So, it's Open Repositories conference time again, and this year I actually managed to get here! In previous years I have either been too late to apply, on maternity leave, or just unable to fit it into the mad schedule.
This year's conference is being held at University of Edinburgh, a favourite city for me, and with a packed programme looks to be a really good event. I'll be tweeting from my attendance at various workshops, follow me @moragm23
First up today is an afternoon of Research Data Management with the DCC.
Showing posts with label Open Access. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open Access. Show all posts
Monday, 9 July 2012
Monday, 25 June 2012
Research Data Management
Queen Mary IT Services, in partnership with colleagues from the Library (me), Records Management Office, academic representatives and senior management have been working together to draft a new, improved, centralised policy on research data collection, management and curation. The big buzz-phrase of the moment for any research institution funded by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), and indeed any research institution with RCUK (Research Councils UK) or charitable funding that includes a policy on research data is of course... 'Research Data Management'.
No surprise that there are a number of JISC-funded RDM strand projects underway or recently completed then. See here.
An draft policy for Queen Mary is now available on the DCC website. With thanks to the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Glasgow and Warwick for inspiration when formulating the policy. And a personal thanks to IT Services for inviting the Library to be a part of this very important piece of work, and recognising the skills available from Library types to help get this up and running.
But having a policy is only the first step. Helping researchers to understand their responsibilities, and how to comply with them, indeed providing/enhancing the kind of centralised infrastructure and mechanisms to support these responsibilities is something else entirely, and the focus of further work in the coming months and years. Just thinking about the potential size of some data makes my head hurt (how much is a terabyte again?).
However, as Kevin G Ashley (DCC) recently pointed out at the Institutional Repository Manager's Workshop at Senate House, University of London (15th June 2012); 'not all data should find a home in your institutional repository' - which is a relief not only to repository manager types like myself, but to technical types who have to provide the networking and infrastructure to support such storage in the long term. The thing that is really getting the IT people here hot under the collar? Not the size of the data as you might expect (though this is a significant concern) - it's the length of time that access to that data has to be accessible. 10 years from the last date it was accessed in reality could be 'perpetuity' by another name and that's no small task when your data store grows with every project.
So, to prepare myself for the inevitable talk about research data - I have started to investigate some of the services of interest to the project board, and a few of my own:
DataFlow and DataStage
DSpace - our IR and looking likely to be the institutional data repository platform
DataCite
FigShare
In fact, if it has the word 'data' somewhere in the name - I'm quite interested in it at the moment!
No surprise that there are a number of JISC-funded RDM strand projects underway or recently completed then. See here.
An draft policy for Queen Mary is now available on the DCC website. With thanks to the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Glasgow and Warwick for inspiration when formulating the policy. And a personal thanks to IT Services for inviting the Library to be a part of this very important piece of work, and recognising the skills available from Library types to help get this up and running.
But having a policy is only the first step. Helping researchers to understand their responsibilities, and how to comply with them, indeed providing/enhancing the kind of centralised infrastructure and mechanisms to support these responsibilities is something else entirely, and the focus of further work in the coming months and years. Just thinking about the potential size of some data makes my head hurt (how much is a terabyte again?).
However, as Kevin G Ashley (DCC) recently pointed out at the Institutional Repository Manager's Workshop at Senate House, University of London (15th June 2012); 'not all data should find a home in your institutional repository' - which is a relief not only to repository manager types like myself, but to technical types who have to provide the networking and infrastructure to support such storage in the long term. The thing that is really getting the IT people here hot under the collar? Not the size of the data as you might expect (though this is a significant concern) - it's the length of time that access to that data has to be accessible. 10 years from the last date it was accessed in reality could be 'perpetuity' by another name and that's no small task when your data store grows with every project.
So, to prepare myself for the inevitable talk about research data - I have started to investigate some of the services of interest to the project board, and a few of my own:
DataFlow and DataStage
DSpace - our IR and looking likely to be the institutional data repository platform
DataCite
FigShare
In fact, if it has the word 'data' somewhere in the name - I'm quite interested in it at the moment!
