First Steps to Promoting Open Access for Research Data and Publications on Campus.

Open Access (OA) is “the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the right to use these articles fully in the digital environment.” (SPARC, 2014) While much of the conversation about OA centers on business models, economics, workflow processes, institutional policy, and the transformative influence on academic publishing, limited dialogue occurs about best practices to guide educational and research institutions when planning to develop a policy on Open Access. In 2015, the Dean’s Council at Stephen F Austin State University (SFASU) agreed to support Open Access on campus for research data and publications. The SFA Scholar Works, the University’s institutional repository would archive a wide range of research and scholarship produced by the academic community (i.e., faculty-student research, electronic thesis and dissertations (ETDs), and multimedia items). The Steen Library and Center for Digital Scholarship would play an active role in encouraging and educating members of the academic community on adopting Open Access and developing a policy for open research data and publications. However, many concerns among faculty on campus in regard to adopting a required mandate to open research created the need to consider methods that first focused on faculty interests, concerns, and ultimately acceptance. Student research: undergraduate and graduate were viewed as essential tools for building consensus. Results one year later were surprising and reveal how key measures when considered can help to initiate change. This presentation will discuss best practices and provide examples of the innovative steps taken to generate support for Open Access at SFASU

Why do Institutions Offer MOOCs?

By reviewing the literature and interviewing 83 individuals knowledgeable about massive open online courses (MOOCs), we investigate the goals of institutions of higher education that are currently developing and delivering such courses. We identify six major goals for MOOC initiatives: extending reach and access, building and maintaining brand, improving economics by reducing costs or increasing revenues, improving educational outcomes, innovation in teaching and learning, and conducting research on teaching and learning. Comparing these goals with the data being collected about MOOCs, their participants, and educational outcomes, as well as the resource requirements and cost drivers of the development and delivery process, we assess whether these goals are being met, or are likely to be in the future. While quantification of success in achieving these goals is for the most part lacking, we conclude that institutions are experiencing at least partial success in achieving each of these goals except for improving economics. We identify obstacles to fuller achievement of the goals and some potential solutions

Teleworking and housing demand

Open Access via the Elsevier agreement We are grateful to the two anonymous referees and Gabriel Ahlfeldt (the editor) for their detailed comments and suggestions, which helped to improve the paper. We thank Tim Bolt, Luis Loría, Axel Werwatz and seminar participants at the AREUEA International Conference, the University of Aberdeen and the TU Berlin for helpful comments. We are grateful to the Centre of Real Estate Research and the Health Economics Research Unit of the University of Aberdeen for financial support that made the online survey possible. The usual disclaimer applies. Rainer Schulz: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing. Verity Watson: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing. Martin Wersing: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Systematic literature review of methodologies and data sources of existing economic models across the full spectrum of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia from apparently healthy through disease progression to end of life care: a systematic review protocol

Introduction Dementia is one of the greatest health challenges the world will face in the coming decades, as it is one of the principal causes of disability and dependency among older people. Economic modelling is used widely across many health conditions to inform decisions on health and social care policy and practice. The aim of this literature review is to systematically identify, review and critically evaluate existing health economics models in dementia. We included the full spectrum of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), from preclinical stages through to severe dementia and end of life. This review forms part of the Real world Outcomes across the Alzheimer’s Disease spectrum for better care: multimodal data Access Platform (ROADMAP) project. Methods and analysis Electronic searches were conducted in Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, Excerpta Medica dataBASE, Economic Literature Database, NHS Economic Evaluation Database, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry, Research Papers in Economics, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, Science Citation Index, Turning Research Into Practice and Open Grey for studies published between January 2000 and the end of June 2017. Two reviewers will independently assess each study against predefined eligibility criteria. A third reviewer will resolve any disagreement. Data will be extracted using a predefined data extraction form following best practice. Study quality will be assessed using the Phillips checklist for decision analytic modelling. A narrative synthesis will be used. Ethics and dissemination The results will be made available in a scientific peer-reviewed journal paper, will be presented at relevant conferences and will also be made available through the ROADMAP project

