Category / Guidance

PGR Poster Events

Guidance

Post Graduate Researcher Poster Events

At School level we will shortly be holding a Post Graduate Poster event on the 18th May. This was an initiative that started five years ago following a suggestion from a PGR student representative. Various poster events are organised specifically for PGR only participation, at national level such as the young engineer of the year competition at the Houses of Parliament, at university level organised by the Graduate School and at academic group level such as the new Psychology event. It is worth thinking about these activities and the value to the academic community at various levels.

Our PGR poster event is organised with the help of a small number of staff but the main decision making regarding the format of the event is driven by the PGR community itself. The posters compete for a small cash prize within year groups and are judged externally by invited high-profile industrialists and academics. Participation level has been high during the four events to date and the event ownership for the participating PGR’s has been maintained. External participation to judge the posters has been appreciated by the PGR’s as the economic and practical benefits of research are seen as valued. In addition, the enthusiasm for the research projects from the external competition panel act as a real motivation to students and supervisors. Our key values that keep the poster conference successful are retaining the PRG ownership concerning format and external engagement via the competition judgment of the posters.

Prof Mark Hadfield

Deputy Dean – Research and Enterprise

School of Design, Engineering and Computing

Researchers of the next generation

Guidance

Prof Holger Schutkowski, Deputy Dean in the School of Applied Sciences, joined BU in January. Here he provides his thoughts on training the next generation of researchers.

In a week’s time I will have the great pleasure to open the School of Applied Sciences’ Postgraduate Research Conference. I was delighted that I was asked to give a keynote, not only because it is a nice way of making myself known to students, since I only arrived at BU in January, but also to share some thoughts about the way we do research. Whilst universities require some original research in the final year undergraduate dissertation, and to a much greater extent in Master’s programmes, it is at PhD level where we expect the clear evidence of intellectual independence, of playful recombination of knowledge, which will allow candidates to go beyond current established borders of thought, and to push scientific progress, something that is always happening at the fringes.

Are we able to give advice? Should we? How can we make this happen? The latest deliberations about the future of current PhD systems and their ever-increasing production of graduates is beginning to raise serious concerns and to elicit calls for reforms, quite drastically, indeed (http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472261a.html). Interestingly enough, they emphasise co-operation between institutions (consortia) and cross-disciplinary work.

While the former is already part of the RCUK agenda and is likely to shape the future of PhD funding and recruitment in the UK over the next years, the latter maybe can do with further encouragement. Certainly, one way is to encourage our PhD students to decidedly undertake an interdisciplinary project, which essentially means to embrace the boldness of crossing borders, to work across disciplines and to become acquainted with, adopt and modify interpretive frameworks of other, related or cognate subject areas. Often claimed, rarely done, though; unfortunately a recurring problem and certainly not confined to the fledgling researcher.  Another approach is to ensure the research is firmly embedded into a wider and meaningful context, so that these connections across disciplinary borders can be made and the outcomes of the research become accessible and meaningful to the related or cognate subject areas we are trying to include in the first place.

As it happens, this is what I am going to talk about in my presentation, with case studies that necessitate contextualised analysis to demonstrate how we can bring past societies to life through the study of their skeletal remains. But to come back to the state of PhD systems: cross-disciplinary thinking and context awareness is what we want to instil in the researchers of the next generation. But this also requires the intellectual capacity and preparedness for doing so. The students we graduate need to be skilled and prepared for an increasingly competitive job market.

Prof Holger Schutkowski

Deputy Dean

School of Applied Sciences

Using Skype to collaborate!

Guidance

Skype is a VoIP (voice over IP) application to enables users to collaborate via a computer interface by calling one another. To use Skype you need to download an install a client application which enables your PC to work as a telephone. You can then make free calls to other Skype users on the network via your PC, regardless of location.

The benefits for collaboration via Skype rather than conventional telephone calls are:

  • longer and more frequent interactions
  • free phone calls to other Skype users via computers
  • you can record and archive conversations and interview notes
  • you can engage in multiuser conversations
  • you can make podcasts to share research with others

For information on using Skype check out the Skype website.

If you have used Skype before, comment on this post to let others know about your experiences!

BU Research opinion polls!

Guidance

You may have noticed our new opinion poll section on the BU Research Blog homepage.