Half in, half out
Going slightly off the topic of Open Access and other research support related activities today and thinking about the work environment for those of us in support roles.
A while ago, I made a pact to only produce reports in electronic form, and not print them for anyone, just send them the files. I also had a plan to try and reduce the amount of paper written notes I produce, that just get transcribed into electronic notes later on.
Why? With one eye on the environment, and another on more easily accessing the information I need, whilst also reducing the amount of time I spend 'creating' notes from notes I have already created, it seems like the only way to go.
Weirdly, I find myself 'half in, half out' of the migration to digital.. I purchased a new set of notebooks yesterday. There's nothing quite like paper notebooks, somehow my thoughts and ideas don't flow so easily in an electronic world. My handwriting is certainly faster and more accurate than my typing! It's more than this though. With the need to move from meeting to meeting, or from training event and back to my desk, I'm not really provided with the tools to be able to rove from one location to another and take my work life with me. I'm not the only one, so it's not a personal thing, but it is slightly frustrating and something I am trying to change for the team I work in at present.
I have just had a peruse of my desk at work:
A while ago, I made a pact to only produce reports in electronic form, and not print them for anyone, just send them the files. I also had a plan to try and reduce the amount of paper written notes I produce, that just get transcribed into electronic notes later on.
Why? With one eye on the environment, and another on more easily accessing the information I need, whilst also reducing the amount of time I spend 'creating' notes from notes I have already created, it seems like the only way to go.
Weirdly, I find myself 'half in, half out' of the migration to digital.. I purchased a new set of notebooks yesterday. There's nothing quite like paper notebooks, somehow my thoughts and ideas don't flow so easily in an electronic world. My handwriting is certainly faster and more accurate than my typing! It's more than this though. With the need to move from meeting to meeting, or from training event and back to my desk, I'm not really provided with the tools to be able to rove from one location to another and take my work life with me. I'm not the only one, so it's not a personal thing, but it is slightly frustrating and something I am trying to change for the team I work in at present.
I have just had a peruse of my desk at work:
- Work issued computer
- Personal iPad (I wish I had a work issued one but there you go) with Mac wireless keyboard
- In-tray (overflowing with stuff I am already working on)
- 3 notebooks for the different parts of my role
- Leather bound personal/professional diary (it's posh, and I can't seem to live without it, my iPhone calendar just doesn't seem the same)
- RLUK strategic plan 2011 (passed to me by a colleague a copy of which also currently on my iPad)
- Post-its - a dead giveaway that I haven't entirely relinquished the paper world yet
File boxes, and lots of them fill my shelves, probably largely stuff that could be scanned and disposed of by now, and not replaced by new paper versions. I do however find it difficult not to print lengthy reports for ease of transport and reading at my leisure, although I am getting better at doing this with my iPad when I am on the move.
So, back to open access. If I find it hard to migrate to a more digital environment, how exactly do I expect my researcher colleagues to be any more successful in order to fulfill their open access obligations on research data? Hmm, food for thought.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Implementing the Communication Strategy for PubLists and QMRO Series - part 1 - Speaking engagements
So, to start the ball rolling on this series looking at the different communication methods I will be using during this implementation project, I thought I'd talk a bit about speaking engagements.
I don't think anyone has ever accused me of being short of a word or three. When considering what to say during these all-important speaking engagements, this can be both a blessing and a curse! Whilst the fear of speaking before large groups has long since subsided, knowing what to say, and when to keep schtum has always been a difficult one for me. I also find it difficult to navigate the fine line between 'formally informal' and just downright 'chatty'.
I recently spoke at two different 'events', one of which was a strategy group meeting, whilst the other was a larger research centre staff meeting.
The Research Centre meeting was an invitation to 'talk about open access' in 15 minutes. Note the 'invitation, not a begging of time slots by me, but someone actually asking me if I could come and speak (could I ever!). The staff attending this meeting were researchers in the main, so a really good opportunity to get my message across. I therefore limited myself to the following four topics that I knew would be high on the agenda, and kept it quite informal, whilst I did use a presentation, I mostly spoke without notes (which I prefer anyway) and kept the slides to the minimum:
Benefits of open access (wider exposure is a good thing!)
