Summary

The TeachMeet was a venue for private discussion and, as such, this summary of the TeachMeet does not identify individuals or institutions. The comments and observations recorded below may have come from any individual participant at the TeachMeet and should not be considered as the views or comments either of the participants as a whole or the session leaders (whose primary role was to facilitate discussion).

Part 1: Open Access and REF 2021

Discussion: the current and future roles and responsibilities of Open Access

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants)


  • The UK-SCL is a reasonable approach to Intellectual Property and promoting Open Access in the UK, and we shouldn’t be passive or afraid when encouraging a cultural shift towards openness.
  • If all institutions take a ‘wait and see’ approach then change in the scholarly publishing landscape will not happen.
  • On the Green route to Open Access: one view is that the integrity of the academic record is not helped by inconsistent versions of manuscripts in multiple repositories, and another is that the quality of the deposited manuscripts is the concern of the academics and not repository managers.
  • Offsetting of Article Processing Charges from the ‘big’ publishers is difficult to take advantage of (with the exception of the Springer Compact) - e.g. Wiley and IEEE require prepayment to get the discount.
  • Taking advantage of discounts to Article Processing Charges from the ‘big’ publishers is such a complex and time consuming process that some institutions are simply choosing not to do so - it is more expensive to get the discount than not to use it!
  • JISC could be more assertive and follow the lead of Sweden, Germany, and France when negotiating with publishers. On the other hand, perhaps JISC do not perceive that as their role (and also the UK research sector is not as centralised as other nations) making a ‘tough’ negotiating position more difficult.

Experiences of Open Access and REF 2021

Led by Dawn Hibbert (University of Northampton)

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants or the session leader)

  • The REF 2021 Open Access policy was less about Open Access and more like a ‘deposit policy’.
  • Tell academics to ‘just deposit’ in an attempt to minimise the number of tasks for academics. Whilst Open Access might be a top priority for scholarly communications and research support teams, for academics Open Access might be the lowest of the low priorities!
  • Professionals supporting academics with Open Access have a duty of care to judge whether making a particular output Open Access through the Green route would risk being an unlawful act or endanger privacy or security.
  • Because the REF 2021 Open Access policy says enforcement will be ‘tolerant of occasional failures’ it might be that non-compliant outputs are submitted to REF 2021 and ‘declared’ in the environmental statement alongside the overall percentage of compliance (which was assumed to be very high).
Dawn Hibbert_Experiences of REF.pdf
  • The emphasis of the REF 2021 Open Access policy is to encourage a cultural change towards Open Access, rather than item-by-item compliance (HEFCE/UKRI is seeking to assess research quality, not to catch out outputs on technicalities).
  • One institution investigated the journals that academics had been publishing in during previous years and found only a handful were not compliant with the REF 2021 Open Access policy.


  • For journals without a clear Open Access policy a ‘risