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

The 4th international Love Data Week is celebrated across the world between the 11 and 15/02/2019. Free events are taking place in London and the UK, including:

• The Birkbeck Library will run many sessions, open to all; topics include: Data Management Plans, NVivo, Open data and the GDPR. See full list of events and registration.
• The University of Liverpool Library and the LJMU Library also have several events on topics such as publishing and Gale Digital Scholar Lab. See full list

And as usual, the UK Data Service will be running free webinars about data management, finding and re-using data.

More events are taking place across the world, follow #lovedata19 for updates!

This regular training course introduces PhD students to research support available during the course of their studies. It is relevant for all PhD students, whatever the stage reached in their project and is applicable to all disciplines.

The half-day session focuses on Research Integrity, Research Data Management, Data Protection, Research Ethics, Open Access and Research IT. The course highlights good practices in these areas, explains the expectations of researchers and points them to relevant UCL support services.

The next session will take place on Wednesday 30/01/2019 (2-5pm).

Booking information is available on the Doctoral Skills Development Programme website.

As part of open access week 2018 (22nd-28th October 2018), UCL Library services have organised a series of events covering open access, REF, RPS, data sharing and Open Science. These events include training sessions, film screenings and drop-ins.

The Research Data Support team will be running a lunchtime session on the most effective ways to share your research data.

The first half of the session will give researchers an introduction to the principles and practicalities involved in data sharing. It will also seek to outline the principles of FAIR data and how this relates to the production and use of data over the research lifecycle.

During the second half of the session, UCL’s Research Data Management team and Open Access team will host a drop-in to help answer any questions about sharing research data, Open Access Publishing, RPS or Open Science.

This session will take place on the 25th of October between 13.00-14.00 in the Common Ground, Institute of Advanced Studies, South Wing, UCL Main Building (www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/south-wing).

An Eventbrite listing is available but you don’t need to register to attend.

Full listings and further details of all the events organised as part of open access week at UCL can be found on the open access blog.

Free event for UCL researchers and staff.

This one day workshop will explore the facets of Open Science and how these are/could be pursued by UCL researcher. In the morning speakers will discuss different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science with afternoon workshops offering practical advice. There will also be opportunity to discuss the steps UCL should take to support Open Science. This free event will be open to all UCL staff and is delivered by UCL Library Services with support from UCL Organisational Development.

Speakers include:

• Prof. David Price, Vice-Provost (Research), UCL
• Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost, UCL Library Services
• Catriona MacCallum, Director of Open Science, Hindawi
• Emily Sena, University of Edinburgh
• James Wilsdon, University of Sheffield
• Simon Hettrick, Sustainable Software Institute

Afternoon workshops will cover:

• How do we make Open the default at UCL
• How to make your data open (and FAIR)?
• Citizen Science
• Open Peer review
• Open Education

Registration available via Eventbrite. Please contact lib-researchsupport@ucl.ac.uk with any questions.

This regular training course introduces PhD students to research support available during the course of their studies. It is relevant for all PhD students, whatever the stage reached in their project and is applicable to all disciplines.

The half-day session focuses on Research Integrity, Research Data Management, Data Protection, Research Ethics, Open Access and Research IT. The course highlights good practices in these areas, explains the expectations of researchers and points them to relevant UCL support services.

The last session of this academic year will take place on Tuesday 24/04 (10am-1pm).

Booking information is available on the Doctoral Skills Development Programme website.

This regular training course introduces PhD students to research support available during the course of their studies. It is relevant for all PhD students, whatever the stage reached in their project and is applicable to all disciplines.

Each half-day session focuses on Research Integrity, Research Data Management, Data Protection, Research Ethics, Open Access and Research IT. The course highlights good practices in these areas, explains the expectations of researchers and points them to relevant UCL support services.

Two sessions will take place in Term 2: on Wednesdays 07/02 and 21/03 (2-5pm).

Booking information is available on the Doctoral Skills Development Programme website.

Two upcoming events organised by Open Research London exploring open science/research are open for booking:

The first event is taking place on the 21st of November and is a satellite event of the OpenCon 2017 conference. During the day there will be a ‘hackathon’ focusing on the themes of ‘Open for reproducibility’ and ‘Open for collaborative-coding’. You can find more information and book here. In the evening of the 21st, there will be a number of talks on open access and open science. Further information and booking here.

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Registration is now open for the next Better Science through Better Data event organised by the Wellcome Trust and Springer Nature. The papers, lightening talks and demos will focus on the benefits, unintended consequences and practicalities of managing and publishing research data.

This event is open to staff and students; it will take place in the Wellcome Collection building.

See more information and how to register.  

This regular training course introduces PhD students to research support available during the course of their studies.

It is relevant for all PhD students, whatever the stage reached in their project and is applicable to all disciplines.

Each half-day session focuses on Research Integrity, Research Data Management, Data Protection, Research Ethics, Open Access and Research IT. It highlights good practices in these areas, as well as explain the expectations of researchers.

The last session of the academic year will be held on Tuesday 2nd of May (10am-1pm). More dates will be available in the next academic year.

Booking information is available on the Doctoral Skills Development Programme website.