The green route (you don't have to pay lots to do it!)
Copyright compliance (we check everything before we make it available)
Method of deposit (it's quick and easy)
For a first foray into speaking about open access at a research centre meeting, it actually went really well. It was a post-lunchtime slot (not the best time to get everyone awake) and there was one person who basically sat and smirked the whole way through - which I prefer to imagine was due to the rather delicious luncheon they had partaken of before coming rather than any personal sleight on my presence at the meeting - otherwise, the audience seemed responsive, interested by the self-archiving option, and whilst nobody leapt up and volunteered to be the first one to become 100% OA, I left hopeful of some new uploads to the repository within a few days.
OK, so how naive am I? Zilch.
The other event was a strategy meeting for faculty and was investigating the necessary information to put together a faculty-wide policy on open access. This was an interesting opportunity to test my understanding of OA and research funding T&Cs, and also to get some useful ideas on where information is lacking on our webpages and in the literature we produce. I have to say, I did feel like I'd been grilled quite thoroughly when I'd finished, and there were lots of questions that I needed to go away and find the answers to, but this was all good work that has helped the policy to be drawn up and for us to have started on a pilot implementation plan.
This second meeting has actually turned into a much bigger piece of work for me; resulting in a pilot project to talk on a 1:1 basis with researchers and engage them individually as well as at the broader centre, school or institute level. Something I hadn't planned for in my strategy and which I have now added as an option.
From these two quite different meetings has come the following:
I don't think anyone has ever accused me of being short of a word or three. When considering what to say during these all-important speaking engagements, this can be both a blessing and a curse! Whilst the fear of speaking before large groups has long since subsided, knowing what to say, and when to keep schtum has always been a difficult one for me. I also find it difficult to navigate the fine line between 'formally informal' and just downright 'chatty'.
I recently spoke at two different 'events', one of which was a strategy group meeting, whilst the other was a larger research centre staff meeting.
The Research Centre meeting was an invitation to 'talk about open access' in 15 minutes. Note the 'invitation, not a begging of time slots by me, but someone actually asking me if I could come and speak (could I ever!). The staff attending this meeting were researchers in the main, so a really good opportunity to get my message across. I therefore limited myself to the following four topics that I knew would be high on the agenda, and kept it quite informal, whilst I did use a presentation, I mostly spoke without notes (which I prefer anyway) and kept the slides to the minimum:
Benefits of open access (wider exposure is a good thing!)
The green route (you don't have to pay lots to do it!)
Copyright compliance (we check everything before we make it available)
Method of deposit (it's quick and easy)
For a first foray into speaking about open access at a research centre meeting, it actually went really well. It was a post-lunchtime slot (not the best time to get everyone awake) and there was one person who basically sat and smirked the whole way through - which I prefer to imagine was due to the rather delicious luncheon they had partaken of before coming rather than any personal sleight on my presence at the meeting - otherwise, the audience seemed responsive, interested by the self-archiving option, and whilst nobody leapt up and volunteered to be the first one to become 100% OA, I left hopeful of some new uploads to the repository within a few days.
OK, so how naive am I? Zilch.
The other event was a strategy meeting for faculty and was investigating the necessary information to put together a faculty-wide policy on open access. This was an interesting opportunity to test my understanding of OA and research funding T&Cs, and also to get some useful ideas on where information is lacking on our webpages and in the literature we produce. I have to say, I did feel like I'd been grilled quite thoroughly when I'd finished, and there were lots of questions that I needed to go away and find the answers to, but this was all good work that has helped the policy to be drawn up and for us to have started on a pilot implementation plan.
This second meeting has actually turned into a much bigger piece of work for me; resulting in a pilot project to talk on a 1:1 basis with researchers and engage them individually as well as at the broader centre, school or institute level. Something I hadn't planned for in my strategy and which I have now added as an option.
