Following last week’s Open Access Week blog series, we continue our celebration of community efforts in this field. Today we give the microphone to Dr. Salua Nassabay from Open Knowledge Ireland in a great account from Ireland, originally posted on the Open Knowledge Ireland blog.
In Ireland, awareness of OA has increased within the research community nationally, particularly since institutional repositories have been built in each Irish university. Advocacy programmes and funder mandates (IRCSET, SFI, HEA) have had a positive effect; but there is still some way to go before the majority of Irish researchers will automatically deposit their papers in their local OA repository.
Brief Story
In summer 2004, the Irish Research eLibrary (IReL) was launched, giving online access to a wide range of key research journals. The National Principles on Open Access Policy Statement were launched on Oct 23rd 2012 at the Digital Repository of Ireland Conference by Sean Sherlock, Minister of State, Department of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation and Department of Education & Skills with responsibility for Research & Innovation. The policy consists of a ‘Green way’ mandate and encouragement to publish in ’Gold’ OA journals. It aligns with the European policy for Horizon 2020. OA on national level is managed by the National Steering Committee on OA Policy, see table 3.
A Committee of Irish research organisations is working in partnership to coordinate activities and to combine expertise at a national level to promote unrestricted, online access to outputs which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the State:
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National Principles on Open Access Policy Statement |
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Definition of OA Reaffirm: freedom of researchers; increase visibility and access; support international interoperability, link to teaching and learning, and open innovation. |
Defining Research Outputs: “include peer-reviewed publications, research data and other research artefacts which |
General Principle (1): all researchers to have deposit rights for an AO repository. Deposit: post-print/publisher version and metadata; peer-reviewed journal articles and |
General Principle (2):Release: immediate for meta-data; respect publisher copyright, licensing and embargo (not Green route policy – not exclusive Suitable repositories Research data linked to publications.
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High-level principles: Infrastructure and sustainability: depositing once, harvesting, interoperability and long-term preservation. Advocacy and coordination: mechanisms for and monitoring of implementation, awareness raising and engagement for ALL. Exploiting OA and implementation: preparing metadata and national value-added metrics. |
Table 1. National Principles on Open Access Policy Statement. https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/communications/pdfs/PatriciaClarke2014.pdf and http://openaccess.thehealthwell.info/sites/default/files/documents/NationalPrinciplesonOAPolicyStatement.pdf
There are seven universities in Ireland http://www.hea.ie/en/about-hea). These Irish universities received government funding to build institutional repositories in each Irish university and to develop a federated harvesting and discovery service via a national portal. It is intended that this collaboration will be expanded to embrace all Irish research institutions in the future. OA repositories are currently available in all Irish universities and in a number of other higher education institutions and government agencies:
Table 2. Currently available repositories in Ireland
AO Ireland’s statistics show more than 58,859 OA publications in 13 repositories, distributed as can be seen in the figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1. Publications in repositories.From rian.ie (date: 16/9/2014). http://rian.ie/en/stats/overview
Some samples of Irish OA journals are:
– Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art and Technology: http://crossings.tcd.ie;
–Economic and Social Review: http://www.esr.ie;
–Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland: http://www.music.ucc.ie/jsmi/index.php/jsmi;
–Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland: http://www.ssisi.ie;
–Minerva: an Internet Journal of Philosophy: http://www.minerva.mic.ul.ie//;
–The Surgeon: Journal of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland: http://www.researchgate.net/journal/1479-666X_The_surgeon_journal_of_the_Royal_Colleges_of_Surgeons_of_Edinburgh_and_Ireland;
–Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine: http://www.ijpm.ie/1fmul3lci60?a=1&p=24612705&t=21297075.
Figure 2. Publications by document type. From rian.ie (date: 16/9/2014). http://rian.ie/en/stats/overview
Institutional OA policies:
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Name |
URL |
OA mandatory |
OA Infrastructure |
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Health Research Board (HRB) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.hrb.ie Policy:http://www.hrb.ie/research-strategy-funding/policies-and-guidelines/policies/open-access/ |
Yes |
No |
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Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.sfi.ie Policy: http://www.sfi.ie/funding/grant-policies/open-access-availability-of-published-research-policy.html |
Yes |
No |
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Higher Education Authority (HEA) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.hea.ie Policy: http://www.hea.ie/en/policy/research/open-access-scientific-information |
No |
No |
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Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.agriculture.gov.ie Policy:http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/media/migration/research/DAFMOpenAccessPolicy.pdf |
Yes effective 2013 |
No |
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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.epa.ie/ Policy:http://www.epa.ie/footer/accessibility/infopolicy/#.VBlPa8llwjg Repository: http://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/#.VBmTVMllwjg |
Yes |
Yes |
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Marine Institute (MI) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.marine.ie/Home/ Policy: http://oar.marine.ie/help/policy.html Repository: http://oar.marine.ie |
No |
Yes |
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Irish Research Council (IRC) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.research.ie Policy: http://www.research.ie/aboutus/open-access |
*Yes |
No |
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Teagasc – Funders |
Webside: http://www.teagasc.ie Policy: http://t-stor.teagasc.ie/help/t-stor-faq.html#faqtopic2 Repository: http://t-stor.teagasc.ie |
*No |
Yes |
