Author Archives: Megan Loveys

About Megan Loveys

Research Support Officer at the Open University.

How do researchers view the research environment and culture? A survey

The University of Bristol are conducting a survey in collaboration with Jisc and UKRI to better understand how researchers view aspects of the research environment and culture. This is a short, anonymous survey asking questions about researcher experiences and views of research culture and practises.

By filling out this survey, you will provide valuable insight into current perceptions around research culture, which will in turn serve to guide future decision making.

The survey is open to anyone who has worked on at least one research project that was published. The results will be published and circulated once they have been collated.

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

ACS Publications announces a series of webinars to celebrate International Open Access Week!

International Open Access Week 2022 will bring together researchers, funders, institutions, librarians, publishers, and open access advocates in a week-long webinar series. Participants will learn about the latest developments in open access publishing from speakers at every stage in the academic publishing community. Below is a list of webinars and virtual events you may be interested in:

Monday, October 24, 2022

Mythbusting Open Access in the Chemical Sciences

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EDT / 15:00 PM – 16:00 PM BST

Open access is an important part of reaching the widest possible audience with your research, but you may have heard conflicting information about the process and the benefits for choosing open access. This session aims to provide researchers with a primer on the differences between open access and subscription-based journals, and information that dispels some of the enduring myths surrounding OA.

  • Sybille Geisenheyner, Director, Open Access Strategy & Licensing, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Prof. Lynn Kamerlin, Chair in Molecular Design, Georgia Tech View Bio
  • Dr. Laura Fisher, Executive Editor, RSC Advances, Royal Society of Chemistry View Bio

VIEW AGENDA

The Role of Institutions in Fostering a Climate of Open Science

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT / 16:00 PM – 17:00 PM BST

Co-Sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Information

Open science is about more than just open access. This session looks at the various pillars of open science – including open data and open peer review – with presentations from a variety of speakers on how institutions are fostering a climate of open science in their research communities.

  • Angie Hunter, Development Editor, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Gemma Solomon, Professor, University of Copenhagen View Bio
  • Chris Banks, FRSA, Director of Library Services, Imperial College London View Bio
  • Dr. Ye Li, Librarian for Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, MIT Libraries View Bio

VIEW AGENDA

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Understanding Copyright for Researchers

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT / 17:00 PM – 18:00 PM BS

Do you know your BYs from your BY-NC-NDs? Choosing a copyright license for your work can be tricky, especially when your institution or license funder may have particular rules that they expect you to follow. This session provides a brief overview of the common license types you’ll encounter when publishing your work open access; highlights when, where, and why these licenses might be used; and provides you with tools to identify how you can comply with institutional and funder mandates.

  • Sybille Geisenheyner, Director, Open Access Strategy & Licensing, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Eric Slater, Senior Manager, Copyright, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Roy Kaufman, Managing Director, Business Development, Copyright Clearance Center View Bio

VIEW AGENDA

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Open Access for Early Career Researchers

7:00 AM – 8:00 AM EDT / 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM BST

Publishing open access for the first time can be a whirlwind for early career researchers. There’s a lot to consider, from identifying the best OA journal for your research through to compliance with any requirements set in place by your research institution or funder. This session provides a brief overview of the open access publishing process from start to finish, led by an experienced researcher.

  • Dr. Greco Gonzalez Miera, Managing Editor, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Prof. Sabine Flitsch, Chair in Chemical Biology, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology View Bio

VIEW AGENDA

Friday, October 28, 2022

Preprints in Chemistry – Now and Next

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EDT / 15:00 PM – 16:00 PM BST

Compared to other fields of research, chemistry has been relatively slow to adopt preprints – but the significant growth in the number of articles posted to ChemRxiv over the past five years indicates that attitudes are changing. This session looks at how ChemRxiv has grown and new developments that will benefit researchers and institutions alike.

  • Dr. Ben Mudrak, Senior Product Manager, ChemRxiv, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Dr. Neil Hammond, Open Access Publisher, Royal Society of Chemistry View Bio
  • Dr. Lynn Kamerlin, Chair in Molecular Design, Georgia Tech View Bio
  • Prof. Wolfram Koch, Executive Director, GDCh View Bio

VIEW AGENDA

The OSTP Memo and its Impact on Chemistry

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT / 16:00 PM – 17:00 PM BST

Co-Sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Information

The OSTP ‘Nelson Memo’ sets an ambitious goal for research funders in the US: ensure free and immediate access to all grantees’ published research, beginning no later than January 1 2026. The implications of the memo are wide-ranging and will significantly impact all chemistry researchers in the United States.

This session brings together diverse viewpoints to discuss how the OSTP memo, the ensuing funder mandates, and publishers’ responses will shape the future of chemistry publishing.

