Post by Andrew Gray (Bibliometrics Support Officer) and Dominic Allington Smith (Open Access Publications Manager)

Summary

UCL is a longstanding and steadfast supporter of open access publishing, organising funding and payment for gold open access, maintaining the UCL Discovery repository for green open access, and monitoring compliance with REF and research funder open access requirements.  Research data can  be made open access in the Research Data Repository, and UCL Press also publish open access books and journals.

The UCL Bibliometrics Team have recently conducted research to analyse UCL’s overall open access output, covering both total number of papers in different OA categories, and citation impact.  This blog post presents the key findings:

1. UCL’s overall open access output has risen sharply since 2011, flattened around 80% in the last few years, and is showing signs of slowly growing again – perhaps connected with the growth of transformative agreements.
2. The relative citation impact of UCL papers has had a corresponding increase, though with some year-to-year variation.
3. UCL’s open access papers are cited around twice as much, on average, as non-open-access papers.
4. UCL is consistently the second-largest producer of open access papers in the world, behind Harvard University.
5. UCL has the highest level of open access papers among a reference group of approximately 80 large universities, at around 83% over the last five years.

Overview and definitions

Publications data is taken from the InCites database.  As such, the data is primarily drawn from InCites papers attributed to UCL, filtered down to only articles, reviews, conference proceedings, and letters. It is based on published affiliations to avoid retroactive overcounting in past years: existing papers authored by new starters at UCL are excluded.

The definition of “open access” provided by InCites is all open access material – gold, green, and “bronze”, a catch-all category for material that is free-to-read but does not meet the formal definition of green or gold. This will thus tend to be a few percentage points higher than the numbers used for, for example, UCL’s REF open access compliance statistics.

Data is shown up to 2021; this avoids any complications with green open access papers which are still under an embargo period – a common restriction imposed by publishers when pursuing this route – in the most recent year.

1. UCL’s change in percentage of open access publications over time

(InCites all-OA count)

The first metric is the share of total papers recorded as open access.  This has grown steadily over time over the last decade, from under 50% in 2011 to almost 90% in 2021, with only a slight plateau around 2017-19 interrupting progress.

2. Citation impact of UCL papers over time

(InCites all-OA count, Category Normalised Citation Impact)

The second metric is the citation impact for UCL papers.  These are significantly higher than average: the most recent figure is above 2 (which means that UCL papers receive over twice as many citations as the world average; the UK university average is ~1.45) and continue a general trend of growing over time, with some occasional variation. Higher variation in recent years is to some degree expected, as it takes time for citations to accrue and stabilise.

3. Relative citation impact of UCL’s closed and Open Access papers over time

(InCites all-OA count, Category Normalised Citation Impact)

The third metric is the relative citation rates compared between open access and non-open access (“closed”) papers. Open access papers have a higher overall citation rate than closed papers: the average open access paper from 2017-21 has received around twice as many citations as the average closed paper.

4. World leading universities by number of Open Access publications

(InCites all-OA metric)

Compared to other universities, UCL produces the second-highest absolute number of open access papers in the world, climbing above 15,000 in 2021, and has consistently been the second largest publisher of open access papers since circa 2015.

The only university to publish more OA papers is Harvard. Harvard typically publishes about twice as many papers as UCL annually, but for OA papers this gap is reduced to about 1.5 times more papers than UCL.

5. World leading universities by percentage of Open Access publications

(5-year rolling average; minimum 8000 publications in 2021; InCites %all-OA metric)

UCL’s percentage of open access papers is consistently among the world’s highest.  The most recent data from InCites shows UCL as having the world’s highest level of OA papers (82.9%) among institutions with more than 8,000 papers published in 2021, having steadily risen through the global ranks in previous years.

Conclusion

The key findings of this research are very good news for UCL, indicating a strong commitment by authors and by the university to making work available openly.  Furthermore, whilst high levels of open access necessarily lead to benefits relating to REF and funder compliance, the analysis also indicates that making research outputs open access leads, on average, to a greater number citations, providing further justification for this support, as being crucial to communicating and sharing research outcomes as part of the UCL 2034 strategy.

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

 

Guest post from Huw Morris, Honorary Professor of Tertiary Education, UCL Institute of Education. If anyone would like to contribute to future blogs, please get in touch.

