Centering Accessibility: A Review of Institutional Repository Policy and Practice

Authors : Talea Anderson, Chelsea Leachman

INTRODUCTION

Libraries have proposed institutional repositories as a means of providing universal access to university research. However, in recent years, it has become clear that universities and libraries have neglected web accessibility in constructing services including open access publishing programs.

METHODS

To better understand accessibility practices in relation to institutional repositories, survey responses were collected from repository managers. The survey consisted of five multiple choice and two open-ended questions regarding remediation and accessibility practices used by repository managers.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION

While the importance of accessibility has been well documented, survey responses showed that few policies and practices have been put in place to ensure accessibility in institutional repositories. Key barriers to accessibility included lack of organizational resources, lack of time, inadequate training, and product restrictions.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that accessibility should be prioritized in future creation of policies and allocation of library resources.

URL : Centering Accessibility: A Review of Institutional Repository Policy and Practice

DOI : https://jlsc-pub.org/articles/abstract/10.7710/2162-3309.2383/

The Rutgers Open Access Policy goes into effect: Faculty reaction and implementation lessons learned

Authors : Jane Otto, Laura Bowering Mullen

From laying the groundwork for the successful passage of a university-wide Open Access policy, through the development and planning that goes into a successful implementation, to “Day One” when the official university policy goes into effect, there is a long list of factors that affect faculty interest, participation and compliance.

The authors, Mullen and Otto, having detailed earlier aspects of the Rutgers University Open Access Policy passage and implementation planning, analyze and share the specifics that followed the rollout of the Policy and that continue to affect participation.

This case study presents some strategies and systems used to enhance author self-archiving in the newly minted SOAR (Scholarly Open Access at Rutgers) portal of the Rutgers institutional repository, including involvement of departmental liaison librarians, effective presentation of metrics, and a focus on targeted communication with faculty.

Roadblocks encountered as faculty began to deposit their scholarship and lessons learned are a focus. Early reaction from faculty and graduate students (doctoral students and postdocs) to various aspects of the Policy as well as the use of SOAR for depositing their work are included.

DOI : https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3D50QDM

Effective Practices and Strategies for Open Access Outreach: A Qualitative Study

Author : Diane (DeDe) Dawson

INTRODUCTION

There are many compelling reasons to make research open access (OA), but raising the awareness of faculty and administrators about OA is a struggle. Now that more and more funders are introducing OA policies, it is increasingly important that researchers understand OA and how to comply with these policies.

U.K. researchers and their institutions have operated within a complex OA policy environment for many years, and academic libraries have been at the forefront of providing services and outreach to support them. This article discusses the results of a qualitative study that investigated effective practices and strategies of OA outreach in the United Kingdom.

METHODS

Semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals at seven universities in the United Kingdom in late 2015. Transcripts of these interviews were analyzed for dominant themes using an inductive method of coding.

RESULTS

Themes were collected under the major headings of “The Message”; “Key Contacts and Relationships”; “Qualities of the OA Practitioner”; and “Advocacy versus Compliance.” 

DISCUSSION

Results indicate that messages about OA need to be clear, concise, and jargon free. They need to be delivered repeatedly and creatively adapted to specific audiences. Identifying and building relationships with influencers and informers is key to the uptake of the message, and OA practitioners must have deep expertise to be credible as the messengers.

CONCLUSION

This timely research has immediate relevance to North American libraries as they contend with pressures to ramp up their own OA outreach and support services to assist researchers in complying with new federal funding policies.

URL : Effective Practices and Strategies for Open Access Outreach: A Qualitative Study

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2216

Une brève histoire d’Okina

Auteurs/Authors : Stéphanie Bouvier, Daniel Bourrion

Ouverte à sa communauté en février 2015, Okina, l’archive ouverte institutionnelle de l’Université d’Angers, a été développée au sein d’un projet global autour de l’Open Access.

Les lignes qui suivent retracent l’histoire de cette archive et la manière dont Okina est née puis a été portée politiquement. Elles se penchent également sur les choix techniques comme stratégiques ou humains effectués le long du chemin, qui ont permis que de vagues idées se concrétisent dans un objet fonctionnel né de (presque) rien.

URL : http://bbf.enssib.fr/contributions/une-breve-histoire-d-okina

Implementing Open Access Policy: First Case Studies

When implementing open access, policy pioneers and flagship institutions alike have faced considerable challenges in meeting their own aims and achieving a recognized success.

Legitimate authority, sufficient resources and the right timing are crucial, but the professionals charged with implementing policy typically still need several years to accomplish significant progress.

This study defines a methodological standard for evaluating the first generation of open access policies. Evaluating implementation establishes evidence, enables reflection, and may foster the emergence of a second generation of open access policies.

While the study is based on a small number of cases, these case studies cover most of the pioneer institutions, present the most significant issues and offer an international overview.

Each case is reconstructed individually on the basis of public documents and background information, and supported by interviews with professionals responsible for open access implementation.

This article presents the highlights from each case study. The results are utilized to indicate how a second generation of policies might define open access as a key component of digital research infrastructures that provide inputs and outputs for research, teaching and learning in real time.

URL : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1927772

Implementing Open Access: Policy Case St…

Implementing Open Access: Policy Case Studies :

“Implementing open access is a tough job. Legitimate authority, sufficient resources and the right timing are crucial. Pioneers, role models and flagship institutions all have faced considerable challenges in meeting their own aims and achieving a recognized success. Professionals charged with implementing policy typically need several years to accomplish significant progress. Many institutions adopting open access policies probably need to do more, much more, if the commitment to open access is to be meaningful.
A first generation of open access policy development and implementation is coming to a close. It is thus possible to begin evaluation. Evaluating implementation establishes evidence, enables reflection, and may foster the emergence of a second generation of open access policies.
This study is based on a small number of cases, examining the implementation of open access around the world. Some of the pioneer institutions with open access mandates have been included, as well as some newer cases. The emergence of the new stakeholders in publishing is examined, such as digital repositories, research funders and research organisations.
Because this is a groundbreaking study, no claim is made that the results are representative. The emphasis is on variety and on defining a methodological standard. Each case is reconstructed individually on the basis of public documents and background information, and supported by interviews with professionals responsible for open access implementation.
Implementation is typically based on targeting researchers as authors. Indeed, the author is pivotal to any open access solution. This is the ‘tertium comparationis’ that facilitates an examination of the similarities and differences across instances in an effort to build a broader policy research agenda.
In a final section, open access is placed in the wider context of the evolution of digital scholarship. This clarifies how published research results are destined to become a key component of digital research infrastructures that provide inputs and outputs for research, teaching and learning in real time.
The ten cases examined in detail are:
– Refining green open access policy: Queensland University of Technology (September 2003)
– Refining policy to foster deposit: University of Zurich (July 2005)
– National platform, open collection, decentralized policy: the HAL platform (June-October 2006)
– Maximising a funder’s impact: The Wellcome Trust (October 2006)
– Implementing open access as a digital infrastructure: UK PMC (January 2007)
– Learning from global research infrastructure: SCOAP3 (April 2007)
– Linking public access to open data: Howard Hughes Medical Institute (January 2008)
– Open access to all publications, internationally: Austrian Science Fund (FWF, March 2008)
– One policy, sixty publication strategies: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (July 2008)
– Open Access complements the Research Information System: The University of Pretoria (May 2009)”.

URL : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1685855