Category Archives: oa.case.policies

Successful Implementation of Open Access Strategies at Universities of Science & Technology – Strathprints

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Abstract:  While the CWTS Leiden ranking has been available since 2011/2012, it is only in 2019 that a first attempt was made at ranking institutions by Open Access-related indicators. This was due to the arrival of Unpaywall as a tool to measure openly available institutional research outputs – either via the Green or the Gold OA routes – for a specific institution. The CWTS Leiden ranking by percentage of the institutional research output published Open Access effectively meant the first opportunity for institutions worldwide to be ranked by the depth of their Open Access implementation strategies brushing aside aspects like their size. This provided an interesting way to map the progress of CESAER Member institutions that were part of the Task Force Open Science 2020-2021 Open Access Working Group (OAWG) towards the objective stated by Plan S of achieving 100% Open Access of research outputs. The OAWG then set out to map the situation of the Member institutions represented in it on this Open Access ranking and to track their evolution on subsequent editions of this ranking. The idea behind this analysis was not so much to introduce an element of competition across institutions but to explore whether progress was taking place in the percentage of openly available institutional research outputs year on year. The results of this analysis – shown in figures within this paper for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 editions – show strong differences across Member institutions that are part of the OAWG. From internal discussions within the group, it became evident that these differences could be explained through a number of factors that contributed to a successful Open Access implementation at an institutional level. This provided the basis for this work. The document identifies four key factors that contribute to a successful OA implementation at institutions, and hence to achieving a good position on the CWTS Leiden ranking for Open Access.

 

A Compendium of Open Access/Open Science Policy Case Studies from African Higher Education Institutions | Zenodo

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Abstract:  A Compendium of Open Access/Open Science Policy Case Studies from African Higher Education Institutions for the LIBSENSE Open Science policy development workshops convened as part of activities in the AfricaConnect3 programme.

 The case studies in this compendium have been solicited from partners throughout Africa by the LIBSENSE policy working group. They represent a broad range of open access/open science policy development initiatives from those involved in developing and implementing them. The representative universities cover a range of public and private institutions where research activity occurs. Altogether, they give perspectives on OA/OS policy development at the institutional level, including the motivations, successes, challenges and outcomes. This compendium also includes one case study outlining policy development efforts coordinated at a regional level in Francophone Africa.

Through these workshops, LIBSENSE envisages an opportunity to align institutional level policy with ongoing efforts to deliver on national open science roadmaps as part of the broader Open Science agenda that LIBSENSE wants to achieve across Africa. It is also the impetus for its alignment with UNESCO’s Recommendations on open science, embracing its own Open Science vision on implementing UNESCO open science principles in an African context. In support of this, the compendium includes a recommended checklist for universities to follow when implementing UNESCO recommendations on open science.

An Institutional Rights Retention Strategy | Open Science Talk

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Abstract:  Prorector for research and development at UiT The Arctic University of Norway informs about the institution’s new Open Access Policy, in which Rights Retention takes a prominent place. All authors employed by UiT retain the rights to their peer-reviewed manuscripts, which can now be uploaded and be made available without any embargo period in the institutional repository, Munin, regardless of the policies of the publisher. In case an individual author refuses, (s)he is free to opt out, but no publisher shall have the right to force her/him to not make a manuscript publicly available in green open access through the institution’s open repository. The original Norwegian policy document (“Prinsipper og retningslinjer for åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige publikasjoner ved UiT”) is available through the website uit.no/publisering; an English translation will follow soon at en.uit.no/publishing.

 

Lo | The Factors Significant to the Introduction of Institutional Open Access Policies: Two Case Studies of R-1 Universities | Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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Abstract:  INTRODUCTION US universities are increasingly unable to afford research journal subscriptions due to the rising prices charged by for-profit academic publishers. Open access (OA) appears to be the most backed option to disrupt the current publishing model. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors significant to the introduction of institutional OA policies at selected United States R-1 universities. METHODS An in-depth qualitative study, including interviews with stakeholders, was conducted on two R-1universities with OA policies that have been implemented for at least five years. results The results of this study reveal that while the perceived sustainability of the scholarly communication business model was an initial driver, open dissemination of knowledge was the primary factor for the development of institutional policies. discussion Open dissemination of knowledge aligns with the mission of both institutions. Interviewees believe that a wider and more open dissemination of the institution’s research cost could positively affect their faculty’s research impact, which could then affect the institution’s reputation, rankings, classifications and funding. CONCLUSION While the initial driver for exploring OA scholarly communication for both institutions was the perceived unsustainability of the scholarly communication model, the most important factor that led to the creation of their policies was the desire to disseminate the faculty’s scholarship.

