Tagged / open access

What is Open Access?

Open-Access-logo

Open access is about making the products of research freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increased use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.

There are two complementary mechanisms for achieving open access to research.

The first mechanism is for authors to publish in open-access journals that do not receive income through reader subscriptions.

The second is for authors to deposit their refereed journal article in an open electronic archive.

These two mechanisms are often called the ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to open access:

  • Gold – This means publishing in a way that allows immediate access to everyone electronically and free of charge. Publishers can recoup their costs through a number of mechanisms, including through payments from authors called article processing charges (APCs), or through advertising, donations or other subsidies.
  • Green – This means depositing the final peer-reviewed research output in an electronic archive called a repository. Repositories can be run by the researcher’s institution, but shared or subject repositories are also commonly used. Access to the research output can be granted either immediately or after an agreed embargo period.

Article first published – http://www.hefce.ac.uk/rsrch/oa/whatis/

To encourage all academic communities to consider open access publishing, Authors Alliance has produced a comprehensive ‘Understanding Open Access‘ guide which addresses common open access related questions and concerns and provides real-life strategies and tools that authors can use to work with publishers, institutions, and funders to make their works more widely accessible to all.

To access and download the guide, please follow this link – http://authorsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Guides/Authors%20Alliance%20-%20Understanding%20Open%20Access.pdf

For any other open access related queries, please do get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk) at RKEO.

BU academics publish in the Special Anniversary Issue of the Journal of Children and Media

children and media journal coverBournemouth University’s Dr Ashley Woodfall and Dr Marketa Zezulkova have recently been published in the Special Anniversary Issue of the Journal of Children and Media. The journal is the most significant interdisciplinary one in the field of children and media, and the special issue features big-picture commentaries and analyses that address the challenges and opportunities facing children and media researchers.

As the journal editorial states: Ashley Woodfall and Marketa Zezulkova focus on the lived media engagement of children as dialogic and holistic, requiring us “to recognise the child as entry point, centre and interpreter of their media experience and learning.”

The paper is available on an open access basis, funded by BU’s open access publication fund.

Woodfall A & Zezulkova M., 2016. What ‘children’ experience and ‘adults’ may overlook: phenomenological approaches to media practice, education and research. In: Journal of Children and Media. 10(1) 98-106.

 

 

FOSTER e-learning resources on open science and open access in Horizon 2020 now freely available

Open-Access-logoThe European project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) aims to establish mechanisms for researchers to embed open sciences in their daily workflow, thus supporting them to optimize their research visibility and impact and comply with the EU open access policies.

Two of the current courses are particularly relevant for BU staff:

  • Introduction to open science: provides a general introduction to the various components and philosophies of open science including why open science is essential to rigorous, reproducible and transparent research, as well as to future research evaluation criteria focused on societal impact. This is relevant to anyone undertaking research.
  • Open access to publications in Horizon 2020: provides information on how to adhere to the H2020 mandate by depositing publications in open access and therefore ensuring they are freely available. This is relevant to anyone currently working on a Horizon 2020 research project and anyone considering applying to Horizon 2020.

These resources are freely available from the FOSTER website.

Five Minutes with Ulrich Herb on Open Science: “Open Science must be adapted to disciplinary specificities”

sociologyYesterday the Research Blog featured a post on open science, what it entails and how it is different to open access. In a recent interview conducted by OpenAire, open science veteran Ulrich Herb shares the main findings of his research on the extent of open research practices in the discipline of sociology, as well as his wider thoughts on the history and future of the Open Science movement. This interview originally appeared on the OpenAIRE portal here.

 

Ulrich_HerbWhat do you understand by the term “Open Science”? Is it a cohesive phenomenon?

