We’ve made 2 new metadata fields live in ORO; Date of Acceptance & Date of First Availability. These fields are available for Journal Articles and Conference Items.  We’ve built these new fields so that we can comply with HEFCE’s requirements for future REF exercises.

From April 2016 articles and conference items (with an ISSN) submitted to the REF need to have been deposited in a repository at point of acceptance with the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM).  In order for us to record that an output complies with this requirement we need to capture the Date of Acceptance.

Additionally, we need to record the length of publisher embargoes.  HEFCE requires maximum embargo periods of 12 months for REF Main Panels A & B, and 24 months for REF Main Panels C & D.  So the Date of First Availability will be the date a publisher’s embargo starts.  In ORO we’ll set embargo end dates in accordance with listings on Sherpa Romeo.

To make your publications “REFable” please deposit them in ORO at point of acceptance with the AAM and complete these new pieces of metadata.  Any questions please contact lib-oro-team@open.ac.uk.