  • Dr. Jim Milne, President, ACS Publications, American Chemical Society View Bio
  • Dr. Michele Avissar-Whiting, Program Manager for Open Science Strategy, HHMI View Bio
  • Dr. Yulia Sevryugina, Chemistry Librarian, University of Michigan View Bio
  • Dr. Jessica Tucker, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Science Policy, National Institutes of Health View Bio

Apply today for the BioInnovation Institute and Science Prize for Innovation!

Just under 2 weeks left to apply for the BioInnovation Institute and Science Prize for Innovation!

Behind every life-changing solution is an entrepreneurial scientist – a creative mind who proved an idea in the lab and dared to carry it out in the world.

To encourage more scientists to translate their research, BioInnovation Institute (BII) and Science collaborate to host an annual award. Through the BioInnovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation, the editors of Science seek to recognize bold researchers who are asking fundamental questions at the intersection of the life sciences and entrepreneurship.

The three winners will have their essays published in Science and will be invited into BII’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. In addition, the Grand Prize winner will receive a prize of USD 25,000 and each runner-up will receive USD 10,000 at a grand award ceremony in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The call for applications closes on 1 November 2022. Head over to their website to read more about how to submit your 1000-word essay to the editors at Science.

 

Questionnaire for researchers on PIDs

If you’ve got 12 minutes to spare, please help our colleagues at the University of Strathclyde in filling out this questionnaire 🙂

The aim of the questionnaire is to better understand user perceptions of persistent identifiers (PIDs). They are principally concerned with researchers outside those working in repositories, scholarly communications, etc. and are looking for research active staff to complete.

https://strath.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bCmMiz8rc6CMMMC

Findings arising from this questionnaire will be published openly and data deposited. But more importantly, it should help the community determine the ‘digital scholar’ training priorities for academic staff, which is the underlying aim of the work.

New ORCID and ORDO Integration

As of September 2021, Figshare and ORCID have a new integration with significantly improved functionality. We’ve updated our webpage to give you all the details but here are the main points you need to know –

First you’ll need to connect your ORDO profile to your ORCID account. In order to do this, please follow these steps:

  • In your profile page in ORDO (pictured), click the CONNECT button to enable syncing with your ORCiD
  • This will take you to ORCID. Log in and click to authorise ORDO/Figshare to access your ORCiD account

You’ll then be presented with 3 options, all off by default.

FAQs

1. Push data to my ORCID

This option creates a record in your ORCID account of any items that you publish on ORDO. This will create a record using the base DOI only, versioned DOIs are omitted. The base DOI will always point to the latest version of your item. This long-requested functionality avoids the issue of significant duplicate entries within your ORCID account.

An important note, if you have a synchronisation set up from a DOI provider like Datacite and you enable this option, there is a chance you’ll get duplicate records in your ORCID account.

This feature will only kick in for items created after the integration has been performed. Any existing items in your ORDO account will not be pushed using this method. If you need to get historic items into your ORCID account and they have not been captured by the existing Datacite integration, this will need to be done manually.

2. Pull data from my ORCID to my ORDO account

This one is all about your ORDO profile and your profile only. Nothing imported here will interact with your My Data area (that’s where option 3 comes in).

This will import everything in your ORCID works section to the publications area of your ORDO profile. Unlike the previous setting, this will import everything before the integration was performed as well as anything created ongoing.

3. Create draft records from my ORCID data

After the integration has occurred, any new records created within the works section of your ORCID account will automatically create a new draft metadata record within your My Data area. As much available metadata as possible will be pulled in, and this option will also create the metadata record with the DOI of the original object.

Once a new draft item has been created from this integration, you’ll get two kinds of notifications: an email to your account email address and a notification within the platform. You can then choose to add a file for this record, such as an open access version of a publication, and any additional metadata or delete the draft record if it’s not needed.

Please note: Usually, open access versions of publications should be added to ORO rather than ORDO, however there may be reasons for adding a metadata record for a paper published elsewhere to ORDO (e.g. for gathering evidence of knowledge exchange/impact) – if you are unsure, please contact the Library Research Support team for advice.

For further information and answers to some FAQs head over to our webpage.

New Subscription to Overton!

The OU Library now has a subscription to Overton!

Our mission is to help users find, understand, and measure their influence on government policy – Overton.

Overton is the world’s largest searchable policy database. It includes access to over 5 million policy documents and guidelines from over 29,000 organisations in over 185 countries which then link them to the research, people and other policy documents that they quote or reference.

It can be accessed via the Library database A-Z list Databases | Library Services | Open University.

To save searches, tag or bookmark items you will need to create an account. For further information or help please contact us here. 

HAPPY LOVE DATA WEEK

Love Data Week is an international celebration of data, with the goal of raising awareness and building a community to engage on topics such as research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse, dissemination, and library-based research data services.

This year’s events are based loosely on the theme “Data is for everyone.” The hashtag is #LoveData22.

The OU Library are hosting some fun activities and events to commemorate Love Data Week (14-18 February 2022).

