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Learn how to target high impact journals!

My Publishing Experience: Prof. Matthew Bennett

Wed 11 March 13:00-14:30 , TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University.

On Wednesday 11th March, Prof. Matthew Bennett will be hosting a Writing Academy lunchbyte session at TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University.

In this session, Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors.  He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations.  Drawing on personal experience he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.   After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch.

To book a place on either of these workshops, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

If you have any questions relating to these sessions then please contact Pengpeng Hatch.

 

National Contact Points: Jerome de Barros and Alex Harris – Health, Wellbeing and Demographic Change

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Jerome de Barros and Alex Harris, who are the the NCPs for Health, Wellbeing and Demographic Change.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

Thinking about monographs in a world of open access – blog post by Professor Geoffrey Crossick

Original article is published on 22 January 2015 via – http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/01/22/thinking-about-monographs-in-a-world-of-open-access/

Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London

In this post, Professor Geoffrey Crossick introduces his report on monographs and open access, outlining the key messages of the report and giving his personal take on the issues and the wider contexts. Professor Crossick is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London and led the HEFCE Monographs and Open Access Project.
Open access to research publications has in recent years emerged as a major issue for academics, publishers and funders. Discussion and policy have, however, overwhelmingly focused on articles in journals. That is where funders, including HEFCE and RCUK, have announced mandates which require open access, and with most academic journals now published in digital format it is easier to think about making them open access.

There has been only limited discussion of how open access might apply to books, even though these are an important way in which academics in the arts, humanities and social sciences communicate their research. This classically means a monograph, but research books also include works such as scholarly editions, books of research essays by different authors, and scholarly exhibition catalogues.

I say only limited discussion, but underneath the surface there has been a great deal of paddling going on. This has meant debates about how monographs (I’ll use the term from now on to refer to all research books) might be made available on an open access basis, and a variety of initiatives to find financially and organisationally viable ways of doing so.

The Finch Report on open access focused above all on journal articles, and acknowledged that more work was needed to understand the issues with respect to monographs. HEFCE explicitly recognised this when it announced that it would not require them to be open access for the next REF.

And that is where I came in. Late in 2012 HEFCE invited me to lead some work on the implications of open access for monographs. The aim was not to come up with Finch-style policy recommendations, because the development of open access for books is at too early a stage for that. What was needed was some consultation, collecting of information and thinking with a view to producing a report that would be helpful to those interested in developing policy though not in itself setting out what policy might be.

I readily accepted the invitation. Book-centred disciplines have been part of my life as an academic (I’m a historian) and in my roles in higher education and research management. The arts, humanities, and social sciences matter to me, and I appreciate the importance of securing the future of the research book in a changing world of scholarly communication.

I put together an Expert Reference Group drawn from academics, librarians, publishers, funders and others to support me in this work. Together we set about a project that from the outset was not about open access alone, but about the whole position of the monograph today. If we didn’t understand the role of the monograph in research activity and communication, if we didn’t understand its function in the cultures of disciplines and departments, if we didn’t know what was happening to the monograph today, then we really couldn’t begin to understand what open access might mean for it.

My report to HEFCE (and to the AHRC and ESRC who supported the project) was published on 22 January. It covers a lot of ground in exploring the key issues that need to be understood by anyone wanting to think about policy in this area. It needs some 70 pages plus annexes to engage with the reality of what books mean, as well as the potential and the challenges of their moving to open access. The report, therefore, has much to say about the world of research and publication in universities.

As a humanities scholar I’m used to reporting complexity where complexity exists, as it does here. Some things are nonetheless clear. Talk of the monograph in crisis is hard to sustain – they’re being published in ever-increasing numbers, academics are writing and reading them, and libraries and individuals are buying them. That doesn’t mean that all is rosy, but it is important to see open access as an opportunity rather than as a response to a crisis.

It is essential that any future for open access monographs sustains their fundamental importance in most arts, humanities and social science disciplines. That means better technology to enable many of the material qualities of the book that go beyond words alone (the format, images, layout, references and much else) to be retained in a digital future. Though few academics told us that they enjoyed reading a whole research monograph on a screen – if they like it they buy or borrow a print edition. Printed books will not disappear.

It also means being flexible about the kind of licences required for books on open access, it means overcoming the potential high charges that owners of third-party rights (to images, texts, bars of music or dance notation) might impose, and it means finding the business models that will make it work. On this last issue there are many experiments underway and it seems to me improbable that any one of them will become dominant – the future will be one with a diversity of business models.

