New RCUK/UKRI Gold OA funds

To Aston academics/researchers

We’ve recently heard that Aston’s been awarded a new & increased RCUK/UKRI block grant for 2019-20 for Gold Open Access publishing.  As before, this is for use to pay the Gold OA fees for high quality journal articles (3* plus, via local School assessment processes), & can be used in both hybrid titles and fully Gold titles.  The budget runs from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 & we still have a some funds from 2018-19, so we are pleased to continue accepting applications as normal - openaccess@aston.ac.uk. More details of the process can be found at OA LibGuide - how to publish OA, right-hand box.

Research Services Team - Library Services

Upcoming Open Access, Open Data & Researcher Profiles training sessions

To Aston academics/researchers,

As part of ‘Love Data Week’, https://lovedataweek.org/, Leigh, Ammar & Malcolm in Library Services are running two events which may be of interest to you:

• Tuesday 12 February: Research Data and Open Access presentation, Q&A and hands‐on training,

MB525(b) 14:00 to 15:00

Do you have any questions about Research Data Management, Open Access and complying with funder requirements? Would you like some training on Aston Data Explorer and/or Pure? A short presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and hands‐on training.

• Thursday 14 February: Online Researcher Profiles and Promoting Your Data and Publications,

MB525(b) 14:00 to 15:00

Are you interested in learning how to increase your online presence and the discoverability of your data and publications? If so, come along to this presentation and Q&A session to learn about researcher IDs, academic social networks and data sharing tools.

To book on to an event please email openaccess@aston.ac.uk ‐ we look forward to seeing you soon.

Publish Gold Open Access for free!

Dear academics/researchers

Aston is part of the UK Springer Compact agreement; this scheme allows corresponding authors from Aston to publish both original research and review papers with immediate Open Access (OA) in over 2000 Springer subscription journals without any additional cost (beyond our annual subscription) or local School assessment. Once your paper is accepted, Springer will send you a link to their ‘MyPublication’ form where all you need to do is select your affiliation; a CC BY licence will then be applied to your paper making it fully Gold OA, and also easily REF/funder compliant. 

We look forward to you using the scheme!

Please contact openaccess@aston.ac.uk with any questions.

Kind regards

Research Services Team, Library Services.

Open Science at Aston - a new LibGuide

An exciting new LibGuide has been created by the Research Services Team which explains the concepts around Open Science - http://libguides.aston.ac.uk/openscience.

Open Science is the practice of researching in such a way that others can collaborate and contribute throughout the research process; and it encompasses all fields not just STEM.

The concept starts in the early stages of research by making research data freely available, continuing through the peer review and open access publication processes, to the further dissemination of knowledge through freely available software and open educational materials.

So, please take a look at the new guide which contains links to many other LibGuides where you can find details of the various processes and workflows involved.

The Research Services Team in the Library have a new member of staff

Dr Leigh Stork, Open Access & Research Repository Specialist,  joins us from Imperial College London with a wealth of experience in managing many aspects of Open Access. Leigh, along with Malcolm Horne and Ammar Wahid, will be pushing forward the ‘open science’ agenda at Aston. An important element of this is to increase the success rate of Green Open Access. Aston researchers, whether corresponding authors or co-authors, should:

·         Always deposit your Author Accepted Manuscript/Final Peer-Reviewed Draft of upcoming journal articles and conference papers into Pure on or very soon after acceptance (within three months max.)

·         Add your past and other publications to Pure

·         Upload datasets to Aston Data Explorer and add a dataset DOI to your paper (as applicable)

Doing this in all cases meets strict funder requirements (e.g. RCUK and EU) and helps us prepare for the selection process for REF 2021. Of course, additional benefits are increased impact and citation rates, appearance in altmetrics, and interlinking with your School webpages. ORCiD can help too in ensuring that all your publications and grants are linked to your profile, so we encourage you to add your ORCiD ID to Pure as well.

For further information, please see/contact:

• Open Access LibGuide; openaccess@aston.ac.uk
• PURE Guidance (Intranet)
• Research Data Management LibGuide; researchdata@aston.ac.uk
• Researcher Profiles LibGuide 

Aston authors/researchers publishing in Institute of Physics (IoP) journals

Aston is a member of IoP's 'Gold' open access (OA) offsetting deal. This offsets 90% of our OA payments (for articles in IoP subscription/hybrid journals) against the cost of our subscription fees for the following year.

IoP will ask if you would like Gold OA at acceptance. If your paper is eligible, Aston encourages you to go for Gold because of the size of the available discount, but please note conditions do apply to the use of central funds to pay for the APC - http://libguides.aston.ac.uk/openaccess.