From these two quite different meetings has come the following:
- People are not wholly unaware of open access and they do recognise that they need to engage at some point
- There is willingness and a recognition of the importance and benefits of OA
- There is a recognition that the responsibility lies with the researcher to engage
- Whilst I haven't encountered outright resistance yet, there is perhaps reticence, or just hearing it from me is not enough to get people started - is it a technical barrier, a time barrier or a knowing where to start barrier? Probably all three
- There is growing awareness that not engaging with conditions on research funding concerning open access could lead to significant problems down the line - and this is leverage
No doubt there will be more meetings a long the way and more to learn in the process.
Implementing the Communication Strategy for PubLists and QMRO - part 1
Back in the heady days (January 2011) of the JISC-funded RePosit project, I drew up a Communication Strategy that I planned to use to identify routes and methods of communication and advocacy once Queen Mary Research Online was launched. At the time, this seemed like a long way off and I set it aside as something to work with 'later'. Well, 'later' arrived with somewhat more bang than I expected in September 2011 with the strategy being taken up by the powers that be and with my strategy turning into a full blown project.
So, here I am 'Implementing the Communications Strategy for PubLists and QMRO' with a series of blog posts about my endeavours to engage the various echelons at QM in open access and publications management.
PubLists - QM's research publications management database, running on Symplectic Elements
QMRO - Queen Mary Research Online - the institutional repository, running on DSpace
To start with, my strategy needs a project plan, something I haven't drawn up before, and which is proving a bit daunting. However, some of the strands on my strategy are already taking shape, so there is progress even without the plan itself having been finalised.
Over the course of the next few weeks I hope to do a series of updates focusing on various elements of the strategy, the first of which will follow shortly.
The views expressed in this blog are mine and are not representative of Queen Mary, University of London.
So, here I am 'Implementing the Communications Strategy for PubLists and QMRO' with a series of blog posts about my endeavours to engage the various echelons at QM in open access and publications management.
PubLists - QM's research publications management database, running on Symplectic Elements
QMRO - Queen Mary Research Online - the institutional repository, running on DSpace
To start with, my strategy needs a project plan, something I haven't drawn up before, and which is proving a bit daunting. However, some of the strands on my strategy are already taking shape, so there is progress even without the plan itself having been finalised.
Over the course of the next few weeks I hope to do a series of updates focusing on various elements of the strategy, the first of which will follow shortly.
The views expressed in this blog are mine and are not representative of Queen Mary, University of London.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
60% of Journals Allow Immediate Archiving of Peer-Reviewed Articles
Peter Millington at Nottingham University's Centre for Research Communications has just published recent analysis of self-archiving policies of journals indexed by the Sherpa-ROMEO service. An impressive, and myth-busting, 60% of journals allow immediate archiving of peer-reviewed articles, and after embargoes have lapsed, this rises dramatically, to 80%. In all, taking into account special requirements by publishers and embargo periods that vary from 3 months to 5 years, 94% of journals do allow self-archiving of the peer-reviewed article. All good news for those of us hitting the advocacy trail at the moment.
The full article can be found here on the Sherpa Services Blog.
The full article can be found here on the Sherpa Services Blog.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Queen Mary Research Online - live at last
I am very pleased to announce that Queen Mary Research Online (QMRO), the open access institutional repository of research outputs, is now fully live and publicly accessible.
This first public release is the initial fully working version and will require further development; but all the basic functionality (search, browse; by date, author, title) should be there. We'll also be developing a strategy for ways to reuse the deposited content in our research publications systems (providing links to content with bundled bibliographic data to departments for example) and trying to tie these in more closely with broader research information around the College. Watch this space.
For anyone not aware of the survey currently running on use of the repository and PubLists; we are asking for feedback on methods of deposit to QMRO from members of academic and research staff, and research administrators/managers. If you haven't completed the survey yet, please do, we would really like to hear your views:
Monday, 1 November 2010
Open Access - co-operation between funders, academics and libraries
Announcements have been popping up all over after a very successful Open Access Week, and JISC Future of Research Conference outlining co-operative efforts between academics, funders and libraries to support open access.
