Tagged / open access

International Open Access Week: Open Access – facilitating global development

BU research, Featured, REF2029, Research assessment, Research communication

In our final blog post to mark International Open Access Week, Professor Edwin van Teijlingen, Chair of BU’s REF Outputs Sub-Committee, writes about the role of open access research in supporting the REF and facilitating global development…

The REF (Research Excellence Framework) is the periodical (every seven years or so) assessment of the quality of research in the UK at universities and research institutes.

Every university prepares a submission comprising its best publications, evidence of impact in wider society, and a description of its research environment.  The next REF – 2029 – will be in just over four years’ time.

The relevance of open access to the REF is that it is a requirement that academics at UK universities and research institutes make their publications in papers open access. This means making publications available to any reader without them having to pay a fee.

The underlying argument is that publicly funded research, be it funded by charities or by the government, should be freely available for all to read, i.e. for the greater good!

One important side effect of the REF’s push for open access is that people who would otherwise not have access can see and use the research.

The three main groups in my view are those not based at universities with subscriptions to loads of scientific journals:

(1) practitioners, in our field health and social care staff who are not working in universities;

(2) members of the public interested in their own conditions and relevant care;

(3) those involved in patient pressure groups and charities; and

(4) students and academics in low-income countries, such as Nepal and Bangladesh.

These groups are now getting access to up-to-date research findings that otherwise would be hidden behind a paywall.

The latter is of key importance, as Bournemouth University colleagues work in many low-income countries.

For me personally, I have been teaching sessions in Nepal on research methods for nearly two decades and I have noticed the enormous improvement in access to up-to-date research publications amongst students during this period, since some many more international publications are now freely available in Nepal.

It is gratifying to know that Bournemouth University academics, together with colleagues all over the world, are contributing to global development through open access publishing.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Chair of Bournemouth University REF Outputs Sub-Committee

Visiting Faculty, Centre for Disability Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India
Honorary Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, UK.
Visiting Professor, Nobel College, affiliated with Pokhara University, Nepal.
Visiting Professor. Manmohan Memorial Inst Health Sci affiliated with Tribhuvan University, Nepal

 

 

International Open Access Week: Library support for open access

BU research, Featured, open access, Publishing

It’s Day 4 of International Open Access Week! Today we are focusing on how Library and Learning Services (LLS) supports Open Access at BU.

LLS plays a key part in promoting open access across the University, managing journal funding deals and making research outputs available via Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO) and the Bournemouth Online Research Data Repository (BORDaR).

Our Open Access guide helps with understanding OA and promoting our funding deals, enabling BU academics to publish Gold Open Access for free (or in some cases for the cost of VAT) in over 10,000 journals.

Gold open access publications will be made available via publisher web pages, and BURO, but it is the work of the BURO and BORDaR Teams that allow your Green open access work to be made publicly available, such as this paper on tourism or this dataset on cyber security.

Populating BURO involves

  • Scanning alerting services weekly for BU research outputs to ensure BRIAN is comprehensively populated with records
  • Ensuring full text is uploaded to BURO via BRIAN where it is missing (around 20% of all BRIAN records are resolved by LLS)
  • Processing all records uploaded by academics and ensuring the correct version is made available and copyright compliant

In the past 12 months 1400+ records were reviewed and processed by the BURO Team. Amongst the 10 most popular downloads over the last 12 months include this Green open access paper from 2019 on social media (4000+ downloads), this BU doctoral thesis from 2015, also on social media.

Join in the conversation around open access week on social media using  #OAweek, or contact us at research@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to share your thoughts via the research blog.

Find out more about Open Access at BU on the RKE Sharepoint site

International Open Access Week: BU ranked in top 20 universities worldwide for proportion of open access research outputs

BU research, Featured, open access, Publishing

BU has been ranked 13th in the world for the proportion of our research outputs which are published open access.

The CWTS Leiden Ranking provides information about the scientific performance of over 1,500 major universities worldwide – including their scientific impact, collaboration and open access publishing.

In the 2024 rankings, BU is placed 13th for the proportion of research outputs that are published open access – with 91.5% of our publications being freely available.

Around half of all BU publications were green open access publications and around 22% were published gold open access, with biomedical and health sciences, and physical sciences and engineering having the largest proportion of open access publications.

This week marks International Open Access Week, which aims to showcase the benefits of publishing open access and build momentum for the open sharing of academic knowledge.

We are committed to supporting open access research at BU and strive to make our research data as accessible as possible. By having the research of our academics and students online for everyone to access, this enables our research to reach communities worldwide and have greater impact.

Professor Sarah Bate, Interim Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, said: “Open science is immensely valued by the BU research community, not only underpinning the integrity and transparency of the research that we do, but allowing this work to be freely accessed by readers from within academia and beyond.

“Our high position in the Leiden ranking is a testament to our researchers and those promoting research excellence in professional services, highlighting the strength of our commitment to open science.”

Join in the conversation around open access week on social media using  #OAweek, or contact us at research@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to share your thoughts via the research blog.

Find out more about Open Access at BU on the RKE Sharepoint site

International Open Access Week 2024 – 21-27 October

BU research, Events, Featured, open access, Publishing

This week marks International Open Access Week, which aims to drive momentum for the open sharing of research knowledge.

