Tagged / ref

New Year’s Research Resolution #1 – Love your drafts, don’t delete them!

Publishing

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back!

Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things, starting with today’s – Love your drafts, don’t delete them, add them to BRIAN!

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE policy states that all journal papers and conference proceedings must be made freely available in an institutional repository (like BURO) at the time of acceptance if they are to be eligible for submission to the next REF (likely to be 2020).

This policy is summarised as:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance.
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is applicable for outputs accepted for publication from April 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is accepted for publication.  This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available*) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

*In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message for New Year’s Resolution #1 is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

Happy new year! BU’s research highlights of 2014

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research

2014 was another great year for research at BU.  Here are the fabulous highlights for your perusal, in no particular order:

REF logo1. REF results – Preparing for the REF submission was an enormous part of life for many at BU for many years and it was a long thirteen months waiting for the results to be published. But they were definitely worth waiting for! 61% of our research was recognised as internationally excellent, with 18% rated world-leading. 62% of our research environment was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, an increase of 32% since 2008  – this is the environment that BU has built and enhanced over the past five years and includes initiatives such as the Grants Academy, EUADs, Writing Academy, the Research Blog, Festival of Learning, Fusion Investment Fund, etc. The REF team were short-listed for one of the VC’s Staff Awards this year in the Collaborative Team category. Overall the results showed that BU rose between 6-12 positions in the UK league tables (THE Table of Excellence, Research Fortnight,  WonkHE). You can read a summary and they key headlines of our success here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/12/18/the-ref-results-are-in-bus-research-recognised-as-world-leading/.

 2. New look RKEO – The RKEO structure was reviewed in 2014 and we went live with a new one on 1st September. The process of the review and transition has been unsettling as well as exciting for many of us and I am pleased that the new structure is working so well and achieving so much already. Thank you for all of your patience and understanding throughout the change process. You can access a new structure chart and information about our new teams here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/. We are determined to make the new structure a success and have embarked on a service excellence project that engages with over 60 colleagues across BU to reflect on and change our procedures and service provision.


3. Growth of RKE activity – Our annual RKE income at BU has continued to grow. In 2013-14 our income c. £6m, up 10% on the previous year. What’s particularly interesting is the change in where this income comes from: our funding from UK charities and UK government departments is decreasing and our income from ‘gold standard’ research funders, such as the research councils and EC, is increasing. For example, we received c. £1.13m income from the UK research councils in 2013-14 (an increase of 21% on the previous year and a whopping 122% increase since 2009-10). This indicates that the quality of our research proposals and ideas is maturing and our reputation growing. Our research council success rates for 2013-14 were impressive – BU’s overall success rate was 33% (12 bids submitted of which 4 were awarded) against a sector average of 30%. This is almost the highest success rate we have achieved, second only to 36% in 2007-08. We also submitted a record number of Marie Curie applications in 2014 – fingers crossed these will be awarded next year.

4. Significant grants/contracts awarded – There were a number of significant grants/contracts awarded to BU in 2014. These included:

  • Disaster management training contract with the Royal Office of Oman (Richard Gordon)
  • Significant number and value of NHS contracts (Clive Andrewes)
  • KTPs with Nautilus International Risk Consultants Ltd (Christos Gatzidis) and Chantacre Ltd (Andrew Main)
  • Stroke research project in collaboration with Cornell University, funded by Qatar (Ahmed Khattab)
  • BU hosted the 2014 Academy of Marketing Conference (Julie Robson)
  • Wellbeing and tourism grant from the ESRC (Heather Hartwell)
  • Communities in spaces of flow project from the AHRC (Janet Dickinson)
  • ESRC Seminar Series funding (Jens Holscher)
  • Two NIHR grants (Zoe Sheppard and Edwin van Teijlingen)
  • Wellcome Trust grant (Anna Feigenbaum)

5. Launch of new ethics structure – BU launched a new process and governance structure for research ethics in February 2014. This applies to all staff and students at BU. Ethical approval for projects that are considered above minimal risk is now provided by two discipline-based Research Ethics Panels, chaired by Prof Holger Schutkowski (SciTech) and Sean Beer (ST). Further details on ethics are available here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/research-ethics/.

6. Festival of Learning 2014 – The second Festival of Learning took place in June 2014 and was a resounding success, attracting over 4,000 visits to more than 150 free activities/events and receiving excellent feedback across the board from attendees. The Festival is a now established as a major event in the RKEO and BU calendar and is a huge team effort. The Festival was nominated for a Heist award (national education marketing awards) and won a bronze award in the Best Community/Business/CSR Campaign category which is excellent recognition from the sector. Next year the Festival will take place in July and Naomi and Harry are already mid-way through preparations. Read more about the Festival of Learning 2015 here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/festival-of-learning-proposals/

7. Launch of sparkly new initiatives – We launched a number of amazing new initiatives this year, including: the KTP Academic Development Scheme, fast track, research lifecycle on the blog, Grants Academy external mentoring pilot, regular RKEO coffee mornings, Writing Academy, Open Access week, student engagement with research, undergraduate research assistantships. We also published a new Bournemouth Research Chronicle and are now preparing the next edition. We are currently reviewing the BRAD programme to make it much slicker and more useful to academics and we have increased the proportion of open access full-text in BURO to 17%.

Image sourced from The Academy of Medical Sciences

8. Recording of research outcomes and impact – Researchfish, the system for researchers to record the outcomes from their grants, was launched in 2014. This system is used by the UK research councils who required all RCUK funded researchers to enter all of their data by November 2014. BU’s compliance rate with this was 100%, compared to the sector average of 85%.

9. RKEO’s external engagement – RKEO have continued to engage externally to raise the profile of RKEO and BU, to further professionalise research management and to gain credibility and kudos within the sector. One of the main highlights of 2014 was Shelly Anne Stringer’s organisation a sector-wide open access event held at BU in May that attracted external delegates from around the country and featured high calibre keynote speakers, including HEFCE. RKEO staff have also presented at a number of key conferences this year: Jo Garrad, Jenny Roddis and Emily Cieciura at the Vitae conference in September, Naomi Kay, Harry Gibson and Barry Squires at the Engage conference in November, and Corrina Lailla Osborne and Julie Northam at the ARMA conference in June. Jenny Roddis and Julie Northam have taken on additional external roles as Qualification Assessors for ARMA this year – Jenny for the Certificate in Research Administration and Julie for the Certificate in Research Management. Julie was also appointed by Vitae as a peer reviewer for the EC HR Excellence in Research award.

Dr Dubey receiving the Hind Rattan Award10. Venky Dubey and Neil Vaughan (SciTech) – Venky Dubey and Neil Vaughan had an exceptional year in 2014. Their epidural simulator project (in collaboration with Poole Hospital) was short-listed for a THE Award (Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year). Neil won the much coveted EPSRC ICT Pioneers ‘Transforming Society’ award, and Venky was awarded the Hind Rattan Award from the NRI Welfare Society of India in recognition of outstanding services, achievements and contributions to the chosen field. Translated as “Jewel of India”, the award is one of the highest granted annually to a non-resident Indian and is considered to be equivalent to an OBE.

Roll on 2015!

The REF results are in! BU’s research recognised as world leading

BU research, REF Subjects, Research assessment

REF logoAfter many years of preparation, numerous mock exercises and thirteen long months of waiting, the REF results are finally published today! And the news for BU is excellent!

62% of BU’s research has been recognised as internationally excellent, with 18% rated as world-leading. This is a significant uplift on our RAE 2008 scores and has been achieved whilst also submitting considerably more staff to REF 2014 (161.8 FTE, an increase of 45.5%). This highlights the growing research volume and quality at BU and is testament to the significant investment that has been put into research over the past decade. The assessment recognised BU as a leading university in both the UK and south west region.

Key achievements for BU overall include:

  • BU was in the top half of all institutions that submitted to the REF (69th out of 154) based on the proportion of research rated of international standard
  • BU was 11th out of the 69 post-1992 universities based on the proportion of world-leading research
  • BU was fourth in the south west based on the proportion of world-leading research, behind Bristol, Bath and Exeter
  • 30% of BU’s research impact was rated world-leading
  • 58% of BU’s research outputs were rated internationally excellent or world-leading
  • 63% of BU’s research environment was rated internationally excellent or world-leading
  • The THE has ranked BU 69th overall, an increase from 75th in 2008, and 69th for impact – http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ref-2014-results-table-of-excellence/2017590.article

Key achievements for our research areas include:

  • Tourism (UOA 26) was rated as joint-first in the UK (out of 51 institutions) based on its internationally-recognised research
  • Art and design (UOA 34) is in the top quartile in the UK for its world-leading research, and is ranked first in the south west (out of 7 institutions)
  • Communication, Cultural and Media Studies (UOA 36) is in the top third of institutions in the UK (17th out of 67) for its world-leading research, and 7th in the UK for its world-leading impact
  • Psychology’s (UOA 4) outputs scored particularly well with 73% rated as internationally excellent or world-leading, placing BU 27th out of 82 institutions in the UK
  • Research impact was rated highly in General Engineering (UOA 15) which scored 73% internationally excellent, placing it fourth out of 29 post-1992 institutions.
  • BU submitted considerably more staff to Allied Health Professional, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy (UOA 3) than in the last assessment exercise (9.2fte in 2008 and 21.4fte in 2014) and achieved a significant uplift in the proportion of its research that was rated internationally excellent and world-leading (40% to 54%).
  • Geography, Environmental Studies and Archaeology (UOA 17) is in the top quartile in the UK (joint-17th out of 74 institutions) based on the proportion of research rated of international standing, making it also 1st out of 20 post-1992 universities
  • Business and Management Studies (UOA 19) scored particularly well in terms of impact, resulting in it ranking 9th in the UK (out of 101 institutions) for its world-leading impact

HEFCE, on behalf of the four funding councils, publish the results of the REF today. You can browse the results here: www.ref.ac.uk.

Congratulations to all – this is a milestone achievement 🙂

HEFCE are looking for views on a potential international REF in future…

Research assessment

HEFCE has published a survey inviting views on an internationalised system of research assessment.

This survey forms part of a project exploring the benefits and challenges of expanding the UK’s research assessment system, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), on an international basis. At the broadest level, this means an extension of the assessment to incorporate submissions from universities overseas.

This follows an invitation earlier this year from the then Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, for HEFCE to provide an opinion on the feasibility of an international REF. The project belongs in a wider context of international interest in the exercise, on which HEFCE frequently provides information and advice to higher education policymakers and university senior management from overseas.

The THE ran a story about this in April 2014: HEFCE looks at overseas links for research excellence 

Responses are invited from any organisation or individual with an interest in higher education research or its assessment. The survey will be open until Wednesday 12 November 2014.

The survey only has four questions –

1. What do you think the key benefits would be of expanding the REF internationally?

2. What do you think the key challenges would be in expanding the REF internationally?

3. In view of the potential benefits and challenges overall, how supportive would you be of further work to explore the issues in more depth?

4. Have you got any further comments relating to internationalisation of REF?

To complete the survey visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/refinternationalisation

REF 2020 update

Research assessment

In approximately 7 weeks we will know the outcome of the REF 2014 exercise. It is hard to believe that it is almost a year since we submitted to the exercise and that the results are round the corner. Whilst the expert panels have been assessing the submissions this past year, HEFCE have been working hard to design and shape the post-2014 REF, currently being referred to as REF 2020. They are currently midway through a review of the role of metrics in research assessment to ascertain the extent to which metrics could be used in the assessment and management of research. They have commissioned RAND Europe to undertake an assessment of the impact element of REF 2014, part of which will include recommendations to the assessment of impact in future REF exercises. They are currently consulting on whether an international REF exercise, rather than a national one, is the way forward. And, arguably the most important announcement to date, they have confirmed their open access policy for the next REF which stipulates that in order to be eligible for submission to the next REF from April 2016 all journal papers and conference proceedings have to be made freely available in an institutional and/or subject repository at the time of acceptance. Outputs not made freely available in a repository at the time of acceptance after April 2016 will be exempt from inclusion.

The Research Blog’s REF pages have recently been updated and you can read more of what we know about REF 2020 here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/ref/

As soon as we know more we will post it on the Blog. Until then we wait with anticipation for the REF 2014 results!

LOVE your drafts, DON’T delete them, ADD them to BRIAN! – International Open Access Week

Publishing, Research news

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE have confirmed that all journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be made freely available in an institutional or subject repository (such as BURO) upon acceptance (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).

Therefore:

  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in a repository, such as BURO, from the point of acceptance will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF
  • This is applicable to outputs published from April 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

HEFCE are looking for views on a potential international REF in future…

Research assessment

HEFCE has published a survey inviting views on an internationalised system of research assessment.

This survey forms part of a project exploring the benefits and challenges of expanding the UK’s research assessment system, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), on an international basis. At the broadest level, this means an extension of the assessment to incorporate submissions from universities overseas.

This follows an invitation earlier this year from the then Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, for HEFCE to provide an opinion on the feasibility of an international REF. The project belongs in a wider context of international interest in the exercise, on which HEFCE frequently provides information and advice to higher education policymakers and university senior management from overseas.

The THE ran a story about this in April 2014: HEFCE looks at overseas links for research excellence 

Responses are invited from any organisation or individual with an interest in higher education research or its assessment. The survey will be open until Wednesday 12 November 2014.

The survey only has four questions –

1. What do you think the key benefits would be of expanding the REF internationally?

2. What do you think the key challenges would be in expanding the REF internationally?

3. In view of the potential benefits and challenges overall, how supportive would you be of further work to explore the issues in more depth?

4. Have you got any further comments relating to internationalisation of REF?

To complete the survey visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/refinternationalisation

Should metrics be used more widely in the next REF?

Research assessment, Research news

Back in 2008, after the dust was settling from the REF 2008 submission, HEFCE initiated a series of exercises to investigate whether bibliometric indicators of research quality (such as citation counts) could be used as part of the assessment for REF 2014. BU was one of 22 institutions that took part in the bibliometrics pilot, the result of which was that HEFCE concluded that citation information was not sufficiently robust enough to be used formulaically or as a primary indicator of quality but that there might be scope for it to inform and enhance processes of expert review in some disciplines. The REF 2014 guidelines stated that citation data would be provided for outputs submitted to all sub-panels in Main Panel A and some sub-panels in Main Panel B.

In April 2014, the Minister for Universities and Science asked HEFCE to undertake a fresh review of the role of metrics in determining quality, impact and other key characteristics of research undertaken in the HE sector. The review is being chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, Professor of Science and Democracy at the Science Policy Institute, University of Sussex.

HEFCE have launched a sector-wide call for evidence about research metrics and BU will be making an institutional response. BU colleagues are therefore invited to send feedback to me so that it can be considered as part of BU’s response. Colleagues are also invited to send individual responses to HEFCE.

Thinking back to 2008-09, I remember research metrics being an emotive subject and many researchers, both at BU and  across the sector, were extremely skeptical of their use in research assessment. Although bibliometrics have moved on a long way since then I think that there will still be concern as to whether metrics are robust enough to be used formulaically, particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

HEFCE have asked that responses focus on the following issues:

1. Identifying useful metrics for research assessment.

2. How should metrics be used in research assessment?

3. ‘Gaming’ and strategic use of metrics.

4. International perspective.

Further information about the call for evidence is available here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/howfundr/metrics/

It is anticipated that the outcome of the review will inform the framework for the next REF assessment so it is vitally important that HEFCE receive a high quality and quantity of feedback from all disciplines.

If you would like to contribute to the BU institutional response, please add your comments to this response form and email it to me (jnortham@bournemouth.ac.uk) by Friday 30th May.