Review of The Predatory Paradox: Ethics, Politics and the Practices in Contemporary Scholarly Publishing (2023). Amy Koerber, Jesse Starkey, Karin Ardon-Dryer, Glenn Cummins, Lyombe Eko and Kerk Kee. Open Book Publishers. DOI 10.11647/obp.0364.

We are living in a publishing revolution, in which the full consequences of changes to the ways research and other scholarly work are prepared, reviewed and disseminated have yet to be fully felt or understood. It is just over thirty years since the first open access journals began to appear on email groups in html and pdf formats.

It is difficult to obtain up-to-date and verifiable estimates of the number of journals published globally. There are no recent journal articles which assess the scale of this activity. However, recent online blog sources suggest that there are at least 47,000 journals available worldwide of which 20,318 are provided in open access format (DOAJ, 2023; WordsRated, 2023). The number of journals is increasing at approximately 5% per annum and the UK provides an editorial home for the largest proportion of these titles.

With this rapid expansion questions have been raised about whether there are too many journals, whether they will continue to exist in their current form, and if so how can readers and researchers assess the quality of the editorial processes they have adopted (Brembs et al., 2023; Oosterhaven, 2015)

This new book, ‘The Predatory Paradox,’ steps into these currents of change and seeks not only to comment on developments, but also to consider what the trends mean for academics, particularly early career researchers, for journal editors and for the wider academic community. The result is an impressive collection of chapters which summarise recent debates and report the authors’ own research examining the impact of these changes on the views of researchers and crucially their reading and publishing habits.

The book is divided into seven chapters, which consider the ethical and legal issues associated with open access publishing, as well as the consequences for assessing the quality of articles and journals. A key theme in the book, as the title indicates, is tracking the development of concern about predatory publishing. Here the book mixes a commentary on the history of this phenomenon with information gained from interviews and the authors’ reflections on the impact of editorial practices on their own publication plans. In these accounts the authors demonstrate that it is difficult to tightly define what constitutes a predatory journal because peer review and editorial processes are not infallible, even at the most prestigious journals. These challenges are illustrated by the retelling of stories about recent scientific hoaxes played on so-called predatory journals and other more respected titles. These hoaxes include the submission of articles with a mix of poor research designs, bogus data, weak analyses and spurious conclusions. Building on insights derived from this analysis, the book’s authors provide practical guidance about how to avoid being lured into publishing in predatory journals and how to avoid editorial practices that lack integrity. They also survey the teaching materials used to deal with these issues in the training of researchers at the most research-intensive US universities.

One of the many excellent features of the book is its authors practicing much of what they preach. The book is available for free via open access in a variety of formats. The chapters which draw on original research provide links to the underpinning data and analysis. At the end of each chapter there is also a very helpful summary of the key takeaway messages, as well as a variety of questions and activities that can be used to prompt reflection on the text or as the basis for seminar and tutorial activities.

Having praised the book for its many fine features, it is important to note the questions it raises about defining quality research which could have been more fully answered. The authors summarise their views about what constitutes quality research under a series of headings drawing on evidence from interviews with researchers in a range of subject areas they conclude that quality research defies explicit definition. They suggest, following Harvey and Green, that it is multi-factorial and changes over time with the identity of the reviewer and reader. This uncertainty, while partially accurate, has not prevented people from rating the quality of other peoples’ research or limited the number of people putting themselves forward for these types of review.

As the book explains, peer review by colleagues with an expertise in the same specialism, discipline or field is an integral part of the academic endeavour. Frequently there are explicit criteria against which judgements are made, whether for grant awards, journal reviewing or research assessment. The criteria may be unclear, open to interpretation, overly narrow or overly wide, but they do exist and have been arrived at through collective review and confirmed by processes involving many reviewers.

Overall I would strongly recommend this book and suggest that it should be required or background reading on research methods courses for doctoral and research masters programmes. For other readers who are not using this book as part of a course of study, I would recommend also reading research assessment guidelines for research council and funding body websites and advice to authors provided by long established journals in their field. In addition, it is worth looking at the definitions and reports on research activity provided by Research Excellence Framework panels in the UK and their counterparts in other nations.