The theme of this year’s International Open Access Week is ‘Community over Commercialisation’, in recognition of a growing need to prioritise approaches to open scholarship that serves the best interests of the public and the academic community.

Open access publishing allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increases the use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.

We are committed to open access research at BU and strive to make our research data as accessible as possible.

We’ll be sharing content on the research blog throughout the week so you can find out more about open access at BU and how we support open research.

You’ll also be able to drop in and chat to staff involved in supporting open access at BU in FG19 (Fusion Building) from 12pm – 1pm on Wednesday 23rd October. No need to sign up – just drop by.

A range of other events are taking place nationally and globally as part of the week.

Coventry Open Press will be holding a hybrid event tomorrow from 1pm – 2.30pm tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd October), busting myths around open access and sharing the experiences of authors and publishers.

Publishers Wiley are hosting Publishing Open Access in Wiley Journals and Publication Tips for Authors, which also takes place on Tuesday 22nd October, from 9am – 10am. The event will offer valuable guidance for authors seeking to enhance their writing skills and maximise the impact of their work.

Further events can be found on the International Open Access Week website.

Join in the conversation around open access week on social media using  #OAweek, or contact us at research@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to share your thoughts via the research blog.

Find out more about Open Access at BU on the RKE Sharepoint site

BU does well in offering Open Access publications

BRIAN, Fusion themes, international, open access, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing

The latest online CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition lists Bournemouth University (BU) high among European universities when it comes to making academic papers easily available through Open Access.  For all sciences combined BU ranks 15th out of 491 European universities when it comes to hybrid Open Access publications.  BU ranks 12th out of 487 universities for the category ‘Biomedical & Health Sciences’ and 14th out of 475 universities in Europe for ‘Social Sciences & Humanities’.

The University of Leiden in the Netherlands compiles the CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition, and  offers fully transparent information about the scientific performance of over 1500 major universities worldwide.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Research Culture Champion in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

 

Paper with a difference

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing

Last night ResearchGate informed us that our paper ‘Understanding health education, health promotion and public health‘ had reached 6,000 reads [1].  This reflective paper in an Open Access journal tries to bring a little more clarity in the confusion around the difference between the concepts of health education, health promotion and public health. We argue that such confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some authors and public health practitioners use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts.

In this theoretical overview paper, we have first of all outlined our understanding of these individual terms. We suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) fit into Andrew Tannahill’s model from 2009 [2] of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Our schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the center of the overarching disciplines of education and public health. We hope our representation helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.

The paper is co-authored by a primary school teacher based in Dorset, and four professors who have a combined experience in the wider public health field of over a century.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, K., Devkota, B., Douglas, F., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) Understanding health education, health promotion and public health, Journal of Health Promotion 9(1):1-7.
  2. Tannahill, A. (2009). Health promotion: The Tannahill model revisited. Public Health, 123(5),396-399. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2008.05.021

New paper by FHSS PhD student Abier Hamidi

BU research, international, PG research, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized

This morning the journal Discover Social Science & Health informed us that Abier Hamidi’s latest paper ‘Islamic Perspectives on HIV: A Scoping Review’ has been accepted for publication [1].  Discover Social Science & Health is an Open Access journal publishing research across the full range of disciplines at the intersection of health, social and biomedical sciences.  This latest review is part of Abier’s PhD research project and it follows several earlier related publications [2-7].

Abier is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic-International Health  and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH).

Congratulations!

References:

  1. Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2024) Islamic Perspectives on HIV: A Scoping Review,  Discover Social Science & Health 4:6  https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44155-024-00063-7.pdf
  2. Hamidi, A. (2023) Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women, The Conversation published: April 24.
  3. Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2023) Facilitators and barriers to condom use in Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review, Journal of Public Health, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01923-3 
  4. Hamidi, A. (2023) Book Review: Fatma Müge Göçek and Gamze Evcimen, The I.B. Tauris Handbook of Sociology and The Middle East, Sociologial Research Online 28(4)
  5. Hamidi A. (2022) HIV prevention – Challenges in reaching Libyan women: A narrative review. Women’s Health. 18: doi:10.1177/17455057221080832
  6. Hamidi, A., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P. (2021) Facilitators and barriers to condom use in Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review. PROSPERO CRD42021297160
  7. Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) HIV epidemic in Libya: Identifying gaps, Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, 20 :1-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/23259582211053964 .

 

The last BU blog of 2023

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, research methods, writing

First of all: Happy New Year!

One of the first message I received this morning was that our editorial ‘Addressing the inequalities in global genetic studies for the advancement of Genetic Epidemiology’ [1] had been published yesterday.  If I had know this in time it would have been the proper last Bournemouth University Research Blog of 2023 published yesterday.  Interestingly, we only submitted the draft editorial on Christmas Day, got it back for revisions on Boxing Day and resubmitted it and had it accepted on December 28th.   It dis, of course, help that both editors-in-chief of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology are co-authors on this editorial!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)

 

 

Reference:

  1. Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E., Roy., B., Kabir, R., Banerjee, I., Simkhada, P., Al Hamad, H. (2023) Addressing the
    inequalities in global genetic studies for the advancement of Genetic Epidemiology. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 13(4):1292-1293.
    DOI: 10.3126/nje.v13i4.61271