HSC paper cited over hundred times in Scopus

BU research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

The academic publisher Elsevier alerted us today that our paper has been cited for the 101st time in Scopus.  The paper ‘Factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries: Systematic review of the literature’ was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.  The paper was part of the first author’s Ph.D. research into maternity care in Nepal.

This paper is one of the four outputs submitted to the UK REF for both Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as part of the Bournemouth University submission and for Dr. Padam Simkhada as part of the University of Sheffield submission.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, School of Health & Social Care

Congratulations to Dr. Joyce Miller (PhD by Publication)

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

Congratulations to HSC postgraduate student Joyce Miller who has just completed her PhD by Publication.  Joyce Miller is a chiropractic practitioner and lecturer with over 25 years private practice experience. She is Associate Professor at Anglo-European Chiropractic College in Bournemouth.  Her thesis Effects of Musculoskeletal Dysfunction in Excessive Crying Syndromes of Infancy presents research spanning more than a decade.  Joyce studied the relevance of chiropractic manual therapy to excessive crying in infancy through a unique series of eight clinical academic papers.

 

The eight separate studies used a range of different research methods:

  1. a demographic survey of paediatric patients attending a chiropractic clinic;
  2. a record study to determine the prevalence of side effects or adverse events;
  3. a cohort study to substantiate sub-groups of excessively crying infants;
  4. a prospective observational study to develop a predictive model using likelihood ratios to forecast the presence of infant colic in a clinical population;
  5. validation of a one-page instrument to assess clinical outcomes against the gold standard crying diary;
  6. a randomised comparison trial of two types of chiropractic manual therapy for infant colic;
  7. a randomised controlled single blind trial to determine efficacy of blinding as well as chiropractic manual therapy in management of infant colic;
  8. a case-control study to investigate  long-term effects of chiropractic manual therapy into toddlerhood.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

HSC

Congratulations to Anne Quinney

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research assessment, Uncategorized

Anne Quinney, Senior Lecturer Social Work (HSC) who has been appointed to the Editorial Board of the highly esteemed British Journal of Social Work.

Anne recently stepped down as Editor and Co-Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Practice; social work in action.  Whilst she also recently completing her five-year term of office as Editorial Board member of the peer reviewed journal Social Work Education.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

LOVE your drafts, DON’T delete them, ADD them to BRIAN!

Publishing, Research news

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE’s consultation on open access and the post-2014 REF closed last week and, although the results are not due out until early next year, it is highly expected that most of the proposals will go ahead.  This is likely to result in significant changes to how research papers are published and the full-text is made freely available.

Key changes likely to happen are:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is likely to be applicable for outputs published from 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

Open access and monographs – a new HEFCE project – UPDATE

Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceLast month I added a post about HEFCE’s plans to launch a new project to investigate the issues regarding open access publishing of monographs and other long-form scholarly works (Open access and monographs – a new HEFCE project). HEFCE have now confirmed that this project has started and is being undertaken in partnership with the AHRC and the ESRC.  It aims to identify and draw together a body of evidence concerning monographs and open access publishing and is expected to run until mid-2014.

You can read the full report here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2014/news85292.html

You can access all of the project documentation here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/rinfrastruct/oa/monographs/

Further updates from the group will be posted over the coming months.

Strategic approaches to getting your work published

Guidance, Publishing

I read an extremely good article this week on Strategic Approaches to Getting Published, written by Phil Ward (University of Kent) as well as a presentation by Frances Bell (University of Leicester) (Developing a Publication Strategy).  Now that we’re in the assessment period for the next REF exercise (likely to be REF 2020) we need to focus on personal publication strategies.  This post shares some of the key messages and advice on personal publication strategies:

Have a publication strategy and review it every year or two – Try to keep in mind the direction in which you want your research to develop, and what publications will help to build your profile.  Try not to be diverted from this!  Your strategy should include different media and channels.  It should include information on your goals (what will you publish in the next week, year, five years, etc), uncertainties and development needs, and resources available to you (e.g. a mentor, peer review of your paper prior to submission, access to funds for open access charges, etc).  You should regularly check progress against your goals.

