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Archive for March, 2022

Bookings now open for UCL Open Science Conference 2022

By Kirsty, on 15 March 2022

We are very pleased to finally be able to announce that bookings are officially open for the UCL Open Science conference 2022!

The conference is taking place online across two days, and as a special trial run this year we have selected one session to be run as a hybrid event, which will be available online and in person on the UCL campus. If you want to attend the conference online, and the Citizen Science session in person you will need a ticket for both.

Tickets are free and open to everyone that is interested. Sessions will be recorded and the recordings will be shared on the blog and via social media after the event.

Download the programme

DAY 1 – 6th April –

Morning Session: 10.00 -12.30 ONLINE

What does Open Science mean to me?

Here at UCL, the phrase ‘Open Science’ routinely refers to the steps taken to open up the research process to the benefit of the wider research community and beyond. Consequently, members of the UCL community are being actively encouraged to embrace open science practices – and the cultural changes that inevitably follow. Plus, we are subsequently well placed to explore related potential opportunities including greater transparency of the research process, maximising research potential of existing resources and embedding a greater sense of trustworthiness and accountability to your research.

However, it seems the deeper we delve into the concept of Open Science, the more we seek to contextualise this phrase and question what it means to an individual’s working practices.

Kickstart your research with Open Data and Code

This session will look at some of the approaches you can take to go beyond simply sharing your data and code and instead making it Open and FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Assuming little prior knowledge, we will hear from researchers and research technology professionals about how they approach making research software open source, techniques for openness when dealing with computational research, the role that can be played by Electronic Lab Notebooks, and data repositories in the Open Science ecosystem

Afternoon Session: 1.30-3.30pm ONLINE & IN PERSON:

How does Citizen Science change us?

Recent research about the impact of citizen science projects tends to focus on how public ‘participation’ in scientific research enhances knowledge outcomes for projects, or enhances the scientific literacy of participating citizen scientists. The benefits to participating individuals and communities are often assumed, and very little literature examines the personal dilemmas and challenges that individuals negotiate, or how citizen science projects change the behaviour of policymakers.

We aim to explore these gaps by inviting different perspectives on the question “How does citizen science change us?” Discussions will examine how participation in citizen science projects impacts on the different individuals involved – the citizen scientists, academic researchers, community members, policymakers – and ask how impacts on individuals can translate into wider political, societal and organisational transformations

This session will be online using the same link as the main conference. If you want to join this session in person, please also register on Eventbrite.

DAY 2 – 7th April – ONLINE 10.00 -12.30

10.10-11.20 UKRI Town Hall

The new UKRI Open Access policy has dominated discussions of the future of Open Access in the last year. This session proposes to allow the audience free rein to openly discuss the new policy with key members of the team at UKRI. After a brief presentation of the policy and guidance as it stands, the audience will be invited to pose their questions in an open forum.

11.20-12.30 Open Science and the Global South

Open Access publishing has been broadly embraced as a solution to the issue of paywalls which are often barriers to accessing research articles and, therefore, barriers to research itself. Open Access publishing removes the cost for those that may wish to read an article, but the publication process must still be paid for. Finding sustainable ways of doing this is a challenge, especially for institutions based in the global south where budgets may be more limited.

 

UKRI open access policy – slides and recording

By Catherine Sharp, on 4 March 2022

UCL’s Open Access Team has been glad of the opportunity to give presentations on the new UKRI open access policy to nearly 2,000 staff at more than 60 department and faculty meetings this session. We were recently joined by Lara Speicher (UCL Press Publishing Manager) for two more UCL-wide briefings on the new policy that were attended by nearly 150 UKRI-funded researchers. The recording and slides from these sessions are below. We’d encourage all UKRI-funded PIs, and anyone involved in submitting UKRI-funded articles, to take a look at them so that they’re prepared for the start of the policy on 1 April.

We’re grateful for UCL authors’ engagement with the policy, and for the questions that we’ve been asked about particular non-compliant publishers, including Nature (for Nature portfolio journals), IEEE, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society and Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Central UK negotiations are happening with all non-compliant publishers, and we are sharing your feedback with the negotiation teams. We hope to have more information about these and other publishers over the coming weeks and months, but in the meantime we will provide support for authors who wish to submit to these journals/publishers after 1 April. Please check our UKRI/Wellcome open access webpages and our What do I need to do? quick guide for more information.

New UKRI policy: key information

As well as our briefing sessions, we’ve recently contacted all UKRI and Wellcome PIs with the following key information.

UKRI-funded research articles, review articles and conference papers that are submitted from 1 April 2022 must be made open access on publication, under the CC BY licence (or, if UKRI grants an exception, CC BY-ND). A key change is that Gold open access in subscription (hybrid) journals will only be funded if the journal is in one of UCL’s transformative agreements.

What the policy means

The following types of journal comply with the policy:

  1. fully open access journals and proceedings (funds are available through UCL’s Open Access Team): check the Directory of Open Access Journals
  2. subscription (hybrid) journals that are in UCL’s transformative agreements: check UCL’s list of transformative agreements
  3. subscription journals and proceedings that allow you to make your final accepted manuscript open access on publication under the CC BY licence (e.g. Science, Association for Computing Machinery)

If your journal is not in these categories, you may want to consider submitting elsewhere. Alternatively, you will need to retain the right to make your final accepted manuscript open access on publication under the CC BY licence, by including UKRI’s submission wording when you submit, and negotiating a compliant publishing agreement.

See our What do I need to do? quick guide.

Other information

UKRI does not support publication charges (for instance page and colour charges). Authors should ask their journal about publication charges, and request a waiver of any mandatory charges, before submission.

The UKRI open access policy for long-form outputs applies to monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from 1 January 2024. More information will be available in due course.

Office for Open Science & Scholarship Newsletter – Issue 5

By Kirsty, on 3 March 2022

Welcome to the fifth issue of the Open Science and Scholarship Newsletter!

This termly newsletter has updates across the 8 Pillars of Open Science, and contributions from colleagues across the university. If you would like to get involved, give feedback or write something for a future issue, please get in touch using the details at the end of the newsletter.

In this issue:

  • Editorial
  • Update from the Head of the Office for Open Science & Scholarship
  • Community voice – Creating a digital organism through Open Science
  • Special Feature – UCL Press announce the launch of a new translation initiative
  • Deep Dive – Highlights from the Blog
  • News and Events

Go to the newsletter on Sway, or view it below. If you use the version below, we recommend clicking the ‘full screen’ button to get the full experience!

When viewing a Sway, you can turn on Accessibility view. This view displays a high-contrast style for easier reading, disables any animations, and supports keyboard navigation for use with screen readers.

To turn on Accessibility view:

  • If you’re using a mouse or touchscreen, on the More options menu (shown as three dots on the Sway toolbar), choose Accessibility view.
  • If you’re using a screen reader, on the More options menu, when Accessibility view is selected, you hear “Displays this Sway in a high contrast design with full keyboard functionality and screen reader access to all content.”