Brunel University Research Archive: Mandate and RAE - an update

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Brunel University Research Archive Mandate and
RAE - an update

• John Murtagh

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History

• Set up in December 2006
• Way of getting theses online
• Example of Virginia Tech
• Showcase Brunel research
• Free open source software

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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

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Progress items on BURA
Roughly 100 items added per month
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Research Assessment Exercise 2008
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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!

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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

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Upon thinking

• Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) need checking
  for RAE

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Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)
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• Publishers require link to original versionDOI

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• 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

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RAE to BURA
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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

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Process of obtaining RAE material

• Met with Heads of School and RAE administrators
  May-June 2007
• Letter to be sent to each academic requesting
• Register on BURA
• Send final drafts of 4 or 3 RAE submissions to
  BURA
• Or (depending on school) self-archive themselves
• Or again (depending on school) send to research
  administrator in school

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Other materials - poster
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BURA Deposit Guide
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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

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July- August 2007

• Gathering!

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Mandatory Self-Archiving
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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

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Mandatory Self-ArchivingOrigins

• Endless advocacy
• Repeated constant promotion
• Asking for papers
• Results modest
• Are you doing your job?
• Am I missing something?

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

• Years of advocacy
• Plenty of examples in universities (Glasgows
  Daedalus project)
• Voluntary and asking doesnt seem to work...
• JISC Survey15 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/

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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

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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/

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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

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Proposal

• Position paper for School of Information Systems,
  Computing and Mathematics (SISCM)
• Similar to Southamptons 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).

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My Arguments

• SISCM research clearly seen
• Voluntary requests not working proof
• Mandate could work academic survey, Sales
  Patchwork etc.
• Pilot stage
• Clear plan of implementation
• Key internal people involved
• Relatively easy to implement
• SISCM only 9th globally with mandate

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Accepted
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SISCM Self-Archiving Policy

• Model based on Southamptons 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 Schools Research Papers
  Collection on BURA.

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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.

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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

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• 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?

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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

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Questions?

• John Murtagh
• E-mail BURA-manager_at_brunel.ac.uk
• Tel [phone]
• Brunel Library