 

Advancing Scientific Integrity, Transparency, and Openness in Child Development Research: Challenges and Possible Solutions – Gilmore – 2020 – Child Development Perspectives – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  In 2019, the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) adopted a Policy on Scientific Integrity, Transparency, and Openness (SRCD, 2019a) and accompanying Author Guidelines on Scientific Integrity and Openness in Child Development (SRCD, 2019b). In this issue, a companion article (Gennetian, Tamis?LeMonda, & Frank) discusses the opportunities to realize SRCD’s vision for a science of child development that is open, transparent, robust, and impactful. In this article, we discuss some of the challenges associated with realizing SRCD’s vision. In identifying these challenges—protecting participants and researchers from harm, respecting diversity, and balancing the benefits of change with the costs—we also offer constructive solutions.

 

Adopting an Open Access Policy at a Four-Year Comprehensive College

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“THIS CHAPTER OUTLINES THE STEPS TAKEN TO IMPLEMENT AN open access policy at a public, midsize, four-year institution [The College at Brockport]. There is no “one size fts all” in policy-making, but the authors intend to provide motivation for others to continue to work on policies that can enhance the scholarly profle at their schools….”

“Collaborating Across Campus to Advance Open Access Policy Compliance” by Andrew Johnson, Melissa Cantrell et al.

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In 2018, the Data and Scholarly Communication Services Unit (DSCS) at the University of Colorado Boulder began implementing two open access (OA) policy workflows with the aim of increasing content in the institutional repository CU Scholar, expanding awareness of the campus OA policy that was passed in 2015, and decreasing the burden on researchers for participation in the policy. DSCS leveraged collaborative relationships with other library departments and campus units in order to mobilize the data, infrastructure, procedures, and documentation to execute these workflows. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) workflow identifies existing open access publications by CU Boulder faculty and mediates deposit in order to make them available in CU Scholar. The liaison outreach workflow partners with liaison librarians to request from faculty preprints and author’s final manuscripts of publications in which the publisher version may have copyright restrictions. At present, the DOAJ workflow has resulted in 754 articles deposited in CU Scholar, and the liaison outreach workflow has resulted in 91 articles deposited. Each of these workflows pose challenges that have required flexibility, experimentation, and clear communication between stakeholders. This case study, which includes detailed descriptions of both open access policy workflows, initial results, and plans for future implementation, may serve as a guide for other institutions wishing to adopt and/or adapt institutional repository workflows and forge collaborative relationships to further open access initiatives in their local context.

Narrowing the Gap Between Publication and Access: Is a Mandate Enough to Get Us Closer?[v1] | Preprints

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Abstract:  Changes brought about by the Internet to Scholarly Communication and the spread of Open Access movement, have made it possible to increase the number of potential readers of published research dramatically. This two-phase study aims, at first, to assert the satisfaction of the potential for increased open access to articles published by authors at the University of Coimbra, in a context when there was no stimulus for the openness of published science other than an institutional mandate set by the University policy on Open Access (“Acesso Livre”). The satisfaction of the access openness was measured by observing the actual archiving behavior of researchers (either directly or through their agents). We started by selecting the top journal titles used to publish the STEM research of the University of Coimbra (2004-2013) by using Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index (SCI). These titles were available at the University libraries or through online subscriptions, some of them in open access (21%). By checking the journals’ policy at the time regarding self-archiving at the SHERPA/RoMEO service, we found that the percentage of articles in Open Access (OA) could rise to 80% if deposited at Estudo Geral, the Institutional Repository of the University of Coimbra, as prescribed by the Open Access Policy of the University. As we concluded by verifying the deposit status of every single paper of researchers of the University that published in those journals, this potential was far from being fulfilled, despite the existence of the institutional mandate and favorable editorial conditions. We concluded, therefore, that an institutional mandate was not sufficient by itself to fully implement an open access policy and to close the gap between publication and access. The second phase of the study, to follow, will rescan the status of published papers in a context where the Portuguese public funding agency, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, introduced in 2014 a new significant stimulus for open access in science. The FCT Open Access Policy stipulates that publicly funded published research must be available as soon as possible in a repository of the Portuguese network of scientific repositories, RCAAP, which integrates the Estudo Geral.