We are interested to know what you think about RESEARCH – whether that’s research at BU, the external research environment, good practice for undertaking research, particular research projects… Basically anything to do with research!

Responding to the poll takes seconds and responses are anonymous. Once you have responded to the poll you can see how other BU staff have also responded!

Once a poll has finished we will be writing a blog post about the results. Depending on the poll question, the results could impact on how we manage and administer research at BU in future.

We will be changing the poll question every few weeks. The first poll is now up and running and asks whether journal impact factors are a good indicator of quality.

If you would like to suggest a topic/question to be added to the poll then let us know by commenting on this blog post!

To read more about journal impact factors, read Anita’s excellent post on impact factors.

How KTPs helped Dorset Cereals quadruple in size

Guidance

Dr Martyn Polkinghorne added an excellent post a couple of weeks ago about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs). Following on from this David Kilburn, Head of Business Development and Associate Professor (Enterprise) in the School of Tourism, has added this post about how KTPs with BU helped local SME Dorset Cereals.

I have been involved in KTP schemes for about 8 years and during that time I have written 11 successful 2 year classic schemes and 6 short KTP schemes.

KTPBasically the KTP scheme is a partnership between BU and a company whereby knowledge is transferred both ways – from the university to the company and vice versa. An Associate – a graduate from anywhere in the world – is employed for 2 years on average and has 2 supervisors, 1 from BU and 1 from the company.

The Associate also receives structured training and development on quarterly training days set up by the funding body, Momenta.

Seven of the classic KTP schemes have been with food related companies such as Dorset Cereals (2), Fudges Bakery, Chococo, Olives Et Al, Cowdry’s Bakery, Sandridge Farmhouse Bacon and Sun Cottage Wholefoods.

All of the above KTP schemes have been successful but the double scheme at Dorset Cereals was particularly successful and quadrupled the business within two years.

There now follows a more detailed overview of the Dorset Cereals success story.

Dorset Cereals is now the UK’s leading provider of muesli following the successful completion of two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with Bournemouth University.

The Dorchester-based company, which produces flakes, granola, porridges, bars and slices as well as muesli, hired University graduates to help develop its marketing and production functions. And on the back of Bournemouth University’s support Dorset Cereals has nearly quadrupled the size of its business.

When Managing Director Peter Farquhar arrived at Dorset Cereals in 2005 there was no marketing function – and having seen a story about another company which had worked with the University on a knowledge transfer programme and received an emarketing mail shot from David Kilburn, Head of Business Development, Mr Farquhar got in touch with David at Bournemouth’s School of Services Management (now the School of Tourism). “We had an outrageous plan that would see us become the UK’s leading muesli provider and together with the University we identified two big gaps that needed plugging,” he said. “One was around the relationship with our consumers, particularly the website, where we had no expertise in the business, and the second was around production capacity and processes which we needed to change to meet the planned volume growth.”

Bournemouth University graduate Harriet McKay – who has since been appointed as the company’s Communications Manager – was brought in to deliver the marketing support. “When I started, the website was plain and there was absolutely no reason for customers to come back to the site,” Harriet explained. “I worked with the team at Dorset Cereals and their design agency to create a new website that would create more visits and importantly communicate their brand values. Before the University’s involvement the company had 16,000 emails on its database, now we have over 200,000. It’s been a fantastic success story.”

The company, which had access to University academic expertise around web marketing and database development, also commissioned a second knowledge transfer programme to up production targets. “We brought in new equipment and employed new staff, but ultimately we needed to change the way we worked on the factory floor and the University helped us to improve our production capacity and processes,” Mr Farquhar said. “The University’s involvement has been pivotal to our successes – frankly we couldn’t have got to the stage we are without the involvement of Bournemouth’s staff and students.”

Dr Martyn Polkinghorne, Bournemouth University’s Knowledge Transfer Programmes Centre Manager, said the partnership with Dorset Cereals was a good example of what the University can bring to business. “Businesses should be more aware that universities have the capability to make a direct impact on their bottom line, as we have in this case. Here at Bournemouth we have particular expertise in supporting the food and drink sector, as well as many other key specialisms which firms are tapping into.”

