the Repository team. 

During 2016 we have also been implementing PURE, a cross-university research information management system.  Claire Davis (Research and Enterprise Office), Michelle Walker (Library and Archives Service) and Graham Worley (IT Services) are leading the implementation of this new system across the University. PURE draws together research information from both internal and external sources and facilitates an evidence-based approach to Bangor's research and collaboration strategies, assessment exercises RCUK and HEFCE open access compliance and real time visibility of current research activity. We have moved all research publications from eBangor into PURE.  Using PURE as the new Repository software has advantages of workflow management for the Repository team, and also allows researchers to self-deposit publications and manage their own public profile on the University’s Research Portal http://research.bangor.ac.uk. 

This year the University Publications Policy has been rewritten as an Open Access policy by Dr Michelle Walker and approved by the University Executive and we hope to see Open Access Publishing become the default at Bangor University for the publication of journal articles and conference papers.

We also look forward with interest to developments in open access book publishing; we already actively support the Knowledge Unlatched scheme, where many libraries from around the world share the payment of a single Title Fee to a publisher to make the title Open Access. We are also actively exploring institutional “in-house” publishing options, and we want to ensure more of Bangor’s research data is published open access. 

If you are still not convinced of the benefits of open access publishing, then have a look at this report on the citation advantage of open access articles: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040157  and watch these researchers talking about why they choose to publish open access: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2JT23E1bRE&feature=related 

References:

Eysenbach, G., 2006. Citation advantage of open access articles. PLoS Biol, 4(5), p.e157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040157