Brunel University Research Archive: Mandate and RAE - an

updateJohn Murtagh

History

• Set up in December 2006

• Way of getting theses online

• Example of Virginia Tech

• Showcase Brunel research

• Free open source software

BURA Launch• Vice Chancellor of the Brunel University• Pro Vice Chancellor for The Student Experience• Dean of the Graduate School• Most cited scientist in Environmental Science Prof John Sumpter• Dr Graham Caulton – our first PhD in 1966• Gareth Johnson Gareth – SHERPA presented

Progress – items on BURAMonth/year Number of

items

November 2006

85

December 147

January 2007

247

February 310

March 352

April 385

May 484

June 580

Roughly 100 items added per month

Research Assessment Exercise 2008

Important year for universities

• How to involve the new repository service with the gathering of premium research for the RAE?

• Over past 6 years• Being gathered in 2007• BURA optimum time in 2007• Made sense!

Research Assessment Exercise - others

• Other universities use IRRA: Institutional Repositories for Research Assessment add-on tool.

• Southampton, Edinburgh, Open, Kingston• Mostly bibliographic• Not linked to repository with full-text• Problems with customization• Incorrect DOIs, chasing up with DOI org

Upon thinking…

• Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) need checking for RAE…

Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)

• Publishers require link to original version…DOI

• We therefore hired part time help to check DOIs on behalf of RAE process…

• With a view to receiving final drafts later where we would copy - past DOIs from RAE to the Archive

RAE to BURA

RAE status with BURA

• Already 4.5 percent of BURA is RAE journal content (82 out of 580)– Limited to RAE journal article content– Limited to publisher permission– Limited to author having final draft– Limited to author having time!

• Surprisingly high … but makes sense– Best research– Most recent research– Likelihood of final draft increased– RAE message mixed in with BURA message

Process of obtaining RAE material

• Met with Heads of School and RAE administrators May-June 2007

• Letter to be sent to each academic requesting:

1. Register on BURA

2. Send final drafts of 4 or 3 RAE submissions to BURA

3. Or (depending on school) self-archive themselves

4. Or again (depending on school) send to research administrator in school

Other materials - poster

BURA Deposit Guide

Advocacy• Evidence shows that those RAE submissions which are on BURA

have been frequently downloaded. For example academics in 4 different schools:

– 4 items, 358 downloads– 4 items, 291 downloads– 3 items, 233 downloads– 1 item, 163 downloads

• We need more RAE material• Heads of School and Senior Managers met yesterday• Will hopefully endorse RAE and BURA link-up• Concern is RAE-BURA request is same as request for articles • Academic benefits clear – but academic inertia• Must take advantage of urgency in university with RAE

July- August 2007

• Gathering!

Mandatory Self-Archiving

Content on BURA

• 60 % is submitted by BURA team– BURA Deposit Service

• The rest is by academics self-archiving• Significant amount from key individuals• Strong emphasis on self-archiving• 150 registered• Changing the “culture” of research publishing• Easy steps to self-archiving

Mandatory Self-ArchivingOrigins

• Endless advocacy• Repeated & constant

promotion• Asking for papers• Results: modest• Are you doing your

job?• Am I missing

something?

Should self-archiving be compulsory (top-down)? or voluntary (bottom-up) ?

Years of advocacy• Plenty of examples in universities (Glasgow’s Daedalus project)• Voluntary and asking doesn’t seem to work...

• JISC Survey:

15% of papers are being self-archived in all today (although 49% of authors have deposited at least once): Authors are too busy to do it until/unless their employers & or funders make it a priority by mandating it -- and then

95% of them will do it:

81% would willingly comply with a mandate from their employer or research funder to deposit copies of their articles in an institutional or subject-based repository

• 13% would comply reluctantly• 5% would not comply with such a mandate

Source: Swan, A. and Brown, S. (2005) Open access self-archiving: An author study. Technical Report, External Collaborators, Key Perspectives Inc. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/

Existing Mandates

• 5 out of 8 UK research councils mandate deposit on open access repositories

• The Wellcome Trust

• Other universities with mandate: Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science, U. Minho, departmental and university-wide one at U. Tasmania, QUT

Implementation models

• Generic Rationale and Model for University Open Access Mandate – Steve Harnad March 2006

http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12078/

• The Patchwork Mandate – technical paper Arthur Sale November 2006

http://eprints.utas.edu.au/410/

Professor Arthur Sale

“It seems to take 2-3 years for a university mandatory policy to become fully institutionalized, though the process is almost instant with departmental mandates.”

Examples: Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and the University of Southampton

Proposal

• Position paper for School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics (SISCM)– Similar to Southampton’s school– SISCM had key people involved in BURA– Lots of use of ArXiv – already self-archiving

• http://arxiv.org/ (Open e-print archive with over 100000 articles in physics, 10000 in mathematics, and 1000 in computer science).

My Arguments

• SISCM research clearly seen• Voluntary requests not working – proof• Mandate could work – academic survey, Sale’s

Patchwork etc.• Pilot stage• Clear plan of implementation• Key internal people involved• Relatively easy to implement• SISCM only 9th globally with mandate

Accepted

SISCM Self-Archiving Policy

• Model based on Southampton’s policy.• Our mission and aims

– It is our policy to maximise the visibility, usage and impact of our research output by maximising online access to it for all would-be users and researchers worldwide.

– It is also our policy to minimise the effort that each of us has to expend in order to provide open online access to our research output provided at http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/  

– We have accordingly adopted the policy that upon acceptance for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, all final drafts (i.e. pre-publisher formatting) of current research output is to be self-archived in the School’s Research Papers Collection on BURA.

SISCM Self-Archiving Policy

• How to self-archive

– To ensure that your research papers appear correctly in BURA, the following steps must be taken:

Register as a user on BURA: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/deposit-guide.html

– Deposit your final draft (also referred to as a post-print) which requires you to fill in an online form supplying the bibliographic information to generate the metadata (e.g. author, title information, accepted journal publication details, etc.) You will also be asked to upload the full text of your research paper.

In action

• Compares research publication database with BURA

• School administrators - responsibility• Policy rather than mandate – a mandated

policy?• Not punitive - takes suggestion of “Accepted for

publication? Deposited on BURA?”• Only in place effectively since January 2007• Is currently embedding itself – needs time and

promotion

• Support from key academics and administrators

• Ironically – RAE possibly seen as more important?

• Wait for BURA to establish itself before mandate is “thrown” at them

…original arguments about bottom-up approach…?

Conclusions

• Wait and see approach to both RAE and Mandatory policy• BURA is still new• Needs critical mass before it is seen to be

permanent and of long-term use• RAE - requires political will and Schools’

support for success - hopeful• Mandate requires above• Embedding into School – a pilot so far

Questions?

John Murtagh

E-mail: BURA-manager@brunel.ac.uk

Tel: 01895265417

Brunel Library