2022 sees the start of the new UKRI policy, and big changes for researchers whose work is funded by the UK Research Councils. By April, when the policy starts, all UK Research Council PIs, and in fact anyone whose papers include funding from one of the UK Research Councils, need to understand how the policy will affect them. Submitting and corresponding authors need to take particular note of the requirements before making any new submissions after 1 April.

Why not come to one of our UCL-wide briefing sessions to find out more? Register for a session below, or read on for information about what they’ll cover.

• UKRI open access policy briefing (Zoom): 10 February 1-2pm Register for 10 February
• UKRI open access policy briefing (Zoom): 22 February 1-2pm Register for 22 February

The new UKRI policy applies to articles (and, from 1 January 2024, monographs) funded by AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, Innovate UK, MRC, NERC or STFC. At its heart is the requirement to make research articles, reviews and conference papers open access as soon as they’re published, under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY)* – and monographs, book chapters and edited collections open access 12 months after publication under a CC licence. However, there are different ways of meeting this requirement, depending on where you publish.

*a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-ND) may be requested for journal articles.

Following their popular briefing in Open Access Week last October, Catherine Sharp (Head of Open Access Services) and Lara Speicher (Head of Publishing, UCL Press) will be running two more briefings on the policy this term. These sessions will cover the key policy requirements, but will also include practical advice and guidance that’s been developed in recent months. Catherine and Lara will discuss compliant and non-compliant publishing routes for journal articles and conference papers, as well as UKRI’s requirements for monographs. They will explain how you can get funding to publish in fully open access journals, who can use UCL’s transformative agreements (including new agreements for 2022), and what to do if you want to publish in a non-compliant journal.

These are repeat sessions. They will cover the same content as the department briefings that we’ve been giving recently, but we will have more time to discuss specific publishers and the wider implications of the policy, to hear your thoughts and to answer questions. If you’ve attended a presentation recently, you’re still welcome to come along for a refresher, and to raise any questions. We’re also happy to answer questions about the Wellcome policy, and the new Cancer Research UK and NIHR open access policies.

We look forward to seeing you there.

• UKRI open access policy briefing: 10 February 1-2pm Register for 10 February
• UKRI open access policy briefing: 22 February 1-2pm Register for 22 February

The UCL Festival of Code (14-18 June 2021) celebrates the contribution software and coding communities make to research and innovation.  Register for the opportunity to learn new skills, tools and insights, as well as to build your network across UCL. The nine events include interactive workshops, a hackathon, panel discussions, speakers and competitions. The Festival brings together academics, researchers, technical professionals and students to Celebrate Communities, Explore Open Science, Create Impact, discover R Projects and participate in a collaborative Hackday! Its going to be a great week –  Book your spot online.

We would like to especially highlight Tuesday 15th June 2021, where the festival will be Exploring Open Science, and the day will be opened by Dr Paul Ayris (Head of the UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship).

10:00 – 11:00  An Introduction to Open Science Practices: From Code to Data and Beyond

Find out about the benefits of open science and explore practices of code and data sharing, replications, as well as open access publishing. Learn about tools/platforms which can help you to embed open science in your work flow.

Organised by Dr Sandy Schumann (UCL Department of Security and Crime Science) | UCL JDI Open | @JDI_Open

11:15 – 12:15  Code sharing as an Early Career Researcher: the good, the bad and the ugly

Join us to discuss the benefits and barriers to code sharing for Early Career Researchers, get practical advice about how to do it (e.g. via GitHub), and explore ways it can be encouraged at UCL.

Organised by Louise McGrath-Lone (Institute of Health Informatics), Ania Zylbersztejn, Rachel Pearson ( bothGOS Institute of Child Health) | UCL Code Club | @UCL_CodeClub

14:00 – 16:00   Use of Docker for Efficient Software Development & Reproducible Research

A valid piece of code can produce different results based on its computational environment, libraries and other dependences. Join this interactive workshop to learn how to use Docker to overcome these issues and improve the reproducibility of your research.

Organised by Mian Ahmad | UCL Computer Science Technical Support Group | Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences

The Festival is coordinated by the UCL eResearch Domain and we would like to thank our colleagues from across UCL who have organised these events.

The UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship is designed to create a virtual body which can work with academic colleagues, departments, and research groups to develop and publicise all our Open Science activities across the institution. The Office’s website has a section on Community and Support and this is the place where we hope to reach out to Open Science & Scholarship communities across the whole of UCL, to engage with them and to help create a UCL-wide community of Open Science Practice.

The Office for Open Science and Scholarship will be launched in two phases. The soft launch at the start of the academic year 2020-2021, and a full launch with a week of events timetabled for Open Access week, 19-23 October. The full schedule can be found with sign up links below! If you are planning something for Open Access week please let us know at openscience@ucl.ac.uk.

Launch week events

During the week of 19th October, we are going to be launching the Office for Open Science and Scholarship with a week of events celebrating all of the aspects of Open Science and coinciding with International Open Access week – some events are open to UCL members only, please see below for details.

There are no costs for attendance but we are asking people to sign up so that we can share the links and keep track of numbers for the Drop-in events.

Monday 19th October

• UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship Launch – Lunchtime Webinar: 1-2pm

Join the Head of the Office for Open Science and Scholarship, Dr Paul Ayris, and a number of teams from across the university to celebrate the next steps in Open Science support at UCL. This webinar will tell you all you need to know about the new office, and what it can do to support you to embrace Open Science and Scholarship in your work.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session – Now Open to non-UCL bookings

• ReproHack @ UCL – Introductory session 2-4pm

A ReproHack is a hands-on reproducibility hackathon where participants attempt to reproduce the results of a research paper from published code and data and share their experiences with the group and the papers authors. During this week you will learn how to implement better reproducibility practices into your research and appreciate the high value of sharing code for Open Science. This event is open to all domains, all we need is a published paper that has included some code with it. During this week we will try to reproduce papers you propose in small teams, supported by members of the Research Software Development Group and RITS. On Friday afternoon we will have a catch-up session to show how each team did and to share experiences.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session!

Tuesday 20th October

• Introduction to InCites – 11am-12noon

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session

• OA Week: Ask UCL’s Open Access Team – 2.30-3.30 pm

This event, for UCL researchers, is an opportunity to ask questions about the new open access funding arrangements, including transformative agreements, that UCL has introduced this year, and to make sure that you’re confident about the open access requirements that affect you. Researchers are encouraged to submit questions in advance.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session

• RELIEF Centre Launch: Hamra (Beirut), Neighbourhood Profile and Prosperity Interventions – 11am-1pm

RELIEF Centre and UN-Habitat Lebanon present a new neighbourhood profile for Hamra, Beirut. Through participatory citizen science research, the Hamra Neighbourhood Profile offers original spatialized data and analysis on the living conditions in one of the most culturally diverse neighbourhoods in Lebanon

Join us for the launch of this incredible new data resource. Hear from UN-Habitat and RELIEF Centre researchers on the purpose and process of creating the profile. Drawing on the profile’s data, RELIEF citizen scientists will also present three neighbourhood interventions and lead a discussion on how multisectoral and multicohort data from profiles can inform integrated programming for neighbourhoods in ways that can benefit all residents in the long term.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session – Open to non-UCL bookings

Wednesday 21st October

• Introduction to Citizen Science at UCL – Lunchtime Webinar: 1-2pm

One of the eight pillars of Open Science, Citizen Science is a rapidly developing area full of exciting opportunities to try something new with your research. Join us and find out more about Citizen Science, what you can use it for, and how to get started using it in your own research, as well as showcasing examples from across UCL. Featuring an introduction to Citizen Science and lightning talks from across the university, we aim to show you the breadth of possibilities and hope that you will be able to join the discussion, learn about Citizen Science, and get some ideas for your next project!

Sign up via Eventbrite to get a link to join the session – Now Open to non-UCL bookings

• UCL Press and OA Monograph publishing: A drop-in session for prospective authors: 3-4pm

This session will be an opportunity to meet with commissioning editors and other staff from UCL Press who will describe the benefits of publishing OA and the global reach that can be achieved through its extensive OA dissemination and marketing activities. Commissioning editors will also be on hand to discuss new book proposals and the submissions process.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session

Thursday 22nd October

• OA Week: Research Data Management Team Drop-in Q&A session: 3-4pm

Join the Research Data Management team to get an overview of their work and ask all of your questions about how to manage, publish and archive all kinds of data, materials and other outputs of research projects.