10 ans d’Open Access à l’Université de Liège – YouTube

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From Google’s English: “Il y a 10 ans naissait ORBi (Open Repository and Bibliography), un répertoire institutionnel qui vise à collecter, préserver et diffuser la production scientifique des membres de l’Université de Liège. “

Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR

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Abstract:  This paper examines Open Access (OA) self archiving policies of different Open Access Repositories (OARs) affiliated to COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) as partner institutes. The process of scrutiny includes three major activities – selection of databases to consult; comparison and evaluation of Open Access policies of repositories listed in the selected databases and attached to COAR group; and critical examination of available self archiving policies of these OA repositories against a set of selected criteria. The above steps lead to reporting the following results: key findings have been identified and highlighted; common practices have been analyzed in relation to the focus of this paper; and a best practice benchmark has been suggested for popularizing and strengthening OARs as national research systems. This paper may help administrators, funding agencies, policy makers and professional librarians in devising institute-specific self archiving policies for their own organizations.

The Rutgers open access policy goes into effect | Faculty reaction and implementation lessons learned | Library Management | Vol 40, No 1/2

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Abstract:  Purpose

 

From laying the groundwork for the successful passage of a university-wide open access (OA) policy, through the development and planning that goes into a successful implementation, to “Day One” when the official university policy goes into effect, there is a long list of factors that affect faculty interest, participation and compliance. The paper aims to discuss this issue

Design/methodology/approach

 

The authors, Mullen and Otto, having detailed earlier aspects of the Rutgers University OA policy passage and implementation planning, analyze and share the specifics that followed the rollout of the policy and that continue to affect participation.

Findings

 

This case study presents some strategies and systems used to enhance author self-archiving in the newly minted Scholarly Open Access at Rutgers (SOAR) portal of the Rutgers institutional repository, including involvement of departmental liaison librarians, effective presentation of metrics and a focus on targeted communication with faculty.

Originality/value

 

Roadblocks encountered as faculty began to deposit their scholarship and lessons learned are a focus. Early reaction from faculty and graduate students (doctoral students and postdocs) to various aspects of the policy as well as the use of SOAR for depositing their work are included.

Open access Academic publishing in transition

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It’s the year 2024: a scientist in Sudan, the family member of a patient with a rare disease in the United States, a farmer in China – assuming they have access to the internet, they are all able to access the latest scientific findings at any time, without restriction and free of charge. On this basis, they can develop new energy supply options for their community, prepare for visits to the doctor or follow the latest research on seeds and breeds. A pipe dream? Or isn’t free access to academic literature something we should have had for a long time, three decades since the development of the world wide web?

Engaged Citizenship through Campus-Level Democratic Processes: A Librarian and Graduate Student Collaboration on Open Access Policy Adoption

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Abstract:  INTRODUCTION While faculty votes to establish open access (OA) policies leverage one particular campus-level democratic mechanism in the name of advancing scholarly communication, other processes, including student government actions, can also play significant roles in OA policy adoption and related efforts. As early career researchers, graduate students are particularly well-poised to engage with campus-level democratic institutions in order to bring about change in scholarly communication. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM This case study details a multi-year collaboration between librarians and graduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder aimed at the development and adoption of a campus OA policy. Librarians and graduate students worked together to plan for and sustain momentum throughout the process of building formal support for the policy through student government and faculty assembly resolutions, drafting policy language, and shepherding the proposed policy through numerous meetings and committees all the way up to and including its formal adoption. This collaboration through engaged citizenship at the campus level also led to a number of unintended benefits to both librarians and graduate students involved. NEXT STEPS AND CONCLUSIONS Ultimately, the CU Boulder collaboration between librarians and graduate students led to significant scholarly communication achievements largely through the utilization of campus-level democratic processes. The case study concludes with a look at next steps for implementing the OA policy across campus as well as a discussion of the labor involved in such efforts, including implications for graduate student involvement in scholarly communication initiatives.

Coalition supports Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act | R Street

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“As organizations committed to the availability of information about our government and its transparency, we write to express our support for the Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act of 2016 (S. 2639), introduced last week. We extend our sincere gratitude for your many years of leadership in support of opening access to these valuable, taxpayer-funded reports. We are appreciative of your efforts, and those of Sen. Patrick Leahy, to make a bipartisan push for a more open government at a time when such work is particularly vital to our democracy.”