The University has now adopted a Policy of Mandatory Deposit in the UC Research Repository. This has come into effect from 20 October 2014 and coincides with International Open Access Week. The aim of this policy is to increase the visibility, impact and accessibility of UC research by increasing the number of deposits made to the repository.

The UC Library’s goal is to increase the volume of research outputs uploaded to the repository. Until this week, deposits were voluntary and the rate of deposit was around 8-12%. The repository has had 1.5 million downloads in the seven years it has been active. With this high visitor rate, increasing the volume of deposits will be of benefit to the profile of UC as an institution as well as being of benefit to the reputation of its researchers. Please support the policy and advocate for open access with researchers and students. Benefits of the policy are:

Benefits for researchers:

1. The global visibility and accessibility of their work will increase
2. An increase in citation counts, PBRF and research funding
3. Enhance connections and collaborative opportunities with the global research community
4. Address funder focus on citation counts when assessing funding proposals
5. Address trend by funders that requires research be published in Open Access format
6. Enhanced support for researchers during the research lifecycle
7. Improved access to full bibliography of research by individual researchers for funding purposes

Benefits for UC:

1. Increase the global visibility of UC and its research community.
2. Increase PBRF and QS rankings, and research funding
3. Enhance UC’s profile as a research-led learning institution – which will attract students and researchers to the institution
4. Increase UC’s credibility in a competitive global research environment

The term “mandatory” in relation to this policy means that while UC researchers are expected, where appropriate, to submit suitable versions of their work (normally post-print accepted manuscripts), though they can opt out of doing so. Reasons for opting out could include:

• issues around privacy
• intellectual property rights
• copyright
• a prior contract with a journal
• or another explicit concern that makes it impractical to deposit into the repository.

Research is core business at UC. Ensuring research outputs are prominent and easily accessible is important in terms of ensuring UC’s researchers and the work they produce is globally visible. It also helps to maintain UC’s reputation as a research-led learning institution.

Starting this week, research publications will be collected through Profiler at the same time as they are submitted into a researcher’s PRBF portfolio.

The UC Library and Research & Innovation have run an education campaign on the policy with key stakeholder groups. This group includes: Colleges, faculty boards, departments, Postgraduate Office, Research Committee, Library Committee, SMT, and Academic Board.

All relevant material relating to the policy, and where researchers can go for further support, will be available to staff/students through the UC Library website including an FAQ.

Material for the Repository will be collected through Profiler at the same time as it is submitted into a researcher’s PRBF portfolio. An opt out function will be available at this stage of the process.

Anton Angelo and members of the Resource Discovery team will take care of all copyright and contract issues when submissions are made.