David Kilburn
Associate Professor Enterprise
Head of Business Development
School of Tourism

For further information on KTPs, view the following webpages:

Using Facebook to collaborate

Guidance

facebookAs a social networking tool, Facebook provides an interface for groups of people to to meet one another, communicate, store details about each other, and publish information about themselves in the form of a profile.

Facebook can be used as an academic collaboration tool for:

  • identifying potential collaborators
  • posting photos and files to share with others and inviting others to comment on them
  • commenting on other people’s photos and files
  • engaging in one-to-one private conversations
  • engaging in many-to-many conversations
  • creating private and public spaces (groups) for themed discussions

Facebook has been set up to suggest to users links and people they may know or be interested in, based on their interests, common goals, friends, etc. It is these serendipitous connections that help Facebook bridge the gap from social networking tool to academic collaboration tool.

BU Research Group, FacebookBU has recently set up the BU Research Group as a private Facebook group. This is a closed group that only members of BU staff can join. As such this provides a collaborative e-working environment for BU staff to:

1. discuss research ideas safe in the knowledge that all discussions will only be visible by other group members, i.e. BU staff only
2. make contact with one another, to search for one another, to identify colleagues with particular skill sets, etc.

You can also use Facebook to set up your own private collaborative work space for themed discussions (for example to discuss ideas for a multidisciplinary bid) – you can select who to invite (this could be anyone, providing they have a Facebook account) and only those who are members of the group will be able to access the shared information.

Setting up a private group is really easy, you just need to:

  • log in to your account in Facebook
  • from your News Feed page, click on ‘Create Group’ on the left hand menu
  • a pop-up will open asking you to enter the name of the Group and to select from your friends list who should be invited to join the group
  • ensure the privacy is set to ‘closed’ to ensure that only those invited to be members of the group can access the information
  • Facebook will then send the invites and your private group space has been set up

A number of guides have been published about how researchers can use social networking tools to collaborate. The best two we are aware of are:

RIN logoSocial Media: A guide for researchers, published by the Research Information Network in February 2011

Collaboration Tools, published by Educause Learning Initiative in August 2008networking

Using Google Docs to collaborate on documents

Guidance

Google Docs logoGoogle Docs is an online tool that enables collaborators to work in a synchronous environment on a single document. Rather than passing a document between authors, Google Docs allows authors at different physical locations to work together on the same document in real time. Changes made to the document can be tracked and attributed.

So what does this actually mean? What does Google Docs do? There a is a rather nice explanation of this on the Google Docs Help site:

“Google Docs enables multiple people in different locations to collaborate simultaneously on the same doc from any computer with Internet access. For example, Alice and Meredith are working on a project together, and they need to write a document, keep track of their work in a spreadsheet, and create a presentation and a drawing to share with other people involved in the project. Alice lives in New York, and Meredith, in Los Angeles. When Alice makes changes to the document, spreadsheet, presentation, or drawing, Meredith can see them in real time and respond to them immediately. Both of them work on the same docs, so there’s no need to go back and forth, comparing and consolidating individual files.” (Source page)

Sounds fabulous! And with Google Docs you can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. You can start a document in Office and then transfer it to Google Docs for collaborative editing. In addition, documents are saved to the cloud meaning that you can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection – no more faffing about with saving documents to pen drives or emailing documents!

Google Docs is free to sign up to; access is via a Google account.

You can keep up to date with enhancements to Google Docs via their blog.

If you’re already using Google Docs then let us know by commenting on this post!

Collaboration Tools for Academics – run a session in your School!

Guidance

Collaboration Tools for Academics (CTA) is one of the projects currently running at BU, sponsored by Prof Matthew Bennett. Steve Webster is the Business Analyst (EITS) working on the project and he has provided a project update. There is still the opportunity to run a fact finding workshop in your Research Centre, Academic Group and/or School so you can shape how collaboration tools are used and supported at BU in future.

The aim of the project is to facilitate collaborative working within and beyond BU and therefore raising the research-enterprise profile of the organisation. This will be achieved by making it easier for academic staff to work in a collaborative manner. In order to do this, the project will first identify what you currently do as a collaborative researcher and a member of academic staff and also identify where you feel the need for support in these activities.

There is an ongoing fact finding exercise that is trying to develop understanding in two areas. First there is an effort being made to understand people’s experience levels both in collaboration and in I.T. This is to ensure that all members of the community have their needs understood. Second there is an effort to understand the research activities that all members of the community are involved in.