Open Science, as I understand it, is the area of Open Knowledge that deals with scientific information. Open Knowledge, in turn, is knowledge that can be used, edited and distributed according to Open Source principles. The ideal of Open Science is to make all objects involved in the research cycle openly accessible in this sense.
Open Science, as generally understood, is mainly about the objects or items of scientific work, such as text, data and software, but also includes “Open Review” (of text, data and possibly code), as well as “Open Metrics” as scientific para-information. Review and metrics are crucial since they often don’t merely report on the impact of science but can actively steer it as scientists often strongly orient their actions towards such evaluative criteria. In Open Review and Open Metrics the focus is less on OA to research products per se, but on transparency in the evaluation and assessment of scientific work. However, ideally reviews and the raw data that underlies metrics should also be made openly accessible.

 

openscienceYou studied the state of play of Open Science in Sociology. What were your main findings?

OA to journal articles is well established in Sociology. This is especially true for the German-speaking world, where it is strongly promoted by journals that often allow the published versions of articles to be made available in Green OA at the end of an embargo period or even make them Open Access themselves. In addition, Closed Access journals usually have liberal OA policies as regards Green OA. Gold OA journals in Sociology very rarely charge APCs; where they do so, charges are low. On the other hand, OA to book publications is very weak in Sociology. I attribute this to a lack of professional brand building among OA book publishers. OA books will likely become more standard as established publishers develop OA options or a disciplinarily-accepted publisher develops organically from the sociological community.
OA to research data and research software is almost non-existent in Sociology, in both the German-speaking countries and the rest of the world. There is a dearth of disciplinary training, as well as a lack of positioning by the community, for example occurs through the issuing of statements as commonly occurs in other subjects.
However, incentives to move towards data-sharing that exist in other disciplines are unlikely to be effective in Sociology. Data citations are not widespread in Sociology, probably as a result, firstly, of less emphasis in general on citations as a measure of impact than in STM subjects, and secondly because domains like theoretical Sociology do not produce data at all. Sociologists, more than natural scientists, seem still to consider data to be intellectual property and fear loss of control and misuse in regards to making data OA. Finally, Open Review and Open Metrics are very rare in Sociology.

 

What results where most surprising for you?

I was positively surprised by the prevalence of OA to literature in Sociology. However, I was disappointed to find such limited use of Open Review. Peer review is thought more problematic in Sociology than in STM subjects. This can be attributed to a few factors. To give just one example, Sociology is less concerned with what Schimank und Volkmann term “puzzle-solving”, so much as with discussion of fundamental principles. In addition, Sociology sometimes deals with ideologically charged issues that imply deep ethical/moral disputes. But since its review practice is problematic, Sociology could especially benefit from the transparency of the Open Review, because this allows checks to be placed on the objectivity of assessment.

The rarity of OA to data and software was surprising in a negative sense as well. Social science data is especially well-suited for secondary analysis. Open Data also has an ethical dimension: for example, the re-use of qualitative data derived from surveys with victims of abuse, would free such people from multiple requests for information regarding these events. And considering Sociology’s widespread use of the open-source statistics framework R, including its open repository infrastructure, mean that the scarcity of OA to research software in Sociology is disappointing. In sum, Sociology could benefit greatly from all the areas of Open Science, yet has yet to take up this potential.

 

open science principlesHow does Sociology most differ from other fields as regards the uptake of Open Science?

Besides the prevalence of OA to literature, the most striking difference is the level of hesitancy to Open Science that exists among sociologists, despite the potential benefits I just described and the good infrastructural conditions, for example, provided for Germany by GESIS or the R-environments. I think this can, however, be partly explained by the inherent characteristics of the discipline. There are, for example, important sub-disciplines like theoretical sociology which deal with scientific reflection upon the discipline itself and hence do not produce any data or software itself. Another particularity is the privacy issue: Sociology frequently uses very sensitive data whose non-anonymized disclosure is of course impossible, but which are worthless in an anonymized form.

 

Where do you see Science Open in five years? What are the main challenges to come?

