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Open access: fringe or mainstream?
When I was just settling in to the world of open access and scholarly communication, I wrote about the need for open access to stop being a fringe activity and enter the mainstream of researcher behaviour: “Open access needs to stop being a ‘fringe’ activity and become part of the mainstream. It shouldn’t be an afterthought to the publication process. Whether the solution to academic inaction is better systems or, as I believe, greater engagement and reward, I feel that the scholarly communications and repository community can look forward to many interesting developments over the coming months and years.” While much has changed in the five years since I (somewhat…
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What questions reveal about researchers’ attitudes to Open Access
By Dr Bea Gini, Training Coordinator ‘Right, that concludes this part of the training session, are there any questions?’ I’ve asked this scores of times in the last academic year, and it’s always fascinating to hear what questions emerge. Some have come up often enough that they have earned themselves a new slide in the training session. Others can be really niche, or reveal something about a specific field that is different to all other disciplines. Sometimes a question beautifully cuts through all the frills to challenge a key aspect of what has been discussed. In all cases, they have shown thoughtfulness and a real wish to engage with Open Research. Over the last academic year,…
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Research Data at Cambridge – highlights of the year so far
By Dr Sacha Jones, Research Data Coordinator This year we have continued, as always, to provide support and services for researchers to help with their research data management and open data practices. So far in 2020, we have approved more than 230 datasets into our institutional repository, Apollo. This includes Apollo’s 2000th dataset on the impact of health warning labels on snack selection, which represents a shining example of reproducible research, involving the full gamut: preregistration, and sharing of consent forms, code, protocols, data. There are other studies that have sparked media interest for which the data are also openly available in Apollo, such as the data supporting research that reports the development of a wireless device that can convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into a carbon-neutral fuel. Or, data…
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Open Access and REF 2021: “Is This Article Non-Compliant?”
By Dr Debbie Hansen, Senior Open Access Adviser, Office of Scholarly Communication Through much of this REF period, there has been a focus on encouraging Cambridge authors to deposit their accepted manuscripts into our institutional repository. The Open Access Team has tackled the sometimes tricky tasks of making sure the right version has been deposited with the correct embargo, advising on funders’ open access requirements and managing the payments for gold open access from the UKRI and COAF block grants. With the REF period ending, the University is now finalising lists of research outputs to be submitted to REF2021. Alongside this activity, some members of the Open Access Team have been focussing on compliance indicators for the REF open access policy. In Symplectic Elements, the University’s research information management system, all journal or conference articles…
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Open Access for Librarians: Putting Together the Puzzle
Claire Sewell, Research Support Librarian, Betty & Gordon Moore Library This Open Access week I’ve been reflecting back on my time training library staff in research support. As anyone working in this area will know, an understanding of the principles of open access is key to getting to grips with many of the issues covered by the scholarly communications remit so it’s important that librarians get a good grasp of the basics. Open access is a topic rich in terminology and interconnected concepts which can make teaching it a little bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with no finished image to guide you. Many introductory sessions begin with an overview of…
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Preparing for the end of COAF
The Open Access team are getting ready for the end of Charity Open Access Fund (COAF), which is due to dissolve on 30th September 2020. From 1st October 2020 onward, there are going to be changes to the block grants that we receive, and as a result, there will be a change in our policies on whether or not we can cover researchers’ article processing charges (APCs). We have outlined how researchers should go about securing funding for the APC’s below: Funder name Are article processing charges covered by a block grant? How do I pay for my article processing charge? UKRI Yes No change: researchers should continue to upload their paper to us for a funding decision. Wellcome Trust Yes No…
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Data sharing and reuse case study: the Mammographic Image Society database
The Mammographic Image Society (MIAS) database is a set of mammograms put together in 1992 by a consortium of UK academic institutions and archived on 8mm DAT tape, copies of which were made openly available and posted to applicants for a small administration fee. The mammograms themselves were curated from the UK National Breast Screening Programme, a major screening program that was established in the late 80s offering routine screening every three years to women aged between 50-64. The motivations for creating the database were to make a practical contribution to computer vision research – which sought to improve the ability of computers to interpret images – and to encourage…
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Cambridge response to the UKRI open access policy review
Open access is transforming scholarly communication, and both the University and its Press are fully committed to the transition to open access publishing without embargo. It is inspiring us to think more deeply about how the research publishing ecosystem can be improved to the benefit of all society. The open access policy review being conducted by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will have a major impact on how publicly funded research in the UK is published. The UK already has a strong commitment to open access, and we look forward to the new UKRI policy dramatically speeding up the country’s transition to open access. Cambridge unites a world-leading research university, with…
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The Role of Open Data in Science Communication
Itamar Shatz has written a guest blog post for the Office of Scholarly Communication about how public trust in the scientific community increases when researchers make their data openly available to all. He also emphasizes that science communicators (e.g. press offices, journalists, publishers) have a responsibility to point attention directly at the primary source of the data. Itamar is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a member of the Cambridge Data Champion programme, having joined at the start of this year. He writes about science and philosophy that have practical applications at Effectiviology.com. It’s no secret that…
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Clearing the final hurdle – automating embargo setting
One of the biggest issues facing the Open Access Team has been keeping up with the constant stream of accepted manuscripts that need to be processed. In many cases we receive notification of an accepted manuscript well before formal publication. This has presented a significant challenge over the last five years because although we know there is a publication forthcoming (or at least we trust that there this), we have no idea as to when an article may actually be published. This means that we have many thousands of publication records in Apollo which have ‘placeholder’ embargoes because we simply did not know the publication date at the point of…