Aston authors/researchers: publish as Gold Open Access for free

Springer Compact is a 100%-discount deal which applies to Springer Open Choice journals effectively offering free Gold (ie. immediate) Open Access with a CC-BY licence; the deal applies to both original papers and review papers.

The corresponding author must be affiliated with Aston University, and the deal applies to papers at the point of acceptance for publication.

During the submission process authors should state that you are affiliated with Aston University; also use your university email address during the submission process for verification purposes.

For more information: www.springer.com/gp/open-access/springer-open-choice/springer-compact/for-uk-authors-intro 

Sharpen your Open Access & Open Data Know-How

For Aston academics/researchers:

Do you have questions about Open Access publishing or Open Data? Would you like to know more about the policies and how to achieve compliance, e.g. for HEFCE, RCUK and the EC? Do you need help using Pure to upload publications and/or Aston Data Explorer for datasets?

If so, you are invited to attend a training session run by specialists in Open Access (Malcolm Horne), Open Data (Ammar Wahid) and Pure (Paul Jones) in MB525b on the following date:

Tuesday 24 January, 10-11am or 2 -3pm

After each of the above sessions there will be time for optional hands-on help.

To book your place on one of the above, please contact openaccess@aston.ac.uk

International Open Access Week: 24-30 October 2016

Click on image to enlarge

Aston Authors - Sharpen your Open Access & Open Data Know-How

Do you have questions about Open Access publishing or Open Data? Would you like to know more about the policies and how to achieve compliance, e.g. for HEFCE, RCUK and the EC? Do you need help using Pure to upload publications and/or datasets?

Whether you are new to Aston or require a refresher session, specialists in Open Access (Malcolm Horne), Open Data (Ammar Wahid) and Pure (Paul Jones) will be running training sessions in MB525b on the following dates:

Tuesday 4th October 2-4pm

Thursday 13th October, 2-4pm

Wednesday 19th October, 10-12am

Tuesday 25th October 10 -12am

Thursday 27th October 2-4pm 

To book your place on one of the above please contact openaccess@aston.ac.uk

http://libguides.aston.ac.uk/openaccess

http://libguides.aston.ac.uk/ResearchData

Springer's Gold Open Access agreement for UK authors

We've some great news regarding Gold Open Access publishing.  Springer, together with JISC, have introduced a new publishing model which allows corresponding authors at Aston to publish in Springer Open Choice journal titles without the need to pay a Gold OA fee (APC), the costs now being covered as part of our subscription instead.  This means Aston researchers can make use of the benefits of free and immediate Gold Open Access (via selection of the CC BY licence) in over 1,600 Springer journal titles - benefitting yourselves, the institution and everyone world-wide.

The publishing process has been streamlined too as the scheme is based on a straightforward verification process and does not involve local case-by-case applications for APCs.  Lots more details are provided in this link: http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/springer-open-choice/springer-compact/for-uk-authors-intro/731990.

We look forward to you using the scheme!

Please contact us at openaccess@aston.ac.uk with your questions.  For general guidance on OA publishing, both Gold and Green, please visit: libguides.aston.ac.uk/openaccess.

International Open Access Week: 19-25 October 2015

This week is International Open Access Week 2015.

Academic publishing is changing because of Open Access - share your research freely and openly online, and be eligible for the next REF.

For more information visit:
www.openaccessweek.org/
libguides.aston.ac.uk/openaccess
Please contact openaccess@aston.ac.uk with your enquiries.

Royal Society of Chemistry - Open Access update

• The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) have just publicized on their blog that the leading journal Chemical Science is now Gold Open Access, which means readers can access it free of charge. The RSC has also waived the author Open Access publishing fees for two years, making it even easier for researchers' work to reach the world.
• The other journal titles in the RSC's portfolio, pubs.rsc.org/en/journals, are fully Gold, meaning all articles have a fee paid to be made Open Access, or are 'hybrid' subscription journals, where individual articles can be made Gold Open Access.  
• We still have Gold vouchers left which operate in lieu of paying an 'article processing charge' (APC) fee, so please ask us at openaccess@aston.ac.uk if you're submitting an article for publication, or have had one just accepted, and are interested in going Gold; more details of the scheme are here: "Gold for Gold".

Open Access (OA) at SAGE – funds for Gold are still available!

SAGE is the world's 5th largest journals publisher.  Its portfolio includes more than 750 journals spanning the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology & Medicine.