Fueled by increasingly stringent funder policies and mandates, OA to sscientific objects like text, data and software will continue to increase. This will also be true for books, albeit to a lesser extent than for journal articles. As for Open Review, I am more skeptical. Although I myself like the idea, I don’t think open peer review will establish itself in Sociology. In metrics, I would like to see a proliferation of metrics whose data and parameters are openly visible and re-usable and can be read via open APIs. However, I rather suspect that commercial actors such as Elsevier and Thomson Scientific for citation or MacMillan as a provider of Altmetric or Ebsco as a provider of PLUM will prevail. It is to be assumed that those providers won’t open up their data. I hope that Sociology takes up Open Science to most fully realize its potential, albeit with the caveat that Open Science must be adapted to the aforementioned disciplinary specificities.

“Open science does not equal open access” – so what is it then?

open science principlesOpen science is the movement to make scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional. It incorporates open access publishing as a key principle, alongside open data, open source, open methodology, open peer review and open educational resources. Examples of movements within open science include citizen science (whereby research is conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists) and open data (data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control). There is an excellent introduction to open science available here: what, exactly, is open science?

open science does not equal open access The open science movement is gaining momentum. Some research funders, such as the UK Research Councils and European Commission for example, now have mandates in place to enforce open access publishing and open data sharing as a requirement of receiving their funding. The RCUK public engagement strategy states the UK Research Councils will support collaborative and co-produced research (e.g. citizen science, community engagement and social participation) and the councils have funded a number of open science research projects, for example, EPSRC funded UCL’s ‘Extreme’ Citizen Science (ExCiteS) project and AHRC funded Oxford’s Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

A substantial and growing number of researchers are now embedding the principles of open science in how they design and conduct research. Dr Michael Pocock, an ecologist at CEH NERC, for example, is a keen advocate of open science and has led several citizen science projects with the aim of collectively undertaking hypothesis-led research. He has authored these excellent slides – Real science and real engagement: the value of citizen science.
openscienceThe European-funded project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) aims to establish mechanisms for researchers to embed open sciences in their daily workflow, thus supporting them to optimize their research visibility and impact. The project has created an excellent resource bank that provides a general introduction to the various components and philosophies of open science including why open science is essential to rigorous, reproducible and transparent research, as well as to future research evaluation criteria focused on societal impact.

The Open Science Federation website is an excellent source of information and inspiring ideas of how to embed open science into your research. There is an open science Twitter account if you want to keep up to date with open science information from around the world – @openscience.

If you are interested in building open science principles into your next research project, then speak with your Research Facilitator.

New Public Health paper on Christmas Eve

Douglas 2015 Men healthOur latest paper and the last one for 2015, published the day before Christmas.  The paper ‘Implementing Health Policy: Lessons from the Scottish Well Men’s Policy Initiative’ appeared in AIMS Public Health [1].  The paper draws on evaluation research led by Dr. Flora Douglas (University of Aberdeen).  This was a set of evaluations of the Well Men’s Health projects which were part of an initiative running in many health regions (or health boards as they are called in Scotland).

 

The focus of this particular paper centres around the fact that little is known about how health professionals translate government health policy into action [2]. Our paper examines that process using the  Scottish Well Men’s Services policy initiative as a ‘real world’ case study [1]. These Well Men’s Services were launched by the Scottish Government to address men’s health inequalities. Our analysis aimed to develop a deeper understanding of policy implementation as it naturally occurred.  We used an analytical framework that was developed to reflect the ‘rational planning’ principles health professionals are commonly encouraged to use for implementation purposes.

Our analysis revealed four key themes: (1) ambiguity regarding the policy problem and means of intervention; (2) behavioral framing of the policy problem and intervention; (3) uncertainty about the policy evidence base and outcomes, and; (4) a focus on intervention as outcome. This study found that mechanistic planning heuristics (as a means of supporting implementation) fails to grapple with the indeterminate nature of population health problems. A new approach to planning and implementing public health interventions is required that recognises the complex and political nature of health problems; the inevitability of imperfect and contested evidence regarding intervention, and, future associated uncertainties.