Revised What Researchers Do - mind mapThis mind map (click on the image to make it larger) has been used to generate discussion in a series of workshops. If your research group would like to run a packaged version of this workshop please contact the business analyst Steve Webster who will be pleased to help you set things up.

The final aim of the project will be to make visible and available a set useful services that you can use in support of you collaborative work. The services that get put into this set are not yet agreed. The kinds of things that you might like to have easy access to could include: blogs, wikis, voice and video conferencing, shared social space, installing novel software, survey software, data analysis tools. But these are all just examples.  You still have an opportunity to get involved and contribute to shaping the future support offerings for researchers in BU and beyond.

Do you use collaboration tools to work with colleagues at the moment? If so let us know what works and what doesn’t work so well by commenting on this post!

Writing & Time

Guidance

One of the recurrent issues for researchers is time, as for most things in life.  I am in the process of visiting all the BU Research Centres and at various points in all of these conversations time for research and the balanced workload emerges as an issue.  There are no easy solutions to balancing ones work load; and there is a mix of both personal and corporate responsibility.  As a busy academic, with lots of external commitments, a big job and two young boys, time is for me the one thing that I don’t have and is something most of us have in common to varying degrees.  Research is often the first thing to be sacrificed as the time pressure builds or it is pushed into stolen moments between other things.

Twenty years ago as a young lecturer I used to prioritise my research over everything else and my teaching was done in the time that was left, but in those days there were few external commitments and time had that elastic property which it seems to have lost with age.  These days such flexibility does not exist, but my research is still to the fore dominating the spaces between other commitments.  Like today for example on the walk into work I was puzzling how to portray some data; I spent a few minutes while making a cup of tea between meetings outlining the structure of my next paper in my head; a structure which I finally sketched out before introducing tonight’s Professorial Inaugural lecture.  With luck I may find the time next week to start work on fleshing out this paper which I am quite excited about on the quiet.  Snatched moments are not ideal but are better than nothing; the key for me is to make the most of them.

The hardest part of getting a new paper started is setting out the first scrappy draft on paper, or just the first few pages.  Once I have this I am able to continue to work on it in stolen moments but that first bit with the cursor constantly blinking at you is hard and I need to find some proper time to marshal my thoughts and launch myself at it.  Writing is one of those hard things which you quickly get out of the habit of and getting back to paper writing after a break can be challenging.  Yes we write e-mails and texts all the time, but real prose is a struggle for most of us, certainly for me.

Last year a very eminent academic gave me a piece of advice which I now try to follow.  It is a simple task around a writing discipline which has helped me a lot.  Their advice was to write something ‘proper’ every morning as the first thing you do each day; just for twenty minutes or so rather than reach instantly for your inbox or that pile of marking.  According to their advice it leads to a more productive day in which you are more likely to write good stuff in those stolen moments.  Well I am a bit sceptical about advice like this I started the practice last year in desperation and found that it really does help.  In fact I try to spend twenty minutes writing something both morning and night now; the evening is more about trying to get ideas and issues out of my head but I do feel more productive when I start the day with some proper prose.  It can be anything and in my case is often written long hand in my ‘ideas book’; this blog post for example, a few paragraphs of a strategy paper, or better still some of my research notes.  It works really well when I am in the field or analysing data and makes a big difference to translating that fieldwork or analysis into published output.  Sitting in my tent or a seedy hotel somewhere in the world I try to write down my reflection on the day’s fieldwork and sketch out and articulate my emerging ideas.  A bit like the Victorian scientist or explorer writing out their notes or diary in laborious copper plate!  My notes are far from copper plate but the idea works.  I suppose the key point is that writing regularly really helps me keep productive and makes the most of those stolen moments for research helping me to stay positive about my research progress even when there is in reality very little due to other work commitments.  There are many such techniques and I would be interested in hearing from you on this subject, but the key thing is to find the time for research.  The appraisal round commences next term and it is your chance to be pro-active in challenging your mangers for the time to push forward your research agenda not just in stolen moments but in meaningful blocks of time; I wish you luck in this challenge and you have my support!  There are no magic solutions to the issue of time, but if you know of any I would love to hear about them!

