Research and Scholarly Communications - Blog - Library Guides at University of Sunderland

The theme of Open Access week this year is “Community over commercialization”.

Across the next seven days, the Research and Scholarly Communications Team in the University Library Services will share with you some initiatives that aim to transform scholarly publishing and move away from the for-profit publishing that has largely dominated academic publishing.

Theme 7. Open Access and research assessment

The move toward Open Access of scholarly communications is clearly driven by funders mandates and research assessments practices. Since the 2012 Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), there has been a recognition that research assessments need to be reformed to provide a true assessment of what makes good research. The aim of these reforms is to recognise the varied research outputs that emerge from research and eschew the use problematic metrics (such as Journal Impact factor) used as proxy for measuring quality.

In the context of the UK, the first decisions of the forthcoming REF 2028 insists on the importance of developing a positive research culture. In particular, there is a stated aim to reconsider what should be recognised and rewarded as part of the research assessment and to consider how research culture is supported. In many ways, opening access to research is an important element of creating a positive research culture at institutional, national and international level. Sharing research results as openly as possible is one of the building blocks to move away from the competitive culture instilled by the use of questionable metrics to assess research. It creates an environment in which sharing is important and recognised as more valuable than restricting access.

It is also important to note that DORA, of which the University of Sunderland is a signatory, recognises the need to assess research on its own merits, not based on where it is published. This can hopefully enable researchers to be more confident to choose reputable Open Access venues to publish over the traditional, locked behind paywall, high impact factor journal that might not contribute to creating a positive research culture.

Recent Posts

Why participate in Open Research - #OA week

On this Friday of #OAweek, we will share the work of our fourth and final research assistant, Daniel Dunlavey. Daniel decided to consider they key benefits of Open Research. Through a series of images and short videos (see below) for social media campaigns, he captured some of the key benefits of Open Research.These are wide and range from breaking down barriers in research and promoting equity in the research ecosystem, to fostering collaborations and innovation, to enhancing the visibility of research. Open Research contributes to accelerating research through sharing methodology, data, research results through pre-prints (even negative ones that are often overlooked in formal publications), and publications. There is also an argument that Open Research is just research done properly and that it improves trust in research from the public. Serendipity wants that this year International Open Access Week partly coincides with Global Media and Information Literacy Week. This seems appropriate at a time when disinformation and misinformation circulates widely. This crisis is heightened by the proliferation of AI tools, opening research is one of the mechanisms to curb this proliferation. Have a look at some of the messages included in these short videos and think about how you could participate in Open Research. You could also read the recently adopted Open Research Statement that shows the University of Sunderland's commitment to opening research. ...

Opening education research #OAWeek

Today’s blog shares the work produced by Heidi Guest, another of our research assistant. Her work in education inspired her to look at Open Research from the point of view of an educational Researcher. She developed a range of resources to demonstrate how Open Research can enhance the impact of educational research. In her first resource she asked What can you do to make your research Open?Her second resource looks at the benefits of making educational research Open Access. While her final resource looks at five ways to make research open looking at methodology, data, analysis, professional connections and publications. Contextualising and understanding how Open Research can benefit your own discipline is important. Different disciplines will be confronted to different issues and barriers when it comes to adopting Open Research. However, what can be open should be to enable other researchers, policy makers, school leaders and teachers, parents and maybe the children themselves to engage with that research. The principles of Engaged Research might be interesting to explore in the context of Open Research. To learn more about engaged research check out the Wellcome Institute and UKRI information....

Open Access Week: Using and understanding Creative Commons Licenses

In today's blog, we are continuing to showcase the work of our research assistants. They produced a range of resources to support our collective understanding of Open Research. Today, features the work of Barbara Long-Flint about Creative Commons licenses (CC) and the part they play in Open Research. In an earlier blog, we had highlighted how the use of CC licenses was part and parcel of the Open Access and Open Research movement. Most Open Access articles are now published with an CC license. The preferred license for most funders and the REF is CC-BY. This license allows for the work to be distributed, reused, remixed without the need to ask permission. However, there are other more restrictive versions of CC licenses that might be used. In the current system, the publisher often becomes the copyright holder and charges people for the reuse, remixing and distribution of the work. If you are funded, it might be that your funder requires a specific CC license to be applied to your work. Awareness of what CC licenses are and how they work is important. As an author choosing a CC license can empower you to decide what people can do with your work.To help us with our understanding, Barbara produced a series of resources showcased below: A guide introducing Creative Commons Licenses A guide about Data and Creative Commons Licenses A poster entitled the Copyright Dilemma exploring the factors that might lead the choice of copyright. We hope these resources are useful and that they can help guide your choice and increase your understanding of this key element of Open Research and Open Access. ...

An Open Research Game for Open Access Week

Earlier this year, the Research and Scholarly Communications team was awarded funding to support and enhance the research culture at the University of Sunderland, particularly in relation to Open Research. This funding meant we could employ 4 postgraduate researchers, each of whom created a variety of materials that will enrich future advocacy and training sessions.One of these researchers, Lisa Meek, created an Open Research text-based computer game that not only promotes the benefits of open research, but also shows how researchers can best engage with open research practices at every stage of their research journey. We also love that it brings back memories of some much-cherished games from (many) decades ago!The game is fully open access, and is published under a CC-BY license which sits well with the Open Access Week imperative to ‘prioritize approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community’.Here’s Lisa explaining how the game works, and her reasons for creating it. ...

#OAweek - Open Access and Research Assessments

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