Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE)
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New service to support open access in the post-2014 REF

HEFCE has agreed to fund the development of a new shared service to support compliance with the policy for open access in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF). At its core, this new service will enable authors and universities to check whether a given publication is compliant with the open access policy (Note 1).

This service will build on the work of Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access (SHERPA), based in the Centre for Research Communications at the University of Nottingham. 

It will link closely with the existing SHERPA/FACT service for authors funded by Research Councils UK and Wellcome Trust, and the SHERPA/RoMEO directory of journal self-archiving policies.

We are keen for this new service to meet the needs of those that will use it. The first phase of its development will include a consultation with academics, repository managers, librarians and others to seek views on what the service should deliver. This consultation, led by Research Consulting, includes a number of surveys of various stakeholders. 

Notes

  1. The policy for open access in the post-2014 REF was announced on 31 March 2014. In summary, the policy states that to be eligible for submission to the post-2014 REF, authors’ final peer-reviewed manuscripts must have been deposited in an institutional or subject repository on acceptance for publication. Deposited material should be discoverable, and free to read and download, for anyone with an internet connection. 
  2. Further information on the SHERPA services 
  3. Details of the consultation for this new shared service, including links to the surveys.
  4. For further information contact Ben Johnson (0117 931 7038,b.johnson@hefce.ac.uk). 

 

Channel website: http://www.hefce.ac.uk

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