Balanced publications portfolio – Try and develop a balanced publication portfolio. You don’t always need to be targeting top journals, and sometimes you need to balance several factors:

  • Audience: who do you want to appeal to? Should you be thinking beyond your narrow disciplinary boundaries, or focussing more intensively on it?
  • Impact: do you want the findings of your research to be felt outside of academia?
  • Career Progression: will the publication help in the development of a strong CV?
  • REF: will the publication be a strong, positive contribution to your discipline?
  • Timing: do you need to get something out quickly, or work longer on a discipline-changing piece of research?
  • Co-authorship: would co-authorship help or hinder your publication record?
  • Open Access: will be increasingly important for the REF, but is it worth considering to help with your citations and the impact of your research?

Choosing the right journals – the ‘right journal’ is often viewed as being one with a high impact factor however this is an archaic and somewhat controversial system, and is based on the average number of citations over a two-five year period.  The system is open to abuse, and varies widely between disciplines.  However, it is still seen as a rough and ready indicator of esteem.

The following video is by Karin Dumstrei, Senior Editor at EMBO Journal.  It is worth 3 minutes of your time to watch and listen to the tips she gives!

Her advice for writing a journal article is to always:

  • Choose a project that excites you;
  • Tell a good story;
  • Select the right journal;
  • Avoid the three ‘don’ts’, namely: dont’ overstate your case, ignore others, or hold back data;
  • Be responsible with your data – i.e. say what you see rather than what you want to see.

High impact journals tend to have broader audiences, so you need to:

  • avoid jargon;
  • concentrate on the message;
  • write shorter articles (e.g. Science articles are generally 3-4 pages);
  • avoid too much detail. Additional data can be provided in ‘supplementary material’.
A good covering letter is essential.  It should summarise why your article is right for the journal you’re targeting.  Take time to get this right. Keep it succinct, but explain the novelty and importance of your research, and why you are approaching that journal in particular.
There are seven key tips for writing and publishing a journal article:
  • Title: make it engaging but keep it short, and avoid technical terms.  Also avoid terms which might give the impression of limited reach and significance of your research, e.g. ‘a local case study’ or ‘a small investigation’;
  • Story: structure your article round a good, cohesive, logical ‘story’;
  • Step Change: emphasise what makes your research important. Talk about ‘step changes’ rather than ‘incremental progresssions’;
  • Conclusion and Evaluation: a strong, persuasive and critical conclusion is essential for giving your paper clout;
  • Cover Letter: ‘sell’ your article and particularly why it is right for the journal you are targeting;
  • Feedback: get as much critical evaluation as possible;
  • Rejection: never take no for an answer.  Rejection is an inevitable part of the process. Don’t be discouraged, but take on board comments and criticism and keep trying be resubmitting.

Consider the role of social media in your publication strategy – social media has been shown to dramatically increase the academic and societal impact of research (see my previous posts on the benefits of using Twitter).  Social networking platforms such as Twitter are excellent for promoting and sharing your research, as are blogs either by writing your own blog, contributing posts to other blogs, or commenting on posts written by others.  Your publications strategy should include social media outlets.  For advice on using social media as part of your publication strategy please contact Sally Gates in the R&KEO.

Good luck!

New Year’s Research Resolution #1 – Love your drafts, don’t delete them!

Publishing

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, starting with today’s – Love your drafts, don’t delete them, add them to BRIAN!

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE’s consultation on open access and the post-2014 REF closed last week and, although the results are not due out until early this year, it is highly expected that most of the proposals will go ahead.  This is likely to result in significant changes to how research papers are published and the full-text is made freely available.

Key changes likely to happen are:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is likely to be applicable for outputs published from 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message for New Year’s Resolution #1 is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

 

 

Open access and monographs – a new HEFCE project

Publishing, Research news

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceEarlier this year HEFCE held two consultations with the sector about open access outputs and the post-2014 REF exercise (likely to be REF 2020).  As part of this is was suggested that monographs should not fall into the requirement to be freely available in order to be eligible for submission to the next REF, and HEFCE agreed to launch a project looking into the viability of this for future exercises.  The following text is taken from the HEFCE website: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/rinfrastruct/oa/monographs/

Monographs, edited collections and other long-form publications are a very important part of the academic publishing world, and they hold particular importance for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. But many people tell us that monograph publishing is facing difficulties: sales are falling, costs are increasing, and scholars are finding it harder to find an outlet for their work.

