Open Access Archivangelism

Kudos to the University of Oxford! Although the Oxford 2013 "Statement on Open Access" had been rather weak and vague, it has now been reinforced by Open Access Oxford's 2015 system (see text at end, below) for implementing HEFCE/REF2020, and this time it's the optimal system.


Now all that's needed in order to monitor and ensure compliance is to make the date-of-acceptance (year, month, day) field in the Oxford repository (ORA) a mandatory field (and advise authors to make sure to retain their acceptance letter for possible audit).

The repository software can then calculate the (likewise mandatory) deposit date D and the Acceptance date A and subtract A from D. If D - A < 3 (months) then the article is HEFCE-compliant and eligible for REF2020.

If D - A > 3 then the author is alerted that the article risks not being eligible for REF2020 and that for future articles D - A must be less than 3 months.

Automated D-A monitoring and feedback to authors should be continuous and immediate.

HEFCE/REF2020 will probably be flexible about the start-up 1-2 years, but not longer than that. Oxford is right to get the system in place as early as possible.

Vincent-Lamarre, Philippe, Boivin, Jade, Gargouri, Yassine, Larivière, Vincent and Harnad, Stevan (2015) Estimating Open Access Mandate Effectiveness: I. The MELIBEA Score. Journal of the  Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) (2015, in press) /

Swan, Alma; Gargouri, Yassine; Hunt, Megan; & Harnad, Stevan (2015) Open Access Policy: Numbers, Analysis, Effectiveness. Pasteur4OA Workpackage 3 Report.

Oxford prepares for ‘Act on Acceptance’

We are continuing as planned with preparations for a single, simple message for open access: Act on Acceptance. Over the summer, we are putting in place mechanisms to ensure all researchers employed by the collegiate University are able to deposit their article manuscripts in our repository ORA within 3 months of acceptance by the journal - to meet HEFCE’s OA requirements and the general push to improve the accessibility of research.

Research Services, the Libraries and IT Services are in the middle of this work, and will be producing materials and guidance for departments & researchers from Autumn 2015. This is when our campaign around ‘act on acceptance’ will begin so as to be ready for HEFCE’s policy start date of 1 April 2016. We will provide further information later in the summer.

If you have any questions please contact our email helpline: open-access-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.