The call for Open Access to research

Progress on sharing research has been gradual since the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2006) and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – or DORA (2012).  Last year’s publication of Open Science and its role in universities: a roadmap for cultural change by LERU, lead-authored by Dr Paul Ayris, has helped shift the debate from theory to practice.  In September 2018, cOAlition S – a consortium of 12 European research funders – called for public-funded research to be published in compliant Open Access (OA) journals or platforms by 1 January 2020. The resulting guidance document, Plan S: Making full & immediate Open Access a reality, has been largely welcomed by the research community for its 10 principles:

Plan S principles:

1. the author retains unrestricted copyright – a Creative Commons licence where possible
2. robust criteria and requirements are in place for OA journal and platform services
3. funders collaboratively establish and support OA journals and infrastructures
4. funders or universities cover OA publication fees, not individuals as a rule
5. standardised funding and capping of OA fees apply across Europe
6. universities, research organisations and libraries align their policies and strategies
7. monograph and book publishing practices will require more time to change
8. open archives and repositories are important
9. hybrid Open Access models are NOT compatible with these principles
10. funders will monitor compliance and sanction non-compliance

The UCL response to Plan S

Published January 2019, the UCL response to Plan S fully endorses Open Access in scholarly publishing, calling for “a wholesale rethink of the strategy and timelines for moving to 100% Open Access”, with:

• more engagement with universities, learned societies and researchers before implementation
• more detail on how Open Access publishing could work in different subject disciplines
• a more realistic timeline of years not months to allow universities to apply DORA recommendations and set up appointment and promotions frameworks
• more detail and thought on how publishing fees and Article Processing Charges (APCs) could work, with a risk assessment
• worldwide engagement, as Europe is too small a player to make global changes

 

Draft UCL statement on reproducibility

On 10 April, UCL colleagues met for a UCL Research Reproducibility Town Hall discussion on the approach and actions needed to improve research standards through replicability.  Under specific discussion was a draft UCL statement on reproducibility in research.  Email contact: ovpr@ucl.ac.uk

 

UCL Open Science Day 23 May

Join us on Thursday 23 May 2019 9.30 – 4pm

Logan Hall, Institute of Education (IOE), 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL View Map

This free UCL Library workshop will “explore the facets of Open Science and how these are, or could be, pursued by UCL researchers”, with morning discussions and afternoon workshops offering practical advice.

Morning talks include Registered Reports and the UKRN – Prof Chris Chambers (Cardiff University), cognitive neuroscientist, expert in registered reports and co-founder of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN).

 

Join UCL Reproducibility

Subscribe to the UCL reproducibility mailing list for news and updates, invitations to contribute and training opportunities. 

The next talk is on Thursday 23 May and part of the UCL Open Science Day 2019

Attend a Reproducibilitea talk

See more information and 2019 ReproducibiliTea UCL topics and dates.

Colleagues from all disciplines, sceptics and non-UCL, welcome.

ReproducibiliTea UCL talks so far:

1. Nosek et al: ‘Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science‘ (Science, 2015)
2. Marcus Munafò et al: ‘A Manifesto for Reproducible Science‘ (2017)
3. Halsey et al: The Fickle p Generates Irreproducible Results (2015)

The ReproducibiliTea journal club is supported by the UCL Researcher-led Initiative Award, and the UK Reproducibility Network has helped to spread the club to a number of universities.

 

UCL Open Access policy development:

• UCL Statement on Research Integrity
• UCL Code of Conduct for Research
• UCL’s response to Plan S
• UCL Plan S Town Hall meeting January 2019 (blog)
• UCL Open Access blogs on Plan S
• Wellcome Trust Response to UCL Response to Plan S

Key documents in the Open Scholarship movement

• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2006)
• San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
• Plan S: Making full & immediate Open Access a reality
• LERU policy paper on open science

Media articles

• How do you deal with a problem like reproducibility? (Marcus Munafò, Jisc blog)
• From coalition to commons: Plan S and the future of scholarly communication (Insights article)  
• Plan T: Scrap APCs and fund Open Access with Submission Fees (The Scholarly Kitchen article)
• Most plan S principles are not contentious (Cambridge University blog)
• Implementing publisher policies (Insights case study)
• Reddit feeds on Open Access

Resources

• FOSTER Open Science e-learning resources

This blog was updated 12 June

Perspectives for Open Education at UCL

The UCL Open Education project recently hosted Opening UCL, a symposium on Open Education to explore the current landscape in open education practice in higher education. Some highlights include:

• Innovative Open Educational Resources (OERs):  MOOCs (such as 23 Things) and interactive classroom surveys were showcased by Edinburgh and the Open University
• The Open Knowledge Foundation explained how open education is a global social and ethical imperative, how it can enrich research, and How to make data open
• Radiopaedia illustrates how online textbooks have the edge over paper versions, and can be open to all, easy to update and free for less wealthy countries
• UCL Arts and Sciences undergraduates and their tutor described how cross-discipline research honed research and meta skills, with a Wikibooks entry as the output.

OER were shown to foster learning, digital literacy, creativity, student engagement, and collaboration across disciplines.

UCL Library Services and Digital Education, co-hosts, introduced the UCL Roadmap for Open Education.  By 2021, open education will be embedded within the UCL community via supporting policies, infrastructure, and a connected curriculum of research-based teaching frameworks and student-generated research, to include:

• UCL Open: Environment, the new megajournal
• an open education resources repository
• UCL Press, the UK’s first open access university press, nearing 2 million downloads

Also read a full account of Opening UCL by Susan Koseoglu, Goldsmiths College.

Further Reading

• A Connected Curriculum, Dilly Fung, UCL Press
• The Battle for Open, Martin Weller, the Open University
• News article: UCL Open Access Megajournal Starts Taking Submissions

Why preserve software?

Digital preservation tends to focus on making data or digital objects open, FAIR and in the correct format for future use. But what about the software applications needed to store, retrieve and manipulate these data? Operating systems, hardware, licences and web hosting organisations all change over time.  So, good research requires us to understand and preserve the software supporting our research data.