Matthew Bennett

PVC (Research, Enterprise & Internationalisation)

ERA journal ranking list

Guidance

ERA logoFollowing on from Anita’s post on Journal Impact Factors and my post on Publications, I thought it would be beneficial to share the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Journal Ranking List which was published by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 2010.

It is provided here as a guide to help you make informed decisions about the quality of the journals that you target.

RankingThe list provides probably the most comprehensive, expert opinion based list ever attempted, capturing numerous disciplines (science, social science, business, humanities, etc.) and over 20,000 journals. In this list, and as a broad translation, A and A* ranked outlets are judged to be the best; B is deemed pretty decent, and so on.

As with all journal ranking lists, this comes with the usual health warning: it’s “expert opinion based”, and thus subjective. As such, it’s an imprecise science, but perhaps a useful guide, especially for those BU disciplines without an equivalent UK quality guide.

You can access the list here – Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Journal Ranking List

Journal Impact Factors Explained

Guidance, Research assessment

There is often some confusion around Journal Impact Factors in terms of where they come from, how they’re calculated and what they mean. Hopefully the following will provide a brief explanation.


What are Journal Impact Factors?
Journal Impact Factors are just one of a number of journal analytical measures that form part of an online resource provided by Thomson Reuters on their Web of Knowledge called Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), which covers journals in the sciences, technology and social sciences. JCR provides a facility for the evaluation and comparison of journals across fields within the subject areas covered.

Other publications databases may provide their own tools for bibliometric or citation analysis (such as Elsevier’s Scopus) but Journal Impact Factors are only found on the Web of Knowledge.

A Journal Impact Factor is the average number of times that articles from a particular journal published in the past two years have been cited in the JCR year.

How are Journal Impact Factors calculated?
Journal Impact Factors are calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published by a particular journal in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years. For example, an Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published in that journal up to two years ago have been cited two and a half times. Citing articles may be from the same journal although most citing articles are from different journals.

The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR primarily include original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns.

How are Journal Impact Factors used?
Journal Impact Factors can help in understanding how many citations journals have received over a particular period – it is possible to see trends over time and across subject areas, and they may help when you’re deciding where to publish an academic paper. However, as with all statistics, Journal Impact Factors should be used with caution and should ideally be combined with other metrics depending on how they’re being applied.

Equally, a journal’s Impact Factor is not necessarily a direct indicator of the quality of an individual paper published in that journal. Some published articles never receive any citations, for various reasons, even if they appear in a high impact factored journal.

Journal Impact Factors and the REF
Some of the assessment panels will be provided with citation metrics as part of HEFCE’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) in some subject areas, which will help inform the panel members’ judgements. However, journal impact factors or equivalent journal ranking systems (e.g. the ABS list) will NOT be used at all within the assessment process.

Publication, publication, publication!

Guidance

VC Jonty de WolfeIt was with mixed feelings that I settled down to watch the first episode of Campus last night. Would it be funny, would I get the in-jokes, would they mention research, or would it be too close to the mark and therefore too painful to watch? The main thrust of the episode saw Vice Chancellor Jonty de Wolfe pressuring English professor Matt Beer to write a best selling publication, as one of his colleagues in another department had recently managed, but unfortunately the professor was too distracted to comply. Replace distracted with another word (perhaps busy, unsure, pressured) and this may resonate a little better with BU.

Whilst Campus was far fetched and at times utterly ridiculous, the pressures on academics to produce high impact publications are very true, especially now as we are preparing for our submission to the REF. Rather than acting like tyrannical and eccentric VC de Wolfe, we’ve pulled together some sources of information for academics feeling the pressure of publication.

How to get published – The Times Higher Education have produced an excellent booklet – How to get Published: a Guide for Academics. The guide includes the seven chapters, written by experts in academic publishing, including advice and information on the publication process, getting your work into an academic journal, and how to turn your research into a best seller (I’m sure this last chapter would have been useful for the Professor in Campus last night).

journalsHow to get published in academic journals – The road to getting published in academic journals can be a daunting journey. There is a booklet published by PSA/Wiley-Blackwell called Publishing in Politics: a Guide for New Researchers which is an excellent introduction to publishing recommended for researchers in all disciplines, not just politics.