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session

Friday 23rd October

• UCL Press: Author Experiences of publishing OA books: Lunchtime Webinar: 1-2pm

Join UCL Press authors to explore how their experiences of publishing have changed their perspective on open access books.
Confirmed participants include:

• Professor Eleanor Robson (UCL History), author of Ancient Knowledge Networks: A Social Geography of Cuneiform Scholarship in First-Millennium Assyria and Babylonia (UCL Press)
• Professor Bob Sheil (Bartlett School of Architecture), editor of the Fabricate series

Sign up via Eventbrite to receive a link to join the session – Now Open to non-UCL bookings

• ReproHack closing session – 3-4pm

See full details on Monday for how to get involved.

Last year in June UCL held the first Open Science Day, attended by over sixty people. This one day workshop provided an opportunity to ask for practical advice and to discuss different aspects of Open Science in a greater detail. Following its success, booking is now open for the second Open Science Day that takes place on Thursday 23rd May, at UCL Institute of Education (Logan Hall).

This one day workshop will explore the facets of Open Science and how these are, or could be, pursued by UCL researchers. In the morning speakers will discuss different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science. Afternoon workshops will offer practical advice on Software Carpentry, Citizen Science, GDPR and Open Education. There will also be opportunity to discuss the steps UCL should take to support Open Science.

Morning sessions include:

• Open Pharma – Prof. Matt Todd, UCL School of Pharmacy
• Research Evaluation and DORA – Prof. Steven Curry, Imperial College
• Reproducible Research Oxford – Dr. Laura Fortunato, University of Oxford
• Digital Science – Speaker TBC

The afternoon workshops will cover:

• Scholarly Communication: megajournals and measuring impact – The recently-launched UCL Press megajournal is an an example of how new models of publishing can be used to support open science. This workshop will outline the work done by the megajournal and some of the issues around measuring the impact of open publications, with contributions from members of the editorial board.
• Software Carpentry. Taster session – Software Carpentry is a project dedicated to teaching researchers basic computing skills such as like program design, version control, testing, and task automation. This is a short taster session to introduce the program and give an idea of what is available.
• Citizen Science discussion – Citizen Science is a fundamental element of many open science programs, and is part of a broader move to link research with wider society. Universities are having to develop new ways to support this work, with new processes and services.
• GDPR and opening data – One of the biggest issues surrounding making research data openly available is the protection of personal information. This workshop, delivered by the UK Data Archive, will discuss how the goal of openness can be balanced with the need for protection, particularly in the light of new and more stringent regulations.
• On the Trail of Open Education Policy Co-creation – This workshop looks at developing policies which can be used to support open education and open science, considering different issues and contexts, and the various interested parties.

And close with a discussion on building open science communities, with UCL researchers Isabelle Van Der Vegt, Dr. Sandy Schumann, Dr. Ben Thomas, and Dr. Vaughan Bell.

This free event is open to all and is delivered by UCL Library Services with support from UCL Organisational Development.

You can register via Eventbrite here.

For any questions please contact lib-researchsupport@ucl.ac.uk

This summer saw the second FORCE 11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) held at the University of California, San Diego, which I had an amazing opportunity to attend. Participants of the FORCE 11 summer camp selected three courses from an extensive course list; morning classes ran through the whole week, afternoon ones took place over two days.

Open South: The Open Science Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean

For my first afternoon course, held on Monday and Tuesday, I attended the workshop Open South: The Open Science Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was taught by a group of librarians and researchers: Gimena del Rio Riande, Researcher from Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas y Crítica Textual (IIBICRIT), April M. Hathcock, Scholarly Communication Librarian from New York University, Wouter Schallier, Director of Hernán Santa Cruz Library and Daniel O’Donnell, Professor of English at University of Lethbridge, Canada.