And, importantly, SAGE supports both Gold OA publication and Green OA archiving:

• SAGE Choice is offered on all SAGE’s traditional subscription journals and allows authors to make (via payment of an article processing charge, APC) their published article freely available to all internet users 
• SAGE pure-Gold OA journals where all the articles in each title are freely available to internet users (publication is also via payment of an APC)
• SAGE also supports Green OA archiving for authors publishing in traditional subscription journals, ie. the complementary depositing of articles in Aston Research Explorer (powered by PURE)

Library Services at Aston has a generous institutional-based discount scheme for Gold OA with SAGE and funds are still available to our researchers, so please contact openaccess@aston.ac.uk if you’re interested in applying for an APC.  See here for more details of Gold OA (and the related conditions). 

This week is International Open Access Week 2014

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Nature Communications is becoming a fully Open Access journal

Nature Communications is becoming a fully open access journal. From 20th October 2014 all papers submitted to Nature Communications must be published open access, through payment of an article processing charge (APC), in the case of eventual publication. For further details please see the full announcement, FAQs about the transition, and the journal's open access information.

Nature Communications is a multidisciplinary journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences and has an Impact Factor of 10.742 according to the 2013 Journal Citation Reports® Science Edition (Thomson Reuters, 2014). Papers published by the journal represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field.

The open access articles will increase in number from early next year, with 2015 seeing the transition from subscription to full open access availability.

For more information about applying for an APC from a central budget in relation to Nature Communications, or another journal, please contact Malcolm Horne, Open Access and Research Repository Specialist, Library Services - m.horne@aston.ac.uk, x4506. 

Open access 'Gold' budgets now available

Are you an Aston author?  If "yes", we are pleased to inform you that two budgets are now available to cover the publishing costs of 'Gold' open access (OA) journal articles.  OA publishing is all about sharing research freely and openly to all readers online, indeed many funding bodies, both public and private, now mandate for various levels of OA publishing, eg. HEFCE, RCUK, EC and the Wellcome Trust. 

'Gold' OA publishing involves the payment of an article processing charge (APC) - this includes the OA fee and/or page printing charges.  OA articles can be published in either wholly OA journals, eg. the extensive range of journal titles in Europe PubMed Central, or in hybrid journals (usually as an additional option), eg. many of the journals published by Elsevier and Wiley.  The library at Aston administers payments for these APCs - we can use the RCUK budget (£33,000 for 2014-15) relating to research funded (wholly or partly) by AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC or STFC, or the institutional budget (£35,000 for 2014-15) relating to other research projects. 

Because the APC budgets are limited consideration needs to be given to aspects such as high journal quality, potential REF submissions and the imposition of any lengthy embargoes by the publishers relating to the parallel 'Green' OA publishing process, ie. self-archiving in Aston's research repository AURA/Aston Research Explorer. (Please note: funding bodies also mandate in relation to this 'Green' aspect).  If you are submitting an article for publication, or have recently had an article accepted in a high quality journal, and would like to be considered for a 'Gold' APC payment please contact Malcolm Horne, Open Access and Research Repository Specialist (m.horne@aston.ac.uk, x4506), for advice and more information. For queries and more information relating to the aspect of 'Green' OA publishing please contact Erica Wine, Open Access and Research Repository Specialist (e.wine@aston.ac.uk, x4956), or Malcolm.  If you would like to know more about the general benefits of OA publishing please contact your Information Specialist in the library.

Open Access publishing - a growth area at Aston

Open Access publishing is all about sharing research freely and openly. This not only benefits research communities and the general public but there are also clear benefits to individual researchers and their institutions. The infographic below highlights just some of the benefits and impacts of OA publishing.

Please click on the image to enlarge

At Aston OA publishing is increasing. Here in the library we can administer payment for OA publishing, indeed we may also be able to pay for publishing costs from a special budget* - please contact Malcolm Horne, Open Access & Research Repository Specialist (m.horne@aston.ac.uk, x4506), for advice on this aspect. If you would like to know more about the general benefits of OA publishing please contact your Information Specialist in the library.

Many thanks to Safia Begum, Research Support Officer, for designing the infographic.
* An 'article processing charges' budget for a select number of journal articles.

Creative Commons Licences : The Facts

Open Access: The Facts

Open Access publications are publications with unrestricted access and reuse.

In 2013 ‘Wiley’ carried a survey to understand the current state of open access.

Some of the key results of this survey are illustrated in the infographic below.

Key Acronyms used:
OA: Open Access
APC: Article Processing Charges
CC-BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
CC-BY: Creative Commons Attribution