In planning an approach for open access and the next REF, we received very clear advice that the monograph publishing world is not yet ready to support an open-access requirement. We have listened to this advice, and are proposing that monographs will not be required to be published in an open-access form to be eligible for the next REF.

But we are very keen to understand the issues better and to support efforts to solve them wherever possible. We are optimistic about the potential for open-access publishing to help sustain scholarly communications in the humanities and social sciences, and we are confident that open-access monograph publishing will continue to grow over the coming years.

A new HEFCE project – we want to understand the issues better, and help to identify potential ways forward. We have started a project, in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, to help us do this.

Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, is leading this work. Professor Crossick was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of London and Warden of Goldsmiths.

We have convened an Expert Reference Group to establish what evidence is needed to inform understanding in this area, and to provide advice on an appropriate programme of work to gather this evidence.

The group brings together key representatives from interested organisations to develop increased understanding about the challenges and opportunities for open-access monograph publishing.

A steering group comprising representatives from HEFCE, the research councils, and the British Academy will govern the project. We expect the project to run until mid-2014.

For further information on HEFCE’s monographs work, please contact Ben Johnson, tel 0117 931 7038, b.johnson@hefce.ac.uk

REF2014

Research assessment, Research news

REF logo

I’m sure I heard a collective sigh of relief radiate across both campuses last week when BU’s REF2014 preparations were finally submitted. It’s been a huge amount of work, especially in the last few weeks. I myself did a little dance when I eventually handed the case studies over for PengPeng to upload, and then bought a sausage sandwich to mark the occasion.

But all the hard work and late nights that have been put in across the academics community, professional services and the leadership team are well worth it. I truly believe the ‘submit’ button was pressed in the knowledge that BU has absolutely put its best institutional foot forward and, regardless of the result (which I’m sure will be fabulous), no one will be left feeling, ‘We could have done better.’

I’m already looking back on the REF preparations fondly. I feel very lucky to have worked on this important project with such a great group of people. BU has so many talented researchers who are passionate about their subject. Matthew’s energy, vision and drive meant the submission presented BU at its absolute best. And I can honestly say I never met a more organised and efficient group of people than Julie Northam, PengPeng Ooi and Becca Edwards!

Having helped prepare the impact case studies across the eight units, I’ve had an amazing overview of the true societal benefit BUs research brings.  Through the process I’ve examined national and international policy documents, spoken to CEO s of multinational companies, patients benefiting from healthcare interventions and many other diverse beneficiaries who sing the praises of BU researchers and the application of their work.

I think what’s most telling though, is the number of case studies that haven’t been submitted this time round because the impact was too embryonic or interim. Regardless of what the next REF will look like (and impact is bound to be more prominent), this really shows the great impact trajectory that BU’s research is currently tracking. Examples include:

  • Dr Venky Dubey and Neal Vaughan’s epidural simulator project, which recently won the Information Technology category at the Institution of Engineering and Technology Innovation Awards, fending off competition from over 30 countries.
  • Later this month the new multimillion pound Stonehenge visitor centrewill open, bringing together knowledge and displays informed by Dr Kate Welham and Professor Tim Darvill’s research.
  • Dr Sarah Thomas and Professor Peter Thomas from the BU Clinical Research Unit have worked with the Dorset MS Service at Poole Hospital to develop a group based fatigue management programme to help people with MS normalise their fatigue experiences.

From January I’m really looking forward to working on these and other projects, using communication as a tool to enhance dissemination of research findings, helping deliver impact to the heart of society.

(And now I have reacquainted myself with my kitchen, I may also cook some vegetables to counter all the ready meals and chocolate that’s kept me going recently)!!