We learnt about the long history of Open Science in Latin America and the Carribean, and discussed national laws in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru that seek to make scientific knowledge produced with public funds openly available. The instructors also highlighted regional projects such as Scielo (collection of open access journals from 14 countries) and redalyc.org (another platform of open access journals, created by Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México). The projects play an important role in making open access the most established communication model in the region.

At the end of the workshop we discussed how to make the Open Access movement more inclusive, how to bridge the gap between the Global North and the Global South. The classes made me reflect on how limited my view of Open Science was, and I realised rich the movement is outside of Europe and North America. One of more interesting initiatives is South-South Programme ran by CLASCO that integrates a network of researchers from the Global South.

Public Humanities as Scholarly Communication – brainstorming

Micah Vandegrift, Open Knowledge Librarian at North Carolina State University and Samantha Wallace, PhD candidate in English at University of Virginia led my Wednesday – Thursday workshop on Public Humanities as Scholarly Communication. Discussion in the class focused on two texts: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Giving it Away: Sharing and the Future of Scholarly Communication and Sidonie Smith, Manifesto for the Humanities: Transforming Doctoral Education in Good Enough Times.

The class turned into a brainstorming exercise; we are used to discussing Digital Humanities, but Public Humanities go further than Digital Humanities and securing Open Access for publications. There was a long and thought provoking discussion on nature of humanities, and the public, where we reflected on the role of the public in public humanities, and how public is intrinsic to humanities. The discussion in turn led to creating a new framework for public humanities, aligned with citizen science, and that would engage public and communities. Further reflections on the class from one of the instructors, Micah Vandergrift, are available here.

This summer saw the second FORCE 11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) held at the University of California, San Diego, which I had an amazing opportunity to attend. Participants of the FORCE 11 summer camp selected three courses from an extensive course list; morning classes ran through the whole week, afternoon ones took place over two days.

Geisel Library – Main Library of UCSD

In the mornings I attended Data in the Scholarly Communications Life Cycle workshops. The class was expertly and entertainingly* run by Natasha Simmons, Program Leader, Skills Policy and Resources at Australian National Data Service (ANDS). The course was structured on the 23 (research data) Things, a self-directed learning programme developed by ANDS, suitable for everyone, regardless of their skills and prior knowledge. The programme is full of resources and fascinating data, have a look yourself here.

We started with an introduction to research data (of course!) and discussed data in the scholarly communications lifecycle – this offers a framework for understanding research processes, and a good (interactive) example is available here. We also talked about data sharing models, and challenges around data sharing.

For Tuesday’s session Natasha invited Stephanie Simms from California Digital Library, who presented an introduction to data management plans and DMPonline tool. We also heard some open data stories, from Australia Telescope National Facility that makes available images of the sky collected at the facility, and from The PetaJakarta Data Sharing Project that gathers data from social media (in this case Twitter) to collect information about flooding in Jakarta.

On Wednesday Reid Otsuji from UC San Diego talked about the Open Science Framework and The Carpentries – a way of acquiring new coding and data skills for researchers and librarians. We also talked about making research data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and used FAIR data assessment tool to look at some openly available data. This provoked a discussion on how easy it is to make research data FAIR (not that easy!) and how institutions could provide the infrastructure and support that are required.

Data in the Scholarly Communications Life Cycle – Open Data Debate

The following morning we had guest speakers from UC Berkley, Rachael Samberg and Maria Gould, who presented on licensing research data. This was an extremely interesting talk, and discussed copyright and licencing of data both generated and used by researchers. Later in class we discussed issues around personal and sensitive data. On Friday Gustavo Durand introduced Dataverse – an open source platform developed at Harvard that allows researchers to publish, cite and archive their research data. At the end of the workshop Natasha introduced persistent identifiers and their use in data citation, and we explored different citation styles.

Hands on exercises throughout the course allowed me to experience working with research data, and see issues around data managment from researcher’s perspective. Guest speakers provided me with an opportunity to gain expert insight into many aspects of research data management, and the course structure allowed for numerous discussion and debates. This in turn made me reflect on how nuanced managing research data can be, not only when it comes to copyright and licencing.

*I learnt a lot about Australian wildlife too!