Institutional repositories and SHERPA Stephen Pinfield University of Nottingham

Key point The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.

Report and Response Select Committee Report –Recommendation 44: …We recommend that the Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all their articles in their institutions repository…as a condition of their research grant… –Other recommendations: 7, 42-48, 50, 52-56, 58, 75 Government response –The Government recognises the potential benefit of institutional repositories and sees them as a significant development worthy of encouragement. –The Government has no present intention to mandate… –Ongoing activity: JISC, RCUK etc

Key point The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.

Key questions What are open-access repositories? Why institutional repositories? What should be deposited in them? Why do they improve scholarly communication? Why make deposition mandatory? Who should mandate deposition? Who should do the depositing? What would happen then? What happens now?

OA repositories What are open-access repositories? Institutional repositories: Online archives set up and managed by research institutions to house articles published by authors at these institutions.* *Select Committee Report, para. 108, p. 56

O… what? OA: –Open Access –Free, unrestricted and immediate availability (and re-use) OAI: –Open Archives Initiative –Systemic openness –OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI PMH) interoperability standard OAIS: –Open Archival Information System –Digital preservation model

Institutional Why institutional repositories? Institutions have: –technical infrastructure –expertise –policy frameworks –incentives shop-window information asset management accreditation measurement wider accountability –long-term commitment Other repositories also important Institutional (and other) repositories plus subject-based search services

Content What should be deposited in them? E-prints –… a digital duplicate of an academic research paper that is made available online as a way of improving access to the paper.* –pre-prints –post-prints –book chapters –etc. Other digital objects eg. data (R.7) *EPIC and Key Perspectives Ltd report for JISC p. 2

Content issues: e-prints Whose file? –author-produced –publisher-produced Copyright (R ) –rights transfer –copyright retention Quality –quality control –quality flags - kitemarks (R. 54)

Benefits Why do IRs improve scholarly communication? Dissemination: –Quick –Easy –Wide –Cheap Value-added services –author services –search services –analysis –quality assessment –plagiarism detection Better communication means better science/scholarship Other wider benefits Lowering access and impact barriers

Benefits: evidence Existing repositories Open-access and impact –direct evidence: OA means more citations –indirect evidence: OA means more downloads and downloads correlate with citations

Key point The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.

Mandatory? Why make deposition mandatory? Best way, not only way Accelerate change Help overcome cultural barriers Language issue – mandatory?

Who can mandate? Who should mandate deposition? Institutions? –centre –departments/schools Funders? –HEFCE… –Research councils –other funders Condition of grant

All institutions? Within reach of most institutions –free software –support networks Consortia Commercial providers Subject based Co-ordination (R. 43, 55-56)

Who should deposit? Who should do the depositing? Authors School support staff LIS staff Hybrid Strength of institutional approach

What will happen? What will happen then? Major improvements in scholarly communication – improvements in scholarship itself Wider benefits Possible changes in publishing processes and economics

What happens now? Select Committee Report Government Response Ongoing debate - second Government response? Ongoing work: JISC, RCUK, CURL, SCONUL, SPARC etc

Key point The best way to achieve major improvements in scholarly communication in the short and medium term is to make it mandatory to deposit research papers in open-access institutional repositories.