 

The paper is published in an Open Access journal, so it is easily and freely available to public health professionals, policy-makers and health workers across the globe.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen 

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Douglas, F., van Teijlingen, E., Smith, W.C.S., Moffat, M. (2015) Implementing Health Policy: Lessons from the Scottish Well Men’s Policy Initiative, AIMS Public Health 2 (4): 887-905. http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/publichealth.2015.4.887/fulltext.html
  2. Killoran, A., Kelly, M. (2004) Towards an evidence-based approach to tackling health inequalities: The English experience. Health Education Journal;63: 7-14.

Open Access publishing discussion at EU

EU Open Access 2015The European Commission held a workshop in October about alternatives to Green and Gold Open Access publishing.  The presentations held at this workshop are freely available online, click here.  Discussions included questions such as: how might these alternatives work, how they have evolved, whether they work well, and what challenges they don’t manage to tackle. This report synthesises the presentations and discussions from the workshop.   For more details see: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/report-workshop-alternative-open-access-publishing-models

Open-Access-logo

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Open Access Highlights from BURO – December 2015

There has been a massive 269% increase in deposited files for journal articles in January to November 2015 compared with the same period in 2014.

The Mock REF will have accelerated this depositing but we hope that, with the HEFCE deadline of April 2016 fast approaching, researchers will upload their accepted files to BRIAN (for BURO) as soon as they receive the publisher’s email advising them of acceptance.

BU researchers-article deposits: 1 January- 30 November 2015
ARTICLES.DEPOSITS1JAN-30NOV 2015

BU researchers-article deposits: 1 January- 30 November 2014
ARTICLES DEPOSITS 1JAN-30NOV 2014

The Faculty of Science & Technology (SciTech) has been particularly good at uploading files. Witness the increase of 244% on same period last year.

SciTech researchers- all deposits: 1 January – 30 November 2015
SCITECH ALL ITEMS 1JAN-30NOV.V1

SciTech researchers- all deposits: 1 January – 30 November 2014
SCITECH ALL EPOSITS 1JAN2014-30NOV2014.V1

To be eligible for submission in the next REF, journal articles and conference proceedings (with ISSN) accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 must be made open access.
In practice, this means the outputs must be deposited in an institutional repository (BURO) or subject repository within a three-month period from the point of acceptance for publication.
Depositing your manuscript in BRIAN, as soon as it is accepted, ensures that it will be eligible for submission to the next REF. This may mean that manuscripts need to be put online before they are formally published. Items under publisher embargo in BURO are still REF compliant.

We need to maintain the momentum!
So REMEMBER
As soon as you receive the email informing you that your output has been accepted for publication, upload the file to BRIAN.

See our guide Open access and depositing your research

Any queries about depositing please contact the BURO team.

Suicide in India: Modelling data

The latest BU research publication used a modelling approach to suicide in India [1].  The paper ‘Time Trend of the Suicide Incidence in India: a Statistical Modelling’ is now online and freely available as it was published in an Open Access journal.  The first author of this paper is BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Brijesh Sathian.  The modelling resulted in some useful predictions of future risk of suicide at a population level, see for example: 10.12691.ajphr-3-5A-17.fig_1

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Reference:

Sathian, B. , De, A. , Teijlingen, E. V. , Simkhada, P. et al. (2015). Time Trend of the Suicide Incidence in India: a Statistical Modelling. American Journal of Public Health Research, 3(5A), 80-87.  Online at:  http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajphr/3/5A/17/

BU PhD student Sheetal Sharma’s publication in MIDWIFERY

Sheetal Sharma Midw 2030

 

Ms. Sheetal Sharma, PhD student in FHSS, published her latest paper in Midwifery (Elsevier) this week. This latest paper ‘Midwifery2030, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean?’ is co-authored by a number of illustious midwifery researchers. The 2014 State of the World’s Midwifery report included a new framework for the provision of womancentred sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health care, known as the Midwifery2030 Pathway. The Pathway was designed to apply in all settings (high-, middle- and low income countries, and in any type of health system). This paper describes the process of developing the Midwifery2030 Pathway and explain the meaning of its different components, with a view to assisting countries with its implementation.