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

As we step into a new year, let’s reflect on the collective achievements and milestones of the UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship (OOSS) and our associated teams in 2023. This year witnessed the growth and integration of OOSS within the institutional culture of UCL, offering pivotal support to academic staff, researchers, and students. From the successful return to in-person events with our annual conference to pioneering initiatives and awards, let’s revisit the highlights that shaped our work last year!

Annual Conference & Open Access Celebrations

In April 2023, we successfully organized our annual conference, marking our first return to in-person events. Themed Open Science and the Case for Social Justice, the conference fostered important discussions on sustainability in research practices, addressing critical issues such as gender, language, authorship, and geographical disparities. Recordings of these insightful discussions are available. Notably, a workshop during the conference addressed equity in authorship, contributing to a forthcoming UCL statement on Authorship. Additionally, October saw the celebration of our Open Access week, themed Community over Commercialisation. This included a series of blog posts, activities, and discussions, emphasizing equitable access to a wide range of works.

Honouring Excellence: Inaugural Open Science and Scholarship Awards:

Another highlight was the inaugural Open Science and Scholarship Awards at UCL in collaboration with the UK Reproducibility Network. These awards aimed to recognize and celebrate the efforts of UCL students and staff who champion open science practices. Learn more about the winners and their innovative work!

Open Access: Profiles & Transformative Agreements

The Open Access Team played a pivotal role in ensuring the open availability of UCL academics’ research outputs throughout 2023. A major achievement was the successful introduction of the new Profiles platform, replacing the outdated IRIS. Profiles acts as UCL’s public search and discovery tool, significantly improving the visibility of academic profiles, publication lists, research and teaching activities, and collaborations with UCL colleagues. The team also facilitated the Gold open access publication of 3,383 papers in 2023, contributing to the thriving UCL Discovery with over 44 million downloads. The repository now boasts over 166,000 open access items, including 23,400 theses, with over 18,500 uploads in the preceding twelve months.

Aligned with the UKRI and Wellcome open access policies, the Open Access Team provided robust support for UCL researchers. This included facilitating compliance through publishing in fully open access journals, making use of transformative agreements with publishers encompassing over 12,000 journals, and using funders’ language to secure the right to make accepted manuscripts freely accessible upon publication under the CC BY license.

Research Data: Enhancing Support to Researchers

The Research Data team introduced a more user-friendly version of the UCL Research Data Repository, incorporating enhanced features and a comprehensive user manual. The repository saw a significant influx of 193 new items, including data sets, media items, and software applications. Engaging with researchers, the team provided substantial assistance, reviewing 32 data management plans and conducting successful training sessions for 61 researchers. Additionally, the team expanded and refined frequently asked questions (FAQs) for better user support.

Citizen Science: New website and initiatives

The Citizen Science Team expanded its reach and impact in 2023 through new Citizen Science website pages and an enhanced list of citizen science projects at UCL, fostering a greater understanding of the breadth of such initiatives across the university. The creation of a unifying definition of citizen science at UCL, accompanied by an inclusive word cloud, provided clarity on the diverse subject areas and disciplines covered by citizen science projects.

The development of the UCL Citizen Science Certificate, in collaboration with the UCL Citizen Science Academy, marked a significant milestone and underscored our commitment to fostering collaborative initiatives. A new Citizen Science community on MS Teams was launched, providing a dedicated space for discussions and updates. Get involved!

Bibliometrics: Measuring Research Impact

The Bibliometrics Team, in collaboration with the Open Access Team, played a crucial role in implementing the new Profiles system. Their research confirmed the citation advantage associated with open access practices. After a detailed analysis of UCL publications over recent years, the study demonstrated that open access materials are utilised and cited more extensively, and confirmed the place of the institution as leading organisation in making material available in open access.

Additionally, the team introduced new courses, including an introduction to altmetrics and the Overton database, aiming to assess the broader impact of published research in the wider world and cover policy documents and official documents. Another training provided an overview of understanding and demonstrating research impact, further supporting UCL’s researchers. The Bibliometrics Team’s dedication to understanding and demonstrating research impact through various courses and collaborations reinforced UCL’s position as a leader in research output accessibility.