There is much more in the report and I really look forward to its discussion, and to see how HEFCE and others will take the issues forward. Open access carries with it great potential for larger readership and easier access, and also for new ways of engaging with and using the results of research. I was struck by the constructive approach that I found in responses from academics to the question of open access for monographs.

There were, of course, anxieties and policy needs to take these into account, but there was also real recognition of the potential. My advice to HEFCE and other policy makers is that there is much to be gained by working with the grain of academic opinion, and much to be lost by not doing so. I look forward to the debate!


Major HEFCE study of monographs and open access sheds light on complex issues

Original article appeared on 21 January 2015 via – http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2015/news99909.html

The Monographs and Open Access Project considers the place of monographs in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines, and how they fit into the developing world of open access to research. It concludes that open access for monographs has a great deal to contribute to scholarly communication, but that the challenges of introducing it will be real and policy should take account of the various issues identified in the report.

The Monographs and Open Access Project was led by Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London [Note 1]. It was commissioned by HEFCE in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Important messages in the report are that:

  • Monographs are a vitally important and distinctive vehicle for research communication, and must be sustained in any moves to open access. The availability of printed books alongside the open-access versions will be essential.
  • Contrary to many perceptions, it would not be appropriate to talk of a crisis of the monograph; this does not mean that monographs are not facing challenges, but the arguments for open access would appear to be for broader and more positive reasons than solving some supposed crisis.
  • Open access offers both short- and long-term advantages for monograph publication and use; many of these are bound up with a transition to digital publishing that has not been at the same speed as that for journals.
  • There is no single dominant emerging business model for supporting open-access publishing of monographs; a range of approaches will coexist for some time and it is unlikely that any single model will emerge as dominant. Policies will therefore need to be flexible.

Evidence to support the project was gathered through an extensive programme of consultations, surveys, data-gathering and focused research activities. The research was supported and shaped by an Expert Reference Group of publishers, academics, librarians, funders, open access experts with the additional help of distinguished representatives from overseas.

This project was set up following advice to HEFCE that monographs and other long-form publications should be excluded from requirements for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Professor Geoffrey Crossick said:

‘This project has demonstrated very clearly the vital importance of monographs to the academic community as a way of developing research thinking, a vehicle for research communication, a demonstrator of academic quality, and much more. Open access offers significant short- and long-term advantages for monograph publishing that should be pursued, but the clear message is that the academically essential qualities of the monograph must be sustained in any moves to open access.

‘The project has shown that, for open access to be achievable, a number of key issues must be tackled. Open access depends on a satisfactory transition to digital publishing that hasn’t yet happened for books in the way that it has for journals, and the various business models that can support open-access monographs are still largely experimental. Furthermore, the potential costs of third-party rights could pose serious problems, and there are issues around licensing that will need careful handling.

I have been encouraged by the very positive way in which academics and others have engaged with this project; it is important that this engagement continues, because there is much to be gained by working with the grain, and much to be lost by not doing so.’

Welcoming the report, David Sweeney, Director, Research, Education and Knowledge Exchange at HEFCE, said:

‘This report makes a huge contribution to the evolving debate around open access, shedding much-needed light on the issues around delivering open access to books. The wealth of evidence and commentary that this project has generated will spark continued debate among academics, learned societies and publishers, as well as provide important guidance to research funders and others interested in developing policies in this area.

‘I am very grateful to Professor Crossick for the open and engaged way that he has handled his investigation into this complex and sensitive area. The report is firmly grounded in the perspectives of the communities that rely so much on monograph publishing, and is all the stronger for it.

‘Monographs sit outside the open-access requirements for the next REF. But the long timescales for book authorship and publishing mean that any policy for open-access monographs in future REF exercises would need to be established soon to give due notice to the sector.’

Read the report

Next steps

HEFCE will consider this report and discuss its policy implications with other research funders including AHRC and ESRC, recognising that any steps towards policies for open-access monographs should be preceded by a thorough process of consultation and engagement.