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Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH) – Funders |
Webside: http://www.publichealth.ie |
Yes |
No |
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Irish Universities Association (IUA) – Researchers
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Representative body for Ireland’s seven universities: https://www.tcd.ie/research_innovation/assets/TCD%20Open%20Access%20Policy.pdf |
Yes effective 2010 |
Yes |
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Health Service Executive (HSE) – Researchers
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Webside: http://www.hse.ie/eng/ Policy:http://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Resources/library/Open_Access/statement.pdf Repository: http://www.lenus.ie/hse/ |
Yes effective 2013 |
Yes |
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Institutes of Technology Ireland (IOTI) – Researchers |
Webside: http://www.ioti.ie
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– |
No |
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Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) – Researchers |
Webside: http://dit.ie Policy: http://arrow.dit.ie/mandate.html Repository: http://arrow.dit.ie |
*Yes |
Yes |
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Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) – Researchers |
Webside: http://www.rcsi.ie Policy: http://epubs.rcsi.ie/policies.html Repository: http://epubs.rcsi.ie |
*No |
Yes |
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Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL) – Library and Repository |
Webside: http://www.conul.ie Repository: http://rian.ie/en |
– |
Yes |
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IUA Librarians’ Group (IUALG) – Library and Repository |
Webside: http://www.iua.ie Repository: http://rian.ie/en |
– |
Yes |
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Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) – Library and Repository |
Webside and Repository: http://www.dri.ie DRI Position Statement on Open Access for Data: http://dri.ie/sites/default/files/files/dri-position-statement-on-open-access-for-data-2014.pdf |
Yes effective 2014 |
Yes |
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EdepositIreland – Library and Repository |
Webside: http://www.tcd.ie/Library/edepositireland/ Policy: https://www.tcd.ie/research_innovation/assets/TCD%20Open%20Access%20Policy.pdf Repository: http://edepositireland.ie |
Yes |
Yes |
*IRC: Some exceptions like books. See policy.
*Teagasc: Material in the repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Share-Alike License
*DIT: Material that is to be commercialised, or which can be regarded as confidential, or the publication of which would infringe a legal commitment of the Institute and/or the author, is exempt from inclusion in the repository.
*RCSI: Material in the repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Share-Alike License
Table 3. Institutional OA Policies in Ireland
Funder OA policies:
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Major research funders in Ireland |
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Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/media/migration/research/DAFMOpenAccessPolicy.pdf |
IRCHSS (Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences): No Open Access policies as yet. |
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Enterprise Ireland: No Open Access policies as yet. |
IRCSET (Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology): OA Mandate from May 1st 2008:http://roarmap.eprints.org/63/ |
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HEA (Higher Education Authority): OA Mandate from June 30th 2009: http://roarmap.eprints.org/95/ |
Marine Institute: No Open Access policies as yet |
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HRB (Health Research Board): OA Recommendations, Policy: http://roarmap.eprints.org/76/ |
SFI (Science Foundation Ireland): OA Mandate from February 1st 2009: http://roarmap.eprints.org/115/ |
Table 4. Open Access funders in Ireland.
Figure 3. Public sources of funds for Open Access. From rian.ie (date: 16/9/2014), http://rian.ie/en/stats/overview
Infrastructural support for OA:
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Open Access organisations and groups |
Open Access projects and initiatives. The Open Access to Irish Research Project. Associated National Initiatives |
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RIAN Steering Group. IUA (Irish Universities Association) Librarian’s Group (Coordinating body). RIAN is the outcome of a project to build online open access to institutional repositories in all seven Irish universities and to harvest their content to the national portal. |
NDLR (National Digital Learning Repository):http://www.ndlr.ie |
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National Steering Group on Open Access Policy. See Table 3 |
RISE Group (Research Information Systems Exchange) |
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Irish Open Access Repositories Support Project Working Group. ReSupIE: http://www.irel-open.ie/moodle/ |
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Repository Network Ireland is a newly formed group of Repository managers, librarians and information: http://rni.wikispaces.com |
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Digital Repository Ireland DRI is a trusted national repository for Ireland’s humanities and social sciences data @dri_ireland |
Table 5. Open Access infrastructural support.
Challenges and ongoing developments
Ireland already has considerable expertise in developing Open Access to publicly funded research, aligned with international policies and initiatives, and is now seeking to strengthen its approach to support international developments on Open Access led by the European Commission, Science Europe and other international agencies.
The greatest challenge is the increasing pressure faced by publishers in a fast-changing environment.
Conclusions
The launch of Ireland’s national Open Access policy has put Ireland ahead of many European partners. Irish research organisations are particularly successful in the following areas of research: Information and Communication Technologies, Health and Food, Agriculture, and Biotechnology.
Links
– Repository Network Ireland / http://rni.wikispaces.com
–Open Access Scholarly Publishers / http://oaspa.org/blog/
– OpenDoar – Directory of Repositories / http://www.opendoar.org
– OpenAire – Open Access Infrastructure for research in Europe / https://www.openaire.eu
– Repositories Support Ireland / http://www.resupie.ie/moodle/
–UCD Library News / http://ucdoa.blogspot.ie
– Trinity’s Open Access News / http://trinity-openaccess.blogspot.ie
– RIAN / http://rian.ie/en/stats/overview
Contact person: Dr. Salua Nassabay salua.nassabay@openknowledge.ie
https://www.openknowledge.ie; twitter: @OKFirl
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