Stay connected and Informed

The combined efforts of OOSS teams in 2023 exemplify UCL’s commitment to open and accessible research practices across diverse disciplines. As we move forward, the OOSS remains dedicated to fostering an inclusive culture of open science and scholarship, shaping a transformative academic environment at UCL.

Join us in 2024 for updates and insights, and follow us on X, formerly Twitter, to find out more about open science and scholarship at UCL!

This year we are pleased to be able to share with you our Advent Calendar of Research Support! We will be posting every day over on our Twitter/X account but for those of you that aren’t using Twitter/X we have posted it below, and you can visit it online in your own time. We will also be updating this post throughout the month with accessible version of the content.

Day 1

The Office for Open Science and Scholarship is your one stop shop for advice and support for all things openness. Find out more on our website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/ucl-office-open-science-and-scholarship #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho” on UCL imagestore. A Christmas tree with white lights at night in front of columns lit with colours of the rainbow.

Day 2

Profiles is UCL’s new public search and discovery tool showcasing the UCL community. Use it to find UCL academics, their activities, collaborations, industry partnerships, publications and more. Profiles replaces the previous IRIS system: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/ucl-profiles #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Mat Wright on UCL imagestore. A girl with dark hair and wire rimmed glasses wearing a yellow jumper sits at a laptop. In the background can be seen colourful book stacks.

Day 3

If you need a more controlled way of sharing your research data, check out the UK Data Service and its granular controls for accessing data. https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/learning-hub/research-data-management/data-protection/access-control/ #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Alejandro Walter Salinas Lopez on UCL imagestore. Six people in office attire facing a bright yellow wall covered in postit notes

Day 4

Our final UCL Profiles training session of the year will be held on 7 December at 12pm. Come along to find out how to update your profile and manage your professional and teaching activities in RPS. https://library-calendars.ucl.ac.uk/calendar/libraryskillsUCL?t=g&q=profiles&cid=6984&cal=6984&inc=0

If you can’t make the session, have a look at our Getting started with Profiles page: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/ucl-profiles #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Mary Hinkley on UCL imagestore. A mixed group of people around a table working at laptops.

Day 5

Are you interested in citizen science or participatory research? Ever wondered whether such an approach might work for your project? Whether you are new to citizen science or if you’ve run projects including participants before, come and join our informal UCL Citizen Science community to exchange ideas, ask for advice or share your stories! #ResearchSupportAdvent https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3aEU3Ia83bPWRqzrGpqQ1KkqlQ0AC5f4Ip8Y-zclJ-PHc1%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=54f252f7-db72-40df-8faf-20e618d9a977&tenantId=1faf88fe-a998-4c5b-93c9-210a11d9a5c2

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho” on UCL imagestore. A group of three women in warm clothing toasting with cups of coffee at night.

Day 6

Ever hit a paywall when trying to access scholarly publications? Get the popcorn ready, and be prepared to have your eyes opened by watching this documentary ‘Paywall: the Business of Scholarship’ at https://paywallthemovie.com/ #OpenAccess #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho” on UCL imagestore. A plate of mince pies.

Day 7

Have you ever received an unsolicited email from a publisher inviting you to publish your research in their journal? Think, Check, before you submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/ #ThinkCheckSubmit #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image from ThinkCheckSubmit. Traffic lights containing the words Think, Check, Submit.

Day 8

If you’re sharing your data using the UCL Research Data Repository, reserve your DOI when you create the item. Then when you submit a paper for publication you can include it in the data access statement and readers will be able to find your data more easily once the data is published. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/research-data-management/ucl-research-data-repository #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by UCL Media Services on UCL imagestore. A close up of a bright purple bauble on a tree with some blue lights.

Day 9

Are festive songs, recipes and party activities protected by copyright? How does this relate to your research? Answers in our latest copyright blog post: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/copyright/#ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by KamranAydinov on Freepik. Blue headphones surrounded by christmas decorations, stockings, candles, tree lights and pine cones.

Day 10

UCL Press has launched the first #openaccess textbook in its new programme today. Take a look here: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/215121. Interested in publishing an #openaccess textbook with us? Find out more: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/pages/textbooks

Image by UCL Press. Image is a red band on a white background. On the red band, white writing reads, ‘An introduction to Waste management and circular economy. Read and download free from uclpress.co.uk/waste.