1. ORDO Treasure Hunt (ongoing for the duration of Love Data Week)

To take part you need to answer a range of questions using ORDO to find the answers. Once all the clues have been solved you will be able to access a surprise. Follow this link to start the hunt.

2. Upload competition (for the duration of Love Data Week)

This competition opened shortly after midnight today (14 February 2022). It will close at midnight on Friday 18 February 2022. For your entry to be valid, all data must be uploaded and published on The Open University’s Open Research Data Online (ORDO) repository between Monday 14 February 2022 and Friday 18 February 2022. All entries are free. Competition winners will receive their prizes by post.

3. POSTPONED due to the UCU strike. The Speed Data-ing webinar will now take place on the 7th March 12-12.45pm. Click the link for more details and how to sign up.

Researchers and research staff will give 5 minute quickfire presentations on their research projects and data, followed by a Q&A session at the end.

Want to publish Gold open access with SAGE at no cost to you?

This post is part of a series where we explore some of the biggest deals the Open University Library has in place which allow OU researchers to publish Gold open access at no or reduced cost. Today we are focussing on the deal with SAGE Publishing.

SAGE Logo

What do these deals mean?

We have been busy negotiating and investing in several deals with publishers over the past few years which look at ways to offset the costs of our journal subscription spending against the increasing institutional costs of open access publishing.

We have now invested in 20 of these ‘transformative deals’ with publishers which allow you to publish Gold open access (where the final journal article is immediately freely available to read or download from the publisher’s website) at a reduced or zero cost to you. Check out our website for full details of the agreements we have in place.

Transformative deals: SAGE

Our agreement with SAGE means that OU affiliated corresponding authors publishing in SAGE Choice (hybrid OA) journals can now publish Gold at no charge to the author.

They also offer a 20% discount off list price to publish in licensed SAGE wholly Gold OA journals. The 20% discount can be obtained by quoting code JISC2020 in the RightsLink portal. For Open Access Journals where RightsLink portal is not used, the corresponding author must contact apcqueries@sagepub.co.uk to request the discount. If the corresponding author does not request the discount via the code, they may request an amended invoice by contacting SAGE’s Open Access customer service team prior to payment being made (apcqueries@sagepub.com).

How do I make use of the deal?

Eligible authors will be contacted directly to ask if they would like to benefit from this deal, so you do not need to take any action. All articles published on or before 1st January 2020 are eligible, so authors may receive emails from SAGE asking if they would like to retrospectively make previously published articles Gold OA at no extra cost. You’ll need to be quick, authors have 5 days from the date of the email to confirm if they would like to publish Gold. All ‘article-type’ outputs are included in the agreement(book reviews are excluded).

Why Open Access?

Open access (OA) means making research publications freely available so anyone can benefit from reading and using research. Open access is part of a wider ‘open’ movement to encourage free exchange of knowledge and resources in order to widen access and encourage creativity.

Want to know more?

Please get in touch with the Research Support team if you have any further questions about the SAGE deal or any other transformative agreements we have.

New DORA Open University Case Study!

“The Open University used a top-down/bottom-up approach to research & create a new promotion route to recognize & reward social engagement for promotion & tenure”.

The OU has worked with DORA to publish a case study:

“In 2015 the UK’s Open University (OU) published “An Open Research University” a book outlining the outputs from a three-year project to create and implement an evidence-based strategy to embed the principles and practices of engagement with new processes for research assessment within the university. In keeping with the OU’s existing commitment to open research and knowledge exchange, the project aimed to steer their research culture toward recognizing and rewarding a broader range of contributions, specifically in “engaged research”. There were multiple examples of top-down/bottom-up cooperation to inform and promote the policies outlined in the report, such as the sponsorship of a working group to reform the university’s academic promotion criteria by the then Pro-Vice-Chancellor responsible for academic professional development. In 2020, the OU signed DORA and released a statement describing the university’s aim of creating a DORA Implementation Plan by 2021. These actions represent a continuation and codification of a growing institutional movement toward research assessment reform.”

Check out the full study here!

Call for individual evidence on ways to substantially reduce research bureaucracy

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are undertaking a review of the bureaucratic load within the research process, with a view to identifying inefficiencies, improvements and future directions with a view to ” substantially reduce research bureaucracy, primarily for the benefit of individuals and teams conducting research.”.

They have released a call for evidence here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/independent-review-of-research-bureaucracy

It will stay open for submissions until Friday, 1st of October. Please note you should submit an individual response.

They have asked for the link to be circulated widely in the community and have said:

“We are grateful to all those who have already contributed to the Review’s evidence gathering. Responses to the call for evidence will be considered in addition to the evidence already gathered. Those who have already contributed should be reassured that their comments have been captured though they are welcome to provide additional input should they wish to.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the Review team should you have any questions. ”

This is a wide-ranging review and is an excellent opportunity for us all to help shape the future of research processes against the vision of open research.