More highlights from both events to come
More highlights from both events to come
Monday, 16 August 2010
Depositing for beginners... (journal articles)
A simple guide to what to think about when depositing in QMRO:
No two publishers have the same policy when it comes to open access, and some have different policies for different journal titles, so please be patient we want to get your submitted content public as soon as possible but sometimes this might take a little bit of time to sort out.
- the repository is open access, nothing confidential please
- if you are not sure which version of your item can be made public in the repository, speak to a member of the team: QMRO repository team
- when uploading, make sure you grant rights by clicking on the link in PubLists
- we want to be able to make as much of your research output available as possible
- if we cannot deposit the version you initially supply we will contact you for a suitable alternative if copyright permits
- please be prepared to supply an alternative version by keeping working and original submission versions
- Versions:
- pre-print - the one you submitted to the publisher initially
- post-print - the one they supplied back to you after refereeing
- publisher PDF - the one that got published with all the publisher's formatting
No two publishers have the same policy when it comes to open access, and some have different policies for different journal titles, so please be patient we want to get your submitted content public as soon as possible but sometimes this might take a little bit of time to sort out.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
An ever-growing backlog
Whilst the repository staff beaver away, attempting to work through some of the backlog of new deposits to the repository, all I can focus on is the fact that we have a backlog in the first place. It is very comforting to know that there are some early adopters out there, willing and ready to get content into the repository and offer us an opportunity to go public with something substantial.
The barriers to going public are almost resolved, and hopefully this means the repository should be available in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, keep that content coming!
The barriers to going public are almost resolved, and hopefully this means the repository should be available in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, keep that content coming!
Monday, 9 August 2010
Repositories and publications blog
Welcome to the Repositories and Publications blog!
Aimed at helping academics and researchers find their way through the minefields that are Open Access archiving, Institutional Repositories and Research Publications Management.
I'm hoping to build a corpus of information, useful links and special events to help myself keep track of what's happening and what's useful. So, comments, suggestions and recommendations readily accepted. If you find it useful for Scholarly Communication, then I want to know about it.
Aimed at helping academics and researchers find their way through the minefields that are Open Access archiving, Institutional Repositories and Research Publications Management.
I'm hoping to build a corpus of information, useful links and special events to help myself keep track of what's happening and what's useful. So, comments, suggestions and recommendations readily accepted. If you find it useful for Scholarly Communication, then I want to know about it.
Are we there yet?
You start with an ideal... and then you wait. And if you're really unlucky, you wait a bit more. If you're a bit impatient, like me, waiting for someone to give you the green light can seem interminable.
There's a reason the phrase, 'so close yet so far' is a favourite of mine. It feels like we've been 'almost there' for so long that we might never actually arrive.
There are complex and often time-consuming decisions to make regarding a repository, talk to someone in the repository community and you'll hear them often, talk to someone else and they will have no idea what you're going on about. Is that part of the problem? We talk about making research public, about communication and dissemination, but are we as a community becoming so insular that we are part of the problem?
Here at least we are finally so near arriving that it's tangible. This thing that I've been working towards for so long is finally here. But what then? A new phase, a new stage of the journey, and more development. See, having a live public repository is only the beginning, the journey is endless and there are still more exciting adventures out there...
There's a reason the phrase, 'so close yet so far' is a favourite of mine. It feels like we've been 'almost there' for so long that we might never actually arrive.
There are complex and often time-consuming decisions to make regarding a repository, talk to someone in the repository community and you'll hear them often, talk to someone else and they will have no idea what you're going on about. Is that part of the problem? We talk about making research public, about communication and dissemination, but are we as a community becoming so insular that we are part of the problem?
Here at least we are finally so near arriving that it's tangible. This thing that I've been working towards for so long is finally here. But what then? A new phase, a new stage of the journey, and more development. See, having a live public repository is only the beginning, the journey is endless and there are still more exciting adventures out there...
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