Day 11

If you’ve encountered a paywall when trying to read research online, Unpaywall (https://unpaywall.org/) and the Open Access Button (https://openaccessbutton.org/) are two free browser extensions which search the internet for copies that you can access. #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Mary Hinkley on UCL imagestore. A close up of a Christmas tree covered in yellow lights and small silver leaves. In the background can be seen a grey building, some leafless trees and a dark grey statue of a man.

Day 12

Do you have a namesake in the world of research? To ensure that other researchers and publishers are not confusing you with someone else, sign up for an ORCID ID at https://orcid.org/ ORCID brings all your scholarly output together in one place. Read more here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/open-access/orcid-ucl-researchers #ResearcherIDs #ORCID #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by John Moloney on UCL imagestore. A group of people in business attire socialising with drinks. Picture is taken from a distance and slightly above.

Day 13

Grey literature is produced and published by non-commercial private or public entities, including pressure groups, charities and organisations. Researchers often use grey literature in their reviews to bring in other ‘voices’ into their research. We have listed some useful sources on our guide: https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/planning-search/grey-literature #literaturereview #greyliterature #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Irrum Ali on UCL imagestore. A white table covered in books and pamphlets of various sizes.

Day 14

Are you working with personal data and need more advice on the difference between anonymisation and pseudonymisation? Check out the data protection team’s guide or get in touch with them for more advice. #ResearchSupportAdvent https://www.ucl.ac.uk/data-protection/guidance-staff-students-and-researchers/practical-data-protection-guidance-notices/anonymisation-and

Image by Mary Hinkley on UCL imagestore. Two large and several small icicles against a wintery sky.

Day 15

Historical Inquiry is an important part of the research process. A place to begin this is by understanding the etymology of words. Raymond Williams began this by collating keywords of the most used terms. However, the meanings of words change over time, depending on context. The University of Pittsburgh has continued this project: https://keywords.pitt.edu/, and we have their publication in the Library. #HistoricalInquiry #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Mat Wright on UCL imagestore. A student with long blonde hair studies in the foreground. Behind her are rows of wooden desks and book stacks in arches sit further back.

Day 16

Did you know the Research Data Management team can review your Data Management Plan and provide feedback, including to make sure you adhere to funder guidance on data management? Get in touch to send us a plan or find out more. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/research-data-management #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Mary Hinkley on UCL imagestore. UCL front quad at twilight. In front of the portico is a Christmas tree decorated with yellow lights. To the right of the image is a leafless tree decorated with purple and pink lights which can be seen reflecting off the white building beyond.

Day 17

From 2024, UKRI funded long-form outputs must be open access within 12 months of publication under CC BY or another Creative Commons licence. UCL’s Open Access Team has info. including funding & exceptions, and offers support: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/open-access/research-funders/new-wellcome-and-ukri-policies/ukri #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by James Tye on UCL imagestore. Image shows a view through a gap in books to a woman with light brown hair holding the books open and appearing to be searching the shelf.

Day 18

To coincide with the new UKRI open access policy for monographs, UCL Library Services has new funding to support all UCL REF-eligible staff who would like to make their monographs, book chapters and edited collections Gold open access. Find out about this funding and how to contact us: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-science-research-support/open-access/open-access-funding-and-agreements/open-access-funding #ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho” on UCL imagestore. Image shows a Christmas garland over and arch with people walking through, slightly out of focus. The garland is threaded with yellow lights and the words Happy Holiday Season are written in pink lights.

Day 19

Interested in adding grey literature into your research? Have a look at Overton – a database of 10m+ official and policy documents http://libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/login?url=https://app.overton.io/dashboard.php#ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Tony Slade from UCL imagestore. A top-down photograph of four students working individually at wooden desks. To the right of the image are wooden bookcases full of colourful books.

Day 20

Have time in your hands this holiday? Complete our short, fun, Jedi-friendly copyright online tutorial and be copyright-savvy before the new year begins! Access at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/forms/articulate/copyright-essentials/#/ #ResearchSupportAdvent

A screenshot from the UCL Copyright Essentials module. Includes information on the topics covered, some text from the module and an image of a group of stormtroopers marching in the street. Includes image by Michael Neel via Wikimedia Commons.