Professor Keith Dowding (LSE) has produced a couple of guides for those new to getting published in academic journals which are particularly useful. These were published in European Political Science and provide an overview of the journal publishing journey:

Individual journal publishers usually provide advice and guidelines for prospective authors – these can normally be found on their websites.

Open access publishing – BU has a central budget for paying for open access publishing costs. Read more here.

Do you have any advice on getting published that could benefit your colleagues? If so share it here by adding a comment to the BU Research Blog!

EPSRC study days

Guidance

EPSRC logoThe Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is holding Study Days on 17 May and 14 July at their offices in Swindon. Study Days are one-day events designed to give university researchers and administration staff an overview of the EPSRC and their peer review process.

A Study Day typically involves:

  • Presentations – Introductory presentations from experienced members of EPSRC staff;
  • Mock Panel – Attendees have the chance to participate in a mock prioritisation panel meeting, led by a real panel convenor;
  • Pathways to Impact – An interactive session offering advice on how to complete the Pathways to Impact question on the grant application form;
  • EPSRC activities and opportunities – introductory talks on Transformative Research, People Support and International Engagement
  • Tips on Proposal Writing – First steps in grantsmanship.

This is an excellent opportunity for any academic staff interested in applying to the EPSRC for funding.

Study Days are free to attend. If you are interested in attending please contact Julie Northam in the first instance as the Research Development Unit will administer your booking on your behalf.

For further information please see the EPSRC Study Days webpage.

Making sense of IP

Guidance

Researchers are increasingly being required to think about the commercial potential of their research. Geoff Bell and Philip Robinson in the Centre for Research and Enterprise have written a summary of the basics of Intellectual Property (IP) to help researchers make sense of it all.

Research, inventions and business ideas can be protected with one or more intellectual property rights:

  • registered IPPatents – These are perhaps the best known and most obvious form of protection, although the process of obtaining a granted patent is typically expensive and complicated. Patents protect the technical elements, the workings and the functionality. So provided your proposal does something that hasn’t been done before, a patent could be the most effective option. It is important to file a patent application before publication, because once research is publicly disclosed, a UK / European patent cannot be applied for retrospectively. A competitive advantage might therefore be lost, should you wish to commercialise the output. Public disclosure includes grant applications, journals, presentations, abstracts, theses, emails, poster displays, exhibitions and any other non-confidential verbal disclosure.
  • Designs – Design rights give protection to the physical appearance of a product. This includes the component parts, surface decoration, contours, colours, shapes, textures and materials. Registered designs can be applied for up to 1 year from first public disclosure in the EU and 6 months from disclosure in the US. Other countries may vary.
  • Trade marks – A trade mark protects the goodwill and reputation of a company and or its products. Trade marks are a registerable right and potentially perpetual providing the renewal fees are paid
  • Copyright – Copyright gives the creator exclusive rights to copy their original piece of work for a period of time. Copyright applies to the following works: literary, dramatic, artistic, musical, audio, video, broadcasts, cable and some software (which may possibly be patented under the right circumstances)
  • Know-how and Confidential Information – Know-how is knowledge which may not be protectable through formal registration, but which has commercial value. Confidential information may also be referred to as a ‘trade secret’. Whilst the law provides certain protections, both are best protected through the signing of an appropriate non-disclosure agreement with those whom such know-how and information is shared.

top secretWho owns the intellectual property?
Before embarking on a research or enterprise project, it is important to clarify the ownership of any subsequent intellectual property output. Failure to do so can lead to longer-term complications and sometimes even termination of the project or legal action. Check out the BU Intellectual Property Policy for more information.

More information
If you have any general questions regarding intellectual property and the ownership of your work please contact Geoff Bell and Philip Robinson in the Innovation & Commercialisation Team.

The Commercialisation and Product Licensing pages on the BU Intranet are also a valuable source of information.

BU’s Open Access Publishing Fund to go live!

Guidance

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceThe Senate R&E Committee has approved plans for a BU Open Access Publishing Fund. The fund is due to be launched in August 2011 and will be managed by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) and the Research Development Unit. But what is the BU Open Access Publishing Fund and why is this such a big dea for Research at BU?

What is open access publishing? Open access publishing turns the traditional publishing route (readers paying subscriptions to publishers) on its head as researchers pay a fee to the publisher to publish their research and in turn the publisher makes the article available free of charge to readers immediately on publication.