Sheetal is currently in her final year of a PhD on the evaluation of the impact of a maternity care intervention in Nepal.

Sheeta;

Sheetal Sharma

Congratulations!!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Catherine Angell & Prof. Vanora Hundley (all CMMPH)

&

Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at Liverpool John Moores University).

 

Reference:

ten Hoope-Bender, P. Lopes, S., Nove, A., Michel-Schuldt, M.,  Moyo, NT, Bokosi, M., Codjia, L.,  Sharma, S., Homer, CSE. (2015) Midwifery2013, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean? Midwifery

 

BU signs the LERU statement on open access

LERU logoBournemouth University has today signed up to the statement Moving Forwards on Open Access proposed by the League of European Research Universities (LERU), released in October 2015. The document calls upon the European Commission and the forthcoming Dutch EU Presidency to actively support open access policies to ensure that research funding goes to research, not to publishers, by working with all stakeholders to bring sensible solutions to the fore.

no double dippingOne of the key aims will be to stop the practice of ‘double dipping’ whereby institutions effectively pay publishers twice – once via a journal subscription fee and secondly via article processing charges (APCs) for gold open access articles. LERU is calling on the EC to review the business models of open access publishing and cites practices adopted by some publishers that allow universities to offset APCs against subscription costs, thus lessening the danger of ‘double dipping’. The aim of this approach is to allow European research to have maximum impact by making it publicly available immediately and to release funds for universities to invest in further research.

green open accessThe other key agenda item is to achieve greater consistency in embargo periods for green open access. The current situation is that there exist a variety of embargo periods (ranging from six to 24 months plus) which is confusing for authors, readers and universities. The aim is to ensure these are as short as possible to ensure cutting edge research makes its way into the public domain as quickly as possible. There is also currently a lack of uniformity of embargo periods for publishers and journals in different countries, and LERU are proposing this should be standardised.moedas

LERU are currently calling upon the research community to sign up to the statement. To date over 3,000 individuals and institutions have signed up. The next step is for the statement and its support to be submitted to Commissioner Carols Moedas (research, science and innovation) and the Dutch EU Presidency in the first half of 2016.

Vitae invites you to their first live online vitaechat in conjunction with International Open Access Week

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vitae invites you to join the first live online #vitaechat this Friday 23rd October between 1-2pm UK time, to coincide with the International Open Access Week.

Early career researchers need to be familiar with many forms of ‘open’ – from open access, to open data, to open education – but what does it mean to be a researcher in this open environment?

During this live Twitter chat, the host will lead participants through a discussion of the potential career benefits and opportunities associated with open research, as well as the steps researchers need to take to prepare themselves to be effective in an open research environment, both within an academic career and beyond.

JOIN THE LIVECHAT ON THE #VITAECHAT CHANNEL, 23 OCTOBER AT 1 PM (UK TIME)

Open Access Success Story #4

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The Faculty of Media and Communication Open Access Lunch and Networking event will take place today at 12noon, PG19 Lecture Theatre, at Poole House ground floor in Talbot.

Professor Tom Watson will share with the audience his experience of Open Access.

Professor Tom Watson has applied a range of open access methods in developing collaboration with international researchers, rapidly expanding scholarship in the history of public relations and for his own research. He is an active supporter of open access journals and conference proceedings, as well as placing most of his research publications on BURO and other online platforms. He will discuss the methods and share his experience about the pros and cons of the Green open access route.

 

Open Access Success Story #3

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The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences Open Access Lunch and Networking event will take place today at 12noon, EB206, the Executive Business Centre, in Lansdowne.

Dr. Carol Bond will share with the audience her experience of open access from the perspective of somebody who publishes with open access journals; as well as from the perspective of somebody who edits for the Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics and Journal of Medical Internet Research, both of which are open access journals.

To find out more about Dr. Carol Bond and her research, please visit this link – http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/cbond