First online meeting of the Research Outputs Forum (15th October 2020)

After a brief introduction from chair Martin Donnelly, who recapped the rationale for merging the former Open Access and Research Data Management forums into a single channel for communicating progress across Library Research Support to research support colleagues within the Schools and Colleges, Nik Hussin from the Research Information Systems team kicked off with a status report on the future upgrade schedule for the University’s Pure CRIS system, which records research outputs and underpins the University’s all-important REF submission.

Head of Library Research Support Dominic Tate began by talking about the new Research Publications Policy, which is in the process of being scrutinised and approved by various committees and other stakeholders. Dominic explained that the overall goals of the new policy are to make compliance with REF and funders’ Open Access policies easier for all concerned, and to empower researchers to make their own decisions about how and where to publish. Fiona Wright from the Scholarly Communications team then provided updates on publications Block Grants in light of Plan S. These come from Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. Dominic wrapped up with a brief REF update, noting that as much of the submission as possible will be done electronically, although some hard copies will still be required.

Moving on to Research Data Support, we heard from Pauline Ward about new features and improvements to the DataVault, including a larger maximum deposit size of ten terabytes, the refined and more streamlined review process, and the new ‘roles’ feature which enables, for example, a research administrator to access information about all of the deposits from their School.

Robin Rice gave a recap of progress on the Data Safe Haven, including its ISO27001 accreditation and an elucidation of the charges and cost recovery mechanism for using the Safe Haven. Finally, Martin Donnelly talked about the pros and cons of moving our previously face-to-face training online – in short, less interaction with attendees but higher levels of attendance and uptake – and gave a quick overview of the guidance resources produced by Research Data Service, such as the Quick Guides on topics such as data storage options, the FAIR principles for data, and much more.

We received positive feedback from the meeting, and will be organising the next one for early in 2021.

(Update: the Research Data Support slides from this meeting are now available here.)

Martin Donnelly
Research Data Support Manager
Library and University Collections