Tagged / sherpa

Need to publish a paper quickly for the REF?

Research news

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceThen come to our free Open Access event this Wednesday in the EBC!

Publishing via an open access route often results in much faster publication times, meaning your research is out in the public domain much more quickly than traditional subscription journal routes.

BU fully supports open access publishing and has recently launched a central Open Access Publication Fund to enable academic staff to access funds to easily publish via open access outlets.

We’re holding an open access publishing event this Wednesday between 10am-12:30pm in the EBC (7th floor).

You can access the programme here: BU Open Access event programme

It is free for BU staff and students to attend. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

To reserve a place at the event please contact Anita Somner by email.

We look forward to seeing you there! 😀

Reminder of the Open Access event on 26 October

BU research

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceCome and find out all about open access publishing!

To celebrate the launch of BU’s new Open Access Publication Fund we’re holding an open access (OA) publishing event on 26 October between 10am-12:30pm in the EBC (7th floor).

The aim of the event is to dispell some of the myths surrounding OA publishing and alleviate concerns about publishing through this route, whilst discussing the benefits and opportunities of making your work freely available.

The event will open with a keynote presentation from one of the world’s leading OA experts Dr Alma Swan, followed by a presentation from Willow Fuchs from the Centre for Research and Communications at Nottingham University who will be speaking about the SHERPA open access projects. The event will also feature talks from two BU academics: Prof Edwin van Teijlingen who has published via OA journals and is an OA journal editor, and Prof Peter Thomas who has also published via OA outlets. There will also be the opportunity to find out more information about the new BU Open Access Publication Fund, and how you can access funds for OA publication costs.

Dr Alma Swan is one of the leading figures in the field of OA publishing. She is the co-founder and director of Key Perspectives Ltd, a consultancy firm specialising in scholarly communication, and holds honorary positions with the University of Southampton and the University of Warwick. Alma is Convenor for Enabling Open Scholarship, the global organisation of universities promoting the principles of open scholarship in the academic community. It is a great honour to welcome her to BU!

The event will take place on Wednesday 26 October between 10:00-12:30. It is free for BU staff and students to attend. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

To reserve a place at the event please contact Anita Somner by email.

We look forward to seeing you there! 😀

Creative Commons – how copyright, content sharing and collaboration can lead innovation in the digital age

Guidance, Research news

open access logo, Public Library of Science

Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. They believe that academic research, journals, and data should be available to everyone, and are one of the leading organisations in the Open Access movement which is making scholarly research and journals more widely available on the internet. The world’s largest Open Access publishers all use Creative Commons licenses to publish their content online. Today, 10% of the world’s entire output of scholarly journals is Creative Commons licensed.

A new book ‘The Power of Open‘ (published by Creative Commons and available to download from the link) contains many examples of projects and individuals from around the world whose work has been brought to a wider audience.

Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing frm the European Office of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), states: ‘Open access is increasingly recognised as a driver of innovation and economic development, which is why it is essential that all publicly-funded research is made available without any access or reuse restrictions.’

Many research funding bodies now have open access mandates and a list of these requirements is kept up to data as part of the Sherpa-Juliet project. The European Commission, for example, introduced an open access pilot mandate in 2008 which required that the published results of European-funded research in certain areas be made openly available. This pilot policy will soon be extended to all EU-funded research. 

To promote the benefits of open access publishing and to support academic staff making their work freely available, BU has recently launched a dedicated Open Access Publication Fund. Find out more about this fund here:

To find out more about open access publishing and opportunities available for reaching a larger audience with your research, come to:

BU’s Open Access launch event on 26 October!

 

Unlocking Attitudes to Open Access

Guidance

open access logo, Public Library of Science Emma Crowley and David Ball, Student and Academic Services, discuss open access publishing, and the role of the institutional repository BURO, and launch a short staff survey on open access publishing…

 

  • What do you understand by Open Access? 
  • Do you deposit your research outputs in BURO, BU’s online repository? 
  • Who owns the copyright to your research papers?
  • Would you consider publishing in an Open Access Journal? 

At BU these are exciting times for research and one of the key ways of ensuring that your work has impact is to make it available Open Access.  Most of you will be familiar with BURO, our online research repository, and are hopefully contributing your research outputs on a regular basis as per BU’s Academic Publications Policy.  As a strategic part of your personal research processes it is essential that you retain your own pre-print (pre peer review) and post-print (post peer review) copies of your journal articles as most publishers will allow you to make either of these formats available open access, but not the branded publisher PDF.  You can check copyright permissions in BURO using the Sherpa Romeo tool.    

So, how do we know how impactful our research really is?  The answer to this challenging question, discussed at length at this week’s Developing and Assessing Impact for the REF Conference, is not necessarily here, but clearly research that is being viewed and downloaded by large numbers of global web users has a greater chance of influencing policy and attracting more citations.  Below are the 3 most downloaded full text journal articles in BURO during the last quarter.  You can even see which search terms people are using to find your work. 

Buhalis, D. and Law, R., 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet – The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management, 29 (4), pp. 609-623. 517 Downloads

Edwards, J. and Hartwell, H., 2006. Hospital food service: a comparative analysis of systems and introducing the ‘Steamplicity’ concept. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 19 (6), pp. 421-430. 506 Downloads

van Teijlingen, E. and Hundley, V., 2001. The Importance of Pilot Studies. Social Research Update (35), pp. 1-4. 405 Downloads

In addition to BURO BU recently launched its own Open Access Publication Fund that will support BU academics in publishing their research in Open Access journals, where a fee is required to publish, but everyone can view your article.

We would be very grateful if you could participate in a short survey, the results of which will help inform BU strategy on Open Access and wider developments for Open Access in UK HE.  There is only one page of questions which will take you less than 10 minutes to complete.  The survey will remain open until Monday 30th June.

Please note: if you experience any technical difficulties using the survey please contact Learning Technology