Heriot-Watt University’s Theses Repository, ROS, has over 30,000 items and contains full-text copies of all Heriot-Watt University PhD theses awarded from 2009 onwards.

The top downloaded thesis was submitted in 2015, and has over 24,000 downloads:

Molwus, Jurbe Joseph (2014) ‘Stakeholder management in construction projects : a life cycle based framework‘, PhD thesis, Heriot-Watt University.

Stats on theses downloaded can be obtained from a service called IRUS-UK, which aggregates statistics from UK repositories.

The visualisation below shows downloads by country in September 2018.  With a large downloads of theses in the areas of construction and energy production, Heriot-Watt’s reputation as a global university with a strong engineering and technical focus is borne out by the usage of our research.  For more information, contact open.access@hw.ac.uk

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. Its outcomes inform the allocation of approximately £2 billion of public funding per year for universities’ research. The REF is conducted jointly by Research England (RE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland (DfE).

To be eligible for submission to REF 2021 the funding councils mandate that the research outputs specified below must be discoverable, free to read and downloadable by anyone with an internet connection. Researchers can usually access the journals they need via their institution and might think they are Open Access, but in reality this is only made possible by costly subscriptions their institution acquired.

REF Open Access policy applies to journal articles and conference contributions (with an International Standard Serial Number – ISSN) which were accepted for publication after 1 April 2016.

What do I need to do?

1. Create a record for your output in Pure (our institutional repository) upon acceptance for publication – full date of acceptance is mandatory.

2. Upload the Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM) to the record you created no later than 3 months after acceptance.

3. The Research Support team will do the rest.

Green Open Access

The route described above is what we call Green Open Access. Once the AAM has been deposited in our Institutional repository it may be subject to a publisher embargo period. The Research Support Team, in the process of validating records, sets embargo periods and licenses. After the embargo period (most commonly 12 months) elapses, the AAM automatically becomes freely available in Heriot-Watt Research Portal for everyone to discover (as seen on the right).

What is an Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM)?

AAM is the version of the paper that has been peer-reviewed and the changes and revisions required by the reviewers have been incorporated, but before any typesetting or formatting has been applied by the publisher. Typically, it is without page numbers, volume and issue information and any publisher’s insignia.

What is Pure?

Pure is the University’s current research information system, highlighting Heriot-Watt University research activity to the wider community.  Pure provides a single location to store information about Heriot-Watt University research staff, publications, research data, activities and collaborations.

For any questions about Open Access or REF contact us at open.access@hw.ac.uk

For further reading, please visit:

• https://www.ref.ac.uk/ and
• http://www.hw.ac.uk/is/research-support/open-access.htm

Open Access Week is an international celebration of the benefits of Open Access to scholarship.  The theme this year “reflects a scholarly system in transition. While governments, funders, universities, publishers, and scholars are increasingly adopting open policies and practices, how these are actually implemented is still in flux. As open becomes the default, all stakeholders must be intentional about designing these new, open systems to ensure that they are inclusive, equitable, and truly serve the needs of a diverse global community.”

Although a recent major driver to open access is the requirement for the next REF, that accepted manuscripts should be deposited in an institutional repository (Pure) no more than three months after acceptance, examples of good open access practice can be found in many places:  depositing preprints in repositories such as arXiv;  creating and publishing Open Access journals, such as the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Equality and Diversity (IPED) journal, published by the School of Social Sciences and using Open Journal Systems software; and creating and sharing open research data.

The Research Support Team in Information Services provides support to research staff and students on making their research more openly available.  We provide advice via webpages and Power Hours, and individual tailored advice. We can help you:

• maintain your research profile in Pure, including adding publications
• publish your research outputs as Open Access, to meet REF Open Access Compliance
• with advice on article processing charges (APCs) and open access requirements for all funders
• with research computing solutions
• manage your research data – data management planning, data storage and sharing
• publish open data, including obtaining dois for data
• copyright and licensing

Throughout this week, we will post on different aspects of open access: how to create unique identifiers (ORCID IDs, digital object identifiers (dois)), how to publish open data, meet REF Open Access compliance, and on digital theses.

We are keen to hear your experiences, questions and opinions on what open access means for you and your research.  There will be a competition with a prize!

The first resource we are sharing is the film Paywall: the Business of Scholarship, a documentary which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google. 

Get in touch

The Research Support team in IS is:

• Linda Kerr, Research Support Librarian
• Lesa Ng, Research Support Assistant (pictured)
• Marko Mlakar, Research Support Assistant (pictured)
• Jose Manuel Menendez Montes, Research Computing Manager

We can be reached on open.access@hw.ac.uk

For advice on Pure – purehelp@hw.ac.uk

For advice on open data –  openresearchdata@hw.ac.uk

@OpenResHWU

The following workshops will be held w/c
22nd October in the Edinburgh Campus Library

Endnote Desktop
Date: 22 October 2018
Time: 10:15-11:45
Location: Anderson Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Literature Searching for MACS Subjects
Date: 22 October 2018
Time: 12:15-13:15
Location: Anderson Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Citing and Referencing Harvard
Date: 22 October 2018
Time: 14:15-15:15
Location: Library Teaching Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Poster Design
Date: 23 October 2018
Time: 12:15-13:15
Location: Anderson Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Research Data Management
Date: 24 October 2018
Time: 14:15-15:15
Location: Library Teaching Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: Staff and PGR only

Endnote Online 
Date: 25 October 2018
Time: 12:15-13:15
Location: Library Teaching Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Presentation Skills
Date: 25 October 2018
Time: 15:15-16:15
Location: Anderson Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome

Finding Patients
Date: 26 October 2018
Time: 12:15-13:15
Location: Anderson Room, Edinburgh Campus Library
Campus: Edinburgh
Audience: All Welcome