Day 21

Beat the cold with #openaccess reading! UCL Press have more than 300 open access books and 15 journals for you to read and download- for free! Available from: uclpress.co.uk

Image by Tony Slade on UCL imagestore. A close-up perspective shot of a bookcase. Black books with gold writing are in the foreground and red, orange and blue volumes are further back.

Day 22

Have you made your New Year resolutions yet? Start by developing your copyright knowledge. Register for one of our 2024 workshops to learn how copyright supports your research and learning. #ResearchSupportAdvent https://library-calendars.ucl.ac.uk/calendar/libraryskillsUCL/?cid=-1&t=g&d=0000-00-00&cal=-1&ct=32648&inc=0

Image by KamranAydinov on Freepik. Top view of hand holding a pen on spiral notebook with new year writing and drawings decoration accessories on black background.

Day 23

Curious to see who’s talking about your research? You can see a dashboard for all your RPS publications in the Altmetric tool – search by “verified author”. https://www.altmetric.com/explorer/#ResearchSupportAdvent

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho” on UCL imagestore. An arm and hand in profile holds up a mobile phone with the camera open. The phone shows the UCL portico and Christmas tree. The background is out of focus but appears to show Christmas lights.

Day 24

The final day of our #ResearchSupportAdvent is upon us and we want to use it to say thank you to everyone that has supported us, come to our events, training or shared with us. Also our colleagues and friends from other institutions. All of us here in the UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship and beyond across all of the teams represented wish you a great break and look forward to 2024!

It has become somewhat of a tradition now for there to be a post during Open Access Week that reviews the previous year. While the middle of October may seem like a strange time to take stock, it is after all the anniversary of the Launch of the Office for Open Science & Scholarship and we like to stop and celebrate another year.

This year we celebrated another successful conference and our first back in person for us! We also had another first with a workshop taking place simultaneously online and in person on the topic of equity in authorship. This work has been fed into a UCL statement on Authorship that will be released in the coming months.

We also released a brand new page bringing together all of the training and support information across all the Open Science affiliated teams to make it easier to navigate and get your questions answered.

In the past year all of the teams that form part of the office have worked hard on developing new services and making improvements to existing ones.

The Open Access team have been working hard updating RPS and the new Profiles tool to replace IRIS. They also support both Gold and Green Open Access Activity across the university.

Over 18,500 items have been uploaded to UCL Discovery in the last 12 months, bringing the total to over 166,000! Of these, there are over 23,000 theses to be explored. They have also made 3,383 papers Gold OA, 2,700 of which were using our transformative agreements with publishers.

The Research Data Management team have been working hard behind the scenes doing an overhaul of their support materials, testing new materials for training and supporting the ever-growing Research Data Repository.

In the past 12 months we have had over 1000 new datasets from 226 users. Quite notably, we have had over 200,000 downloads which just goes to show the value of sharing your data as well as your other research outputs!

The Citizen Science support service has moved on in leaps and bounds since this time last year, creating content, liaising with colleagues across the university, collaborating to launch the UCL Citizen Science Academy and this week we were able to launch the brand new Citizen Science online community.

Hopefully that gives you a taste of what we have been up to and the numbers of the last year, scroll back through the blog for more information and to get an idea of the detail of what we have been up to. It’s been a great year and here’s to the next!

Happy Open Access Week!

UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship and the local chapter of the UK Reproducibility Network are excited to announce the first Open Science and Scholarship Awards at UCL. UCL has been a pioneer in promoting open science practices, which include Open Access Publishing, Open Data and Software, Transparency, Reproducibility and other Open Methodologies, as well as the creation and use of Open Educational Resources, Citizen Science, Public Involvement, Co-production and Communication.

With these awards, we want to recognise and celebrate all UCL students and staff who embrace, advance, and promote open science.

Who is eligible?

All UCL students (undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and postgraduate research) and staff from any department/discipline, including professional services staff, can apply or be nominated.

Application and Nomination

You can apply or nominate someone else for the award by completing this form. We have kept the form as simple as possible to encourage as many applications as possible. You will be asked to (i) briefly describe the activity (max 200 words) and (ii) explain how the activity has promoted open science (max 300 words) for example by implementing open science practices, enhancing their adoption or impact, using open access resources in research and teaching, or any improvements to open practices.

Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):

• applying open science practices in research
• organising open science training/workshops locally or for a wider audience
• building and coordinating a community around open research practices
• supporting researchers with data management to promote reproducibility
• developing open software and analytical tools
• leading or supporting citizen science initiatives
• authoring or co-authoring open research guidelines, standards, and policies
• designing templates to enable open research practices
• developing open datasets or databases that are used by other researchers
• revise a module’s reading list to rely predominantly on open access resources/textbooks

Award categories

• Use of open access resources, including textbooks
• Activities by students
• Activities by academic staff
• Activities by professional services staff

Prizes

• Winners in each category will be awarded 100GBP as a cash prize as well as a certificate. All winners will be invited to briefly present their research at the Awards ceremony.
• Each category will also name up to two Honourable Mentions that will receive a certificate.

Timeline

Application deadline: Sunday 27 August 2023

Results communicated: Friday 29 September 2023

An award ceremony will take place during the Open Access Week in the third week of October 2023.

Since the UCL’s Office for Open Science and Scholarship founding, the team has been gathering resources to support researchers, academic staff, students, and everyone interested in learning and developing their skills and understandings about Open Science and the transition towards more democratic models to produce and share knowledge in equitable and inclusive ways.

The fast growth of Open practices and their translation into renewed local, regional, and global policies made necessary systematic resource realignments. During the last months, we have committed to re-organise those assets based on the myriad of users and their backgrounds far beyond the academic field, creating our new user-friendly website, ‘Training and Support Resources for Research’. Organised in the following up-to-date categories:

• Advanced Research Computing: practical, hands-on training for various IT skills related to research, including high-performance computing, research software engineering and programming.

• Citizen Science: our brand-new site with information about what UCL is doing in Citizen Science, innovative projects, and UCL’s Citizen Science Academy. Keep an eye on the Open@UCL Blog, where we will soon expand and go deep into the world of Citizen Science!

• UCL Copyright advice: information and assistance by the UCL’s Library Services Copyright Team offers a wide range of copyright issues to UCL students and staff.

• Creating Accessible Content: a compendium of simple steps to make your content more accessible and provide a more inclusive experience for all.

• Doctoral Students Resources: a place for rigorous academic and non-academic creative researchers. Explore the resources and expand your skills to support your research, professional development and employability.

• Information Governance: this site is for all members of UCL who manage highly confidential research information, including principal and chief investigators, staff, students, senior managers, and even those who just supervise people who directly handle confidential information and support staff who do not have direct access to data.

• Bibliometrics support and training: information on training sessions at UCL and external training resources relating to bibliometrics.

• Open Access: designed to help UCL researchers understand how to make publications open access, meet open access requirements, use UCL’s Research Publications Service (RPS) and take advantage of open access funding.

• Research Data Management and Planning: from the initial planning of a project through to archiving and sharing, the research data management team advises the UCL community on managing research outputs – across the research data lifecycle – in line with UCL’s expectations and external funding agencies’ requirements.

• Research Funding Management: learn more about post-award processes through the online training course of the Fundamentals of Research Funding Management.

• Research Integrity: summary of training opportunities currently available for staff and students. This list is not exhaustive and is intended to provide guidance as to options available. It will also be updated so do re-visit this page.

• Research Transparency: research transparency covers how we ensure our research is responsible, reproducible, open and evidence-based.

If you scroll down the website, you will also find UCL’s Organisational Development training, Short Courses and some of UCL’s Communities and Forums that you can join to share your research, get advice and learn something new. We also collated an overview of the Research Support Teams!

Stay tuned to our news, events and training opportunities by subscribing to our mailing list,  following us on Twitter @UCLopenscience, or getting in touch with the Office for Open Science, and one of our teammates will answer as soon as we can!

Thank you so much to everyone that joined our recent conference, whether on campus or online – we had a wonderful time and we hope you did too! We will be posting a report of the workshop portion of the conference soon, as well as some pictures and some responses to your questions that we didn’t get to on the day, but we thought that the recordings should take precedence!