Towards an understanding of the relationship between disciplinary research cultures and open access repository behaviours

This paper explores the cultural characteristics of three ‘open access (OA) friendly’ disciplines (physics, economics and clinical medicine) and the ways in which those characteristics influence perceptions, motivations and behaviours towards green OA. The empirical data are taken from two online surveys of European authors. Taking a domain analytic approach, the analysis draws on Becher and Trowler’s (2001) and Whitley’s (2000) theories to gain a deeper understanding of why open access repositories (OAR) play a particularly important role in the chosen disciplines. The surveys provided a unique opportunity to compare perceptions, motivations and behaviours of researchers at the discipline level with the parent metadiscipline. Albeit, participants were not drawn from a stratified sample of all the different sub-disciplines that constitute each discipline and therefore the generalizability of the findings to the discipline is limited. The differential role of informal and formal communication in each of the three disciplines has shaped green OA practices. For physicists and economists, preprints are an essential feature of their respective OAR landscapes, whereas for clinical medics final published articles have a central role. In comparing the disciplines with their parent metadisciplines there were some notable similarities/differences, which have methodological implications for studying research cultures

The London School of Economics and Political Science 2013/2014 RCUK open access compliance report

In September 2014, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) reported to Research Councils UK on the School’s compliance with the recently introduced RCUK Policy on Open Access (OA). This reports provides detail around the article processing charges (APC) data and RCUK Call for Evidence report. Background In April 2013, the revised RCUK Policy on Open Access came into effect. The policy requires journal articles or conference proceedings arising from research funded wholly or partially by a RCUK grant should be made freely available online (or “Open Access”). There are two main routes to make papers open access: a) the Green route, which is the LSE preferred route, when the full text of papers are deposited into an institutional repository such as LSE Research Online. To select this route, embargo periods must be no longer than the 12 months permitted by RCUK (no charge applies); b) the Gold route, which provides immediate, unrestricted access to the final version of the paper via the publisher's website, often using a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence - it may involve payment of an APC to the publisher. In 2013, we received the RCUK OA block grant for 2013/14 of £62,862. We set up the LSE Institutional Publication Fund using this grant and this was managed by the Library, allowing eligible RCUK-funded researchers to apply for APC funds. Additionally, the School was awarded a pump-prime funding allocation from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for open access, which was also added to the fund. Of the 141 papers we identified as RCUK-funded for Year 1, 50 papers are open access via the Green route and 73 via the Gold, resulting in an 87% compliance rat

The Economists Online subject repository: using institutional repositories as the foundation for international Open Access growth

A new subject repository, Economists Online (EO), has recently been launched. The pioneering model upon which it is built, aggregating the subject specific content of a consortium of participating institutions and their repositories, is examined in this article. An overview of existing subject repositories is given, along with an analysis of the scholarly communications landscape in economics and how the new EO subject repository fits into this environment. This paper makes a case for collaboration between institutional repositories as a way of increasing Open Access (OA) access to research

Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review

Within the context of the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe) research scope, this literature review investigates the current trends, advantages, disadvantages, problems and solutions, opportunities and barriers in Open Access Publishing (OAP), and in particular Open Access (OA) academic publishing. This study is intended to scope and evaluate current theory and practice concerning models for OAP and engage with intellectual, legal and economic perspectives on OAP. It is also aimed at mapping the field of academic publishing in the UK and abroad, drawing specifically upon the experiences of CREATe industry partners as well as other initiatives such as SSRN, open source software, and Creative Commons. As a final critical goal, this scoping study will identify any meaningful gaps in the relevant literature with a view to developing further research questions. The results of this scoping exercise will then be presented to relevant industry and academic partners at a workshop intended to assist in further developing the critical research questions pertinent to OAP