Institutional advocacy checklist

Introduction

This checklist is provided to help those individuals seeking to explain or promote new developments in scholarly communication, institutional repositories and open access. In particular this checklist offers a suggested bibliography of background resources that will be of interest to those individuals preparing for a major internal advocacy event or marketing push for their repositories.

Audience
This document is intended to be of use to repository managers and administrators principally based in UK HEIs, although the nature of this checklist will be of some value to the global library community.

Checklist


Copyright & IPR

  • SHERPA/RoMEO – Retained Author Open Access Rights
    This site lists over 325 publishers globally, and explains their current policies towards open access rights for authors who publish papers within their journals. Regularly updated companion service to JULIET. http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
  • JISC/SURF license to publish
    This toolbox resulted from SURF and the JISC funded research and activities. It has been developed to assist authors and publishers to achieve a balance between granting maximum access to a journal article and financial compensation for the publication by the publisher of this article.
    http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/
  • Know Your Rights Toolkit
    Produced by Loughborough University this kit is aimed at repository administrators and all those who act as advocates of open access. It is made up of a number of components which will help contribute to the effective preparation and implementation of advocacy initiatives and activities.
    http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dis/disresearch/poc/pages/advtoolkit-intro.html
  • Open Access primer for Authors
    This plainly written page proffers guidance targeted at academic authors on many matters of open access. It is an excellent starting point for newcomers to the field of repository administration as well.
    http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/guidance/authors.html
  • Response to ECGreen Paper on OA Policies
    Is there a need for EU-level policies and practices to improve and ensure open access to and dissemination of raw data and peer-reviewed publications from publicly funded research results? These documents are responses from library organisations to the recent Green Paper (Aug 2007).
    http://www.libereurope.eu/files/ERA%20Green%20Paper%20response.pdf
    http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/documents/SHERPA_Response_to_EC_Green_paper.pdf

Research Funder Policies

  • Institutional Advice - Generic advice based on University of Nottingham advice paper
    This paper is intended for localisation and then internal dissemination to researchers. The aim is to raise awareness of research funders policies regarding open access and to specify actions which researchers need to take to comply with the requirements of their grant. http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/documents/sherpaplusdocs/Nottingham-research-output-procedures-May07.pdf
  • JULIET - Research Funders Policies & Support for Open Access
    This site collects together information on research funders from around the world, and clearly demarcates their level of support or mandate for open accessibility from research they have funded. Regularly updated companion service to RoMEO.
    http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/
  • Payment of Publication Fees: an RIN Briefing Note
    A 2-page explanation of UK Research Council funding and how it may be used to pay for open access publication charges
    http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/Briefing%20Note%201%20-%20Payment%20of%20Publication%20Fees.pdf
  • RIN Report on Research Funder's Policies for the Management of Research Outputs
    A study into the policy and practice of UK research funders in managing their research outputs as a comparative overview of how different groups of funders expect their grant recipients to manage access to their information outputs.
    http://www.rin.ac.uk/policy-information-outputs

Community Guidance

Open Access and Repositories Globally

  • Digital Repositories Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER).
    The DRIVER project is a European funded project to promote the growth of a European infrastructure for repositories. Resources include a wiki for each country which details local developments and guidelines for ensuring a repository complies with DRIVER best practice.
    http://www.driver-support.eu
  • Peter Suber’s website and blog
    An internationally recognised resource for developments in Open Access, with useful introductory documents http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/hometoc.htm
    http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

Organising Local Events

  • University of Nottingham event programme
    This page details the content and structure of the internal event held for all academics in Nottingham during Autumn 2007. It offers a template structure for internal advocacy events.
    http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/news/Sept2007-01.htm#programme
  • RSP Event Toolkit
    Internal document available on request to the project, detailing key practical issues to consider in setting up an internal or external open access related event. Contact support@rsp.ac.uk