Session 1

View the recording on UCL Media Central

Session 2

View the recording on UCL Media Central

Session 3

View the recording on UCL Media Central

Welcome to the eight 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
• Short update from the Head of the Office for Open Science & Scholarship
• Community voice – Supporting interdisciplinary learning through community-based learning and teaching – the value of open science at UCL East
• Special Feature – UCL Press reaches 7 million downloads!
• Deep Dive – Highlights from the Blog
  • Open Science Conference 2023 – tickets now available!
  • How understanding Copyright helps you open up your research
  • What might a Citizen Science approach in your research project look like?
• News and Events
  • We have a Training & Support Resources for Researchers new page!
  • Indicators of Open Research – UKRN Call for priorities open until the end of April.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Liberating our Library Collections. Visit the new exhibition in UCL Main Library.
• Contact and community call for content

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.”

Post by Marie Dewerpe, Open Access team. Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science.

This blog post relates to personal experiences I have had with open data and open access in genealogy. Besides working as an open access assistant, I am an amateur genealogist. Therefore, I asked myself: what about open access in genealogy?

Family history is bit like a detective work in the archives. You are looking for clues and proof of where your ancestors lived and who they were. To create your family tree, you need to access records. The main records genealogists use are the birth, marriage and death (BMD) and census records collected by the government. They are usually stored by the state at the national, regional or local level.

Depending on the country, the data is archived differently by the civil services. I will be writing about accessing records that do not concern living individuals protected by blanket policies such as the Data Protection Act in the UK.

The field of genealogy has a history of collaboration and volunteering. Fellow genealogists will search on your behalf in exchange for you helping other genealogists. Transcribers, translators and online forums are on hand to provide help. This kind of free support from other genealogists is quite common. But when I started looking into open data and open access in genealogy, I realised there is little information on the topic. From my experience of navigating archives in different countries (France, Estonia and the UK) I also noticed some similarities and disparities in gaining access to genealogical resources.

In France, many genealogical resources are free to access in the public archives. They can be reused under similar terms as the Creative Commons licence. For example, the Office Français De Protection Des Réfugiés Et Apatrides (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) allows the user to reuse their public data with some restrictions, such as respecting the integrity of information. But these resources are not always easily searchable. When they are searchable you often need to use a private company’s database or a local group database. Furthermore, you must subscribe to the volunteer group or a private company in order to access the transcribed data and their searchable database.

In Estonia, documents like birth, marriage and death certificates are available freely. You can also ask the national archives to digitise their physical records for a small fee. After a while these digitised documents are shared on their website and are also freely available. As with France, it is not easy to navigate the resources when you are not literate in classification. But unlike France, some of the archival material is searchable on the National Archives website. Because France and Estonia are part of the European Union, their approach to public data is quite similar.

In the UK almost all “basic” records such as birth, marriage and death certificates are behind a pay wall. You must subscribe to private companies to access what is available freely to those based in other countries. The information includes census, birth, marriage and death records. Having to pay for these records no doubt affects who can access the genealogical resources. Local libraries facilitate access to family histories, but they also have to subscribe to databases that are originally stored by public entities like the National Archives, but are managed by private companies.

I found one initiative, FreeUKGenealogy, which supports free access to genealogy data without restrictions on its use. As explained on their website, they want to bypass pay walls and allow users to access public data.

To sum up this exploration of open data and open access in genealogy, there are differences in access levels from country to country. When in France and Estonia, the records are freely accessible, in the UK you need to subscribe to private companies. However, free access does not mean easy access. Indeed, it is difficult to use the material without proficiency in archiving. In France, you have the option to access searchable databases, but there are fees involved. These current limitations place financial and knowledgeable barriers on those who wish to consult and use the records. This is where initiatives like FreeUKGenealogy are extremely useful.

Here are some free resources on getting started in genealogy:

https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/getting-started/best-free-genealogy-websites/

https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/other-data-providers/ready-made-statistics/genealogy/

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/non-conformist-records

More resources:

https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/reproduction-of-birth-death-marriage-certificates.pdf

https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/brick-walls-and-lost-ancestors/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/the-open-source-show/using-open-data-to-build-family-trees

https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/

https://www.ra.ee/vau/index.php/en

https://www.ra.ee/en/the-national-archives-of-estonia-100/

For more information on open data in France, here is a fascinating paper:

https://doi.org/10.4000/communicationorganisation.6766