REF Open Access Planning Documentation

Here at the University of Edinburgh, we finally getting to grips with the implementation of the REF Open Access Requirements.  The Scholarly Communications Team has undertaken a wealth of outreach activities over recent months and has now been to visit over two thirds of the University’s 22 Schools to talk about OA and to start to make plans for how the REF requirements will work in practice.

As this is a large, Russell Group University, we are taking a more devolved approach to the implementation of the policy, with responsibility for the policy resting at a local level within Schools and Colleges.  Each School is working with the Scholarly Communications Team to formulate a plan of action that will work for them – based on a number of variable factors, including publishing patterns, staffing levels and the nature of the publishing process in that particular discipline.

I’m pleased to be able to include here some documentation which may be of use to other institutions:

Responsibility Matrix

Firstly, here are draft copies of a Responsibility Matrix and explanatory notes which have been drafted for discussion in Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. These documents was produced to make it easier to identify and agree responsibilities in this particular College, which has a complex organisational structure made up of various Research Centres and Institutes.  It is important to make responsibilities clear as part of the planning process and we are hoping that this document may help within this part of the organisation.  Many thanks to Anna Krzak for being prepared to share this document.

School Implementation Plan & Paper for School Research Committee

I’m pleased to be able to share with you a draft implementation plan for one of our Schools, as well as an edited copy of the same paper which can be used at a School Research Committee to illustrate the problem and planned solution.  This plan reflects the University of Edinburgh’s use of PURE, but the principles could be applied within any institution. This School has a relatively well-resourced administration function with its own Knowledge Management team, which will be heaviliy involved in the implementation of the REF requirements.  Many thanks to Tamise Totterdell for being prepared to share this documentation with us.

If you have any questions about, or comments on either of these documents then we’d be delighted to hear them – please get in touch!

Dominic Tate, Scholarly Communications Manager, University of Edinburgh