Why is this beneficial? Open access publishing enables research findings to be disseminated to a wider public audience, typically with significantly faster publication times, than traditional journal publishing. The European Commission’s policy on open access publishing notes that the broad dissemination of research findings can accelerate scientific progress and has significant benefits to both the scientific community and to society.

What is the view of research funding bodies? Many funders require the research they fund to be made freely available, free of charge to any readers upon completion of the project. A full list of funders with open access requirements can be found on the Sherpa Juliet website, and includes all seven Research Councils, the European Commission, the Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). These requirements have been put in place by funders to maximise the public dissemination of research findings. However, despite these open access mandates funders are reporting that researchers and therefore HEIs are not compliant; recent research undertaken by the Wellcome Trust indicates a compliance rate of less than 50%. An institutional open access publishing fund can increase compliance rates with funding body open access requirements.

How will this help our submission to the REF? Open access publishing has three potentially significant benefits for BU’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework in 2013:

  • Publication times – Papers can be published significantly faster than traditional journal publishing methods and therefore BU would not be as constrained by traditional publishing deadlines; more articles could therefore be published prior to the REF publication deadline and be eligible for submission.
  • Citations – Open access publications are more widely available and are therefore more likely to be cited.
  • Research impact – Open access publication is a way of enhancing the visibility and increasing the impact of research findings. Research findings made freely available to society at large are likely to have wider societal impact.

Do other institutions have open access funds? A number of international research institutions have already established institutional budgets and processes for open access publishing, such as the Max Planck Society’s Central Open Access Fund and the University of California Berkeley’s Research Impact Initiative. In the UK the University of Nottingham has led the way by establishing an institutional open access publishing fund.

How can open access costs be met? A number of funding bodies (such as the Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust) allow researchers to include open access publication costs as a directly incurred cost providing that the costs are included in the original costing and are incurred prior to the end of the grant. For all other open access publishing costs, researchers will be able to apply to the new BU Open Access Publishing Fund. Requests to the fund will need to be made to the Research Development Unit and will then need to be approved by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) and the relevant REF UOA Leader.

When will further details be announced? We are currently working on a policy, process and communication plan and further announcements will be made via the blog before August 2011.

What about any open access requests between now and the end of July 2011? If you have any open access publishing requests before the BU Open Access Publishing Fund is launched in August 2011, please discuss these with your Deputy Dean (R&E) / equivalent and Julie Northam. Where requests are justifiable (i.e. high quality open access outlet, likely to be submitted to the REF, likely to increase the impact of the research findings, etc) then we will endeavour to accommodate these within the CRE budget where possible.RIN logo

For further information on open access publishing the Research Information Network published a guide to Paying for Open Access Publication Charges in February 2011.

Also see the Public Library of Science (PLoS) website.

Search the Blog!

Guidance

All blog posts are achived meaning the blog has a wealth of information about research!

You can search for old posts in a number of ways:

…From the main homepage there is a search function on the top right of the page, just beneath the subscribe field. This is a free text box which will search all of the previous blog posts for the search term entered. e.g. if you search for REF then a number of posts are found.

…The second way is via the tag cloud (Popular Post Topics), also on the homepage. All posts are tagged with a selection of keywords based on the content. The larger the keyword appears in the tag cloud, the more posts there are about it. Simply click on a word and you will see all of the posts that have been tagged.

…The third way is via the Archive. At the top of the blog there are five tabs. Click on the Archive tab to see the Archive. You can then see a list of previous posts and search the archive in a number of ways, including by month and by category.

🙂 Happy blog searching! 🙂

Want to increase your chance of gaining research funding? Try the RPRS!

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Success signInternal peer review is credited with producing higher quality research proposals and increased success rates. BU’s internal peer review process – the Research Proposal Review Service (RPRS) – is available to all staff so why not try it out?

You can submit your proposal in any format at any time; simply send it to CRE Operations (who will cost the proposal) along with the names of 2 reviewers from our database. The CRE Research Unit will then gather feedback from your reviewers and produce additional feedback on potential funding sources, the novel value of the proposal etc. Within 4 weeks you will have a complete set of feedback you can then use to help prepare the final draft of your proposal prior to submission. For further information on the RPRS see the BU RPRS webpage.