Tweet #OpenAccess

Notes

  1. A monograph is a long academic book on a single research topic, normally written by one or sometimes two authors. For this project, the term was used more broadly to include edited collections of research essays, critical editions of texts and other works, and other longer outputs of research such as scholarly exhibition catalogues.
  2. The HEFCE Monographs and Open Access Project launched in late 2013. It was led by Professor Geoffrey Crossick and was overseen by a steering group, comprising membership from HEFCE, AHRC, ESRC and the British Academy.
  3. In March 2014, the UK higher education funding bodies announced a new policy for open-access in the post-2014 REF, requiring that certain outputs be made available in open-access format to be admissible to the next REF. Monographs and other long-form publications were excluded from these requirements.
  4. The report, setting out the findings of the project and the results of the various strands of research, is available on the HEFCE web-site.
  5. The remit of the HEFCE Monographs and Open Access Project was:
  • To develop an understanding of the scale and nature of the difficulties that are thought to be facing monograph publishing.
  • To develop an understanding of the place, purpose and appropriateness of the scholarly monograph within the overall ecology of scholarly communication in those arts, humanities and social science disciplines where it plays a significant part. This should include, among other issues, the importance of the monograph to scholarly communication and to reputation and career progression.
  • To examine the role that innovation in publishing and access models can play in ensuring that the various benefits and attributes associated with the monograph can be sustained and, where possible, enhanced. This will involve examining a range of opportunities, risks, challenges and solutions, which should include identifying and examining current and emerging models for monograph publishing, with particular reference to open-access models.

 

RKEO Coffee Morning – Today!

The RKEO coffee morning is today in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am. The morning will concentrate on the wonders of the Project Delivery Team within RKEO, its personnel, the work they do and how they can help you with live surgeries and demonstrations on open access, BRIAN, the online ethics checklist and RED so please come along!

The Team has three specialist areas: Finance, Outputs and Governance which feed into Faculty dedicated teams. So if you want to know more about managing projects, applying for ethics approval, how to use BRIAN, Open Access or anything else Research and Knowledge Exchange focused please come along and have a chat with us, or just to enjoy a coffee and cake.

 

The coffee morning will be held in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am on Wednesday 4th February.

 

We look forward to seeing you!

National Contact Point: Stephen Alexander – Legal And Financial

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Stephen Alexander, who is the NCP for Legal and Financial.  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

Reminder: British Academy Visit – reserve your place now!

The British Academy is returning to BU on 11 February 2015.  This is an invaluable opportunity to find out more about the international and domestic funding available through the organisation.  For those of you who are not familiar with the British Academy, it is the UK’s leading independent body for the humanities and social sciences, promoting funding, knowledge exchange and providing independent advice within the humanities. 

The session will last approximately 2 hours (12-2pm) and will comprise a presentation focussing on international and domestic funding opportunities along with an overview of the British Academy, followed by a Q&A session

Representatives of the British Academy will be available to answer any individual queries not covered in the presentation or Q&A session, and members of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be on hand should you wish to discuss BU’s processes for bidding to the organisation.

Places for the event can be reserved through Organisational Development.  Anybody interested in finding out more should contact Giles Ashton (Funding Development Coordinator): gashton@bournemouth.ac.uk 

Please feel free to bring lunch with you as catering will not be provided.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.  The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

24th February 2015

24th March 2015

28th April 2015

29th May 2015

23rd June 2015

28th July 2015

25th August 2015

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

RCUK announcement on Pathways to Impact

 

RCUK have made an announcement on pathways to impact: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/announcements/150115/ and here http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

The key point is that RCUK has reaffirmed its commitment to Pathways to Impact and will require a clearly thought through and acceptable Pathways to Impact statement as a condition of funding in the future.  This change will take effect for peer review panels which take place after 1st April 2015 – please see the appropriate Research Council website for details.

On Monday, a number of councils also published their 2013-14 impact reports, which are linked below.

EPSRC have updated their guidance on pathways to impact: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/howtoapply/preparing/impactguidance/  and have published an Impact report:  http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/pubs/economicimpactreport1314/ and a note about the next round of Impact Acceleration Accounts:

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/impactaccelerationaccounts/

AHRC impact report: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/News/Pages/AHRC-publishes-report-on-the-impact-of-research.aspx

ESRC impact report: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/announcements/33431/new-report-highlights-our-impact-in-2014.aspx and promoting REF impact case studies from ESRC funded research: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/features-casestudies/case-studies/

BBSRC has published its impact report: http://bbsrc.ac.uk/news/policy/2015/150119-n-bbsrc-publishes-latest-impact-report.aspx

MRC Impact report (published last year): http://www.mrc.ac.uk/news-events/publications/outputs-outcomes-and-impact-of-mrc-research-2013-14/

NERC Impact report: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/latest/news/nerc/impact-report/

STFC impact report: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/files/3269/3269_res_5.pdf

Finally, the overall RCUK impact report: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/150119/

You can also view RKEO advice on producing a pathways to impact document on our blogs ‘research toolkit’: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/je-s-guidance/impact-sections/

National Contact Point: Peter Walters (ICT and FET)

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Peter Walters, who is the NCP for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Future and Emerging Technologies (FET).  Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.

Top tips for completing business and knowledge exchange funding applications

For those involved in business and business planning some of  this information would not necessarily be new, however very important when completing any funding application or competition where Innovate UK are the main funder.  Innovate UK is the new name for the Technology Strategy Board and  fund, support and connect innovative businesses to accelerate sustainable economic growth.

A short guide to  to help make clear what an assessor for Innovate UK competitions is looking for has been produced. All of the Innovate UK funding programmes follow a similar pattern and you should bear in mind that the questions are designed to help rather than trip you up. It is important that you answer the questions asked and cover all aspects the Guidance for Applicants describes.
 
Try and  use the language they are looking for: the easier you make it for the assessor to understand and check off the information they seek, the more likely the proposal will score highly. The guidance is noted under 10 headings as follows :
  1. Business opportunity
  2. The market
  3. Exploitation
  4. Benefits,
  5. Project plan
  6. Innovation
  7. Risks
  8. Skills/ Project Consortium
  9. Finances
  10. Additionality

This is a user friendly document and worth reading to assist with  applications for funding large or small!

New Year’s Research Resolution #4 – update your staff profile page

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!

Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to update your staff profile page.

Our staff profile pages provide an excellent opportunity to promote yourself both internally and externally.  Jo Garrad’s post demonstrates that the pages are attracting thousands of views from all over the world.

The easiest way to navigate to your profile is to open the application (or click on the ‘academic profile’ link from the staff portal home page).  Next, click on ‘People’ in the page header and then on the start letter of your surname.  Finally, click on your name.  Your profile will then appear.  You can also search for your name.

You can update your profile page via BRIAN and fields you can add include:

  • photo of yourself
  • biography
  • research interests and keywords
  • teaching profile
  • PhD students supervised
  • invites lectures
  • qualifications
  • memberships
  • honours / awards
  • RKE grants
  • outreach and public engagement activities
Your publications will automatically be pulled through from BRIAN.

Having a complete and professional staff profile page can help to attract potential students and collaborators.  It will raise your profile externally and will ensure your page appears in web searches.

If you have any queries about BRIAN or the Staff Profile Pages then please direct these to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research Professional visiting BU – come and learn how to find the right funding opportunities for you

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area.  Research Professional are visiting BU on 28th January to demonstrate to academics and staff how to make the most of their Research Professional account.  This will include:

  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

 The RKEO Funding Development Team will also be in attendance to help and offer advice from a BU perspective.  The session will run from 10am to 11am on 28th January and will be held in PG19, Talbot Campus.  This is a great opportunity to learn more about funding opportunities and to meet the Funding Development Team, particularly if you are new to BU.

Please reserve your place now through Organisational Development

Important change to your JeS account

This is to anyone within the Faculties who is registered on Je-S (the research council application submission system).

In light of the changes to the Faculty names, Je-S have updated all account holders details (approximately 400 people) to reflect the new structure.   Je-S were asked to do a basic mapping of Schools to new Faculties:

  • Faculty of Science & Technology (formerly School of Design, Engineering and Computing and School of Applied Sciences)
  • Faculty of Media & Communication (formerly the Media School)
  • Faculty of Management (formerly the Business School and the School of Tourism)
  • Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (formerly School of Health and Social Care)

I am aware that this format will be correct for the majority of people but there are a few who will still need to go in and amend their ‘Department’ name.  An example will be those within the Business School who will move to Media & Communication rather than transfer to the newly formed Faculty of Management.  Any changes that you make will come via the RKEO for approval, which we will approve as soon as possible.  This has been done now due to the long lead in time for decisions on applications submitted to research councils.  Please note that this does not change any internal BU systems, such as RED or BRIAN.  These will be amended nearer the transition stage.

Thank you for your cooperation.

National Contact Points: Octavio Pernas and Alex Harris

National Contact Points (NCPs) provide impartial advice regarding EU Funding within their specialist area of Horizon 2020.  The advice is free and confidential and tailored to your needs.  This is an excellent service for drawing on the experience and knowledge of someone who deals exclusively with a particular scheme or work programme.  If you are interested in testing out project ideas, checking scheme eligibility, discussing the direction of travel of a particular funding stream or just asking some questions on the practicalities of applications they are a great source of help. 

 

This week we would like to introduce you to Octavio Pernas and Alex Harris, who are the NCPs for Health, Wellbeing and Demographic Change.

Follow the link for further details on NCPs and Horizon 2020.