Birkbeck plays leading role in project set to increase access of valuable research to the general public — Birkbeck, University of London

“Open Book Futures (OBF) is a new project working to increase access to valuable research through developing and supporting organisations, tools and practices that will enable both academics and the wider public to make more and better use of books published on an Open Access basis. In particular, the project aims to achieve a step change in how community-owned Open Access book publishing is delivered. 

Funded by Arcadia and the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the project marks a shift in the ambition, scope and impact of community-owned Open Access book publishing. It will significantly increase and improve the quantity, discoverability, preservation and accessibility of academic content freely and easily available to all.  

This will be done by building the infrastructures, business models, networks and resources that are needed to deliver a future for Open Access books, led not by large commercial operations but by communities of scholars, small-to-medium-sized publishers, not-for-profit infrastructure providers, and scholarly libraries.  

This includes expanding the work of the recently launched Open Book Collective, which makes it easier for academic libraries to provide direct financial support to Open Access publishing initiatives, as well as the Thoth metadata management platform; the Opening the Future revenue model, piloted with Central European University Press and Liverpool University Press; and the forthcoming Experimental Publishing Compendium….”

UKRI updates guidance for open access policy

From 1 January 2024, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s new open access policy will apply to monographs, book chapters and edited collections

The open access policy applied since April 2022 for peer-reviewed research articles acknowledging UKRI funding.

The policy aims to ensure that findings from research UKRI funds with public money can be accessed and built on by the research and innovation community and wider society.

New guidance

UKRI has published the following information to support UKRI-funded authors and research organisations to follow the new policy:

guidance for researchers about our long-form open access requirements
updated UKRI open access policy, including new guidance on using long-form policy exemptions
information about UKRI’s dedicated long-form open access fund and other open access implementation updates
updated guidance on accessing long-form open access funding before 2024
updates to frequently asked questions about the policy, including the use of UKRI open access funding for transformative journals

Open access is less established for books and while open access is preferred there may be instances when open access publication is not feasible. Please refer to the guidance about when and how to apply one of the defined exemptions.

[…]

 

UK students launch ebook petition. – Campaign to investigate the Library ebook market

“Students at the University of Worcester (UK) have launched an #ebooksos petition calling for the fair pricing of ebooks. The students ask that people support their efforts to ‘ensure all students have access to the essential digital resources required for their studies and success‘, before stating,We are particularly concerned about those from disadvantaged or less privileged backgrounds, who may be unable to afford the cost of purchasing books required for their courses, resulting in inequality in education.Some examples of the “astronomical” costs their library has been expected to pay for ebooks, in comparison to the hardcopy equivalents, are included to illustrate the problem….”

Complying with the UKRI open access policy: member experiences – Jisc

“Complying with the UKRI open access policy: member experiences

Representatives from three HEI libraries will share their experiences of implementing the UKRI OA policy at their institution.”

New Jisc research infrastructure assets report will drive collaboration – Jisc

“For the first time, UKRI-funded report brings together views of 15 major stakeholders from across the UK research community.

To gain an unprecedented insight into the UK’s academic research infrastructure assets, Jisc has collected the views of leading bodies from across the sector.

The new report, Optimising the UK’s university research infrastructure assets, aims to help identify more opportunities for collaboration, attracting investment, developing skills and reducing bureaucracy.

The UK’s university research infrastructure assets include equipment, facilities and the laboratories commissioned for research use across all disciplines.

The report outlines a range of perspectives from interviews with leaders and experts at 15 groups and stakeholder organisations from the UK’s higher education, research and innovation sector.

It highlights opportunities for new collaborative approaches to optimise the use, sharing, efficiency and sustainability of research infrastructure assets, and was funded by UK Research and Innovation.

The report identifies four key areas of opportunity for the research sector, which it recommends should receive extra investment to promote knowledge exchange and the commercialisation of research and development: …”

Harnessing the Metric Tide: indicators, infrastructures & priorities for UK responsible research assessment

“This review was commissioned by the joint UK higher education (HE) funding bodies as part of the Future Research Assessment Programme (FRAP). It revisits the findings of the 2015 review The Metric Tide to take a fresh look at the use of indicators in research management and assessment. 

While this review feeds into the larger FRAP process, the authors have taken full advantage of their independence and sought to stimulate informed and robust discussion about the options and opportunities of future REF exercises. The report should be read in that spirit: as an input to ongoing FRAP deliberations, rather than a reflection of their likely or eventual conclusions. 

The report is written in three sections. Section 1 plots the development of the responsible research assessment agenda since 2015 with a focus on the impact of The Metric Tide review and progress against its recommendations. Section 2 revisits the potential use of metrics and indicators in any future REF exercise, and proposes an increased uptake of ‘data for good’. Section 3 considers opportunities to further support the roll-out of responsible research assessment policies and practices across the UK HE sector. Appendices include an overview of progress against the recommendations of The Metric Tide and a literature review. 

We make ten recommendations targeted at different actors in the UK research system, summarised as: 

1: Put principles into practice. 

2: Evaluate with the evaluated. 

3: Redefine responsible metrics. 

4: Revitalise the UK Forum. 

5: Avoid all-metric approaches to REF. 

6: Reform the REF over two cycles. 

7: Simplify the purposes of REF. 

8: Enhance environment statements. 

9: Use data for good. 

10: Rethink university rankings….”

Reproducibility and Research Integrity – Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

“The United Kingdom is experiencing the largest-ever increase in public investment in research and development, with the Government R&D budget set to reach £20 billion a year by 2024/5. The creation of the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been advanced by the Government as heralding an increased focus on research and innovation—seen to be among Britain’s main strengths.

At the same time, there have been increasing concerns raised that the integrity of some scientific research is questionable because of failures to be able to reproduce the claimed findings of some experiments or analyses of data and therefore confirm that the original researcher’s conclusions were justified. Some people have described this as a ‘reproducibility crisis’.

In 2018, our predecessor committee published a report ‘Research Integrity’. Some of the recommendations of that report were implemented—such as the establishment of a national research integrity committee.

This report looks in particular at the issue of the reproducibility of research….

We welcome UKRI’s policy of requiring open access to research that it funds, but we recommend that this should go further in requiring the recipients of research grants to share data and code alongside the publications arising from the funded research….”

NIHR tops international chart for clinical trial transparency | NIHR

“The NIHR has been recognised as the world’s most transparent research funding body.

New analysis produced by TranspariMED shows the NIHR is the only research funder in the world to have adopted all 11 of the World Health Organisation’s recommendations for maximising clinical trial transparency and minimising waste.

These include:

making all clinical trial results public within 12 months
having specific policies to prevent waste in research and speed up the development of new treatments
requiring researchers to make key data available on public trial registries and publish their results in scientific journals
monitoring whether researchers are following best practices, and sanctioning those that do not…”

Mixed feelings emerge on Springer Nature deal with British universities

“As part of the new deal with the German-British publisher announced last month, universities will have unlimited open-access publishing in Springer and Palgrave hybrid titles, while free-to-read publishing will be available in Nature and Nature research journals, although this option will be restricted to a certain number of papers….

While the agreement would “result in real-term cost savings for all institutions” and was accepted by all universities that responded to a consultation, a large number had “significant reservations” about the deal, added Jisc….

These concerns centered on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at 8,490 pounds ($10,616). Springer Nature was one of several major publishers—along with Elsevier—which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’s Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

 

Paul Ayris, pro vice provost at University College London (libraries, culture, collections, open science) told Times Higher Education that the sector would only “grudgingly” accept the new deal because it “bakes into the system the high prices that we’ve seen with subscriptions.”…”

UK universities agree open access publishing deal with Springer Nature | Jisc

“Following a year-long negotiation led by Jisc, UK universities have agreed a new, three-year read and publish open access (OA) deal with Springer Nature.

The deal meets the sector’s requirements to reduce costs and to expedite full and immediate open access in more than 2,500 Springer Nature titles, including Nature, the Nature research journals, and the Palgrave portfolio. 

It also helps researchers and their institutions meet research funders’ open access requirements. 

Results of the consultation on the latest proposal from Springer Nature were conclusive, with all 110 respondents voting to accept the offer, although a large number did so ‘with significant reservations’.  

There were concerns around the high cost of publishing OA outside the agreement and the limited transparency, particularly with how Springer Nature’s article processing charges (APCs) are calculated.  

Comments were also raised around Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, given the publisher’s commitment to gold OA, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable OA publishing worldwide….”

Antonia Seymour on why publishers matter – Publishers Association

“We’re fortunate to have the right honourable Lord David Willetts with us today. In his role as Minister for Universities and Science from 2010-2014, Lord Willetts saw open access as an enabling strategy that could unlock innovation and knowledge transfer.

10 years on and 95% of UK-authored research is published open access. What a tremendous example of what can be achieved when stakeholders in the research ecosystem work together to achieve a common goal.

Conducting science more openly undoubtedly accelerates scientific discovery. But doing so doesn’t necessarily mean that research has Impact.

There is plenty of data that shows that the final published version – known as the version of record – achieved via gold open access – is more discoverable, readable, citable, connected and credible than an accepted manuscript in a repository (so called Green open access).

How we make research openly available and how it is communicated is critical to its impact on science and society. Research dissemination being a planned process that academic publishers do really well….”

Rights Retention: from pilot to policy – Jisc

“Representatives from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and King’s College London will share their experiences of developing and implementing rights retention pilots and policies at their institution….”

UKRI’s open access policy, a year on | Research Information

Caren Milloy outlines the policy’s impact and the work that made it happen

The launch of the UKRI’s OA policy in April 2022 marked an important waypoint on the journey to open access.

The policy provided a steer for how publicly funded research should be shared, reused, and built upon for the benefit of wider society. For Jisc, it aligned perfectly with our work with the sector to enable open access to UK research and to save the sector time and money.

 

‘Significant reservations’ over Springer OA deal | Times Higher Education (THE)

UK universities have agreed a new three-year read-and-publish deal with Springer Nature, despite many expressing “significant reservations” over the high cost of publishing open access in prestige titles.

As part of the new deal with the German-British publisher announced on 3 April, universities will have unlimited open-access publishing in Springer and Palgrave hybrid titles, while free-to-read publishing will be available in Nature and Nature research journals, although this option will be restricted to a certain number of papers.

Based on modelling, this cap on Nature-branded titles would be “sufficient” for British institutions, said Jisc, the UK’s higher education IT consortium, which has been negotiating with Springer Nature on behalf of UK institutions for more than a year.

While the agreement would “result in real-term cost savings for all institutions” and was accepted by all universities that responded to a consultation, a large number had “significant reservations” about the deal, added Jisc.

These concerns centred on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at £8,490. Springer Nature was one of several major publishers – along with Elsevier – which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’ Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

Paul Ayris, pro-vice-provost at UCL (libraries, culture, collections, open science) told Times Higher Education that the sector would only “grudgingly” accept the new deal because it “bakes into the system the high prices that we’ve seen with subscriptions”.

“Those APCs of €9,500 are a huge amount to pay. It’s too much for one article, and that level seems to have been built into the new deal. Springer Nature can’t explain how they’ve arrived at this price, either,” he added.

Although libraries recognised this was the “best possible deal that could be achieved at the moment”, Dr Ayris said, the transformative deals agreed with publishers were not delivering the change that many academics or librarians had anticipated. He added that they would exacerbate global inequalities because poorer nations would be unable to pay high-cost APCs.

Other concerns included Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable open-access publishing worldwide, Jisc said.

The deal with the world’s second-largest publisher comes after the rejection of a previous offer in February because of cost concerns, with UK universities also vetoing a proposed deal last year that would have required them to pay nearly £1 million extra.

Welcoming the new agreement, Stephen Decent, principal and vice-chancellor at Glasgow Caledonian University, said it would “further extend the reach and impact of UK research by providing open-access publishing in 2,500 Springer Nature journals”, which would lead to about 6,000 papers a year being published in a free-to-read format with the world’s second-biggest academic publisher.

“While this is an important deal that delivers concessions, the goal of fully accessible open research still eludes us,” added Professor Decent, who called for “a more inclusive and open research culture, where all contributions to research are valued, regardless of the type of output or where they are published”.

Carolyn Honour, chief commercial officer at Springer Nature, said the new deal would “for the first time” cover all Springer Nature journals and would also “open up access to UK research” and extend “publishing opportunities to a broader range of institutions and disciplines”.

The publisher would “remain committed to working transparently, through the publication of data and resources, and extensively with our global partners, to drive progress towards this goal”, added Ms Honour.

 

Should the UK replace journals with a REF repository? | Times Higher Education (THE)

“There is a long-standing debate about whether the UK’s Research Excellence Framework is a waste of time and money given its insistence on re-assessing tens of thousands of papers that have already been reviewed by journals. Why not just base REF scores on journal rankings instead?

One answer is that, as Robert de Vries put it in a recent article for Times Higher Education, journal-administered peer review “sucks”. De Vries is conscious, though, that the obvious alternative to journals, post-publication review on subject repositories, might quickly descend into a social-media-style “attention-economy hellscape”, which would be even worse.

His solution is to oblige everyone who publishes on such platforms to undertake post-publication review to ensure that visibility is a function of merit. But I believe that a specific REF repository would be a better solution, eliminating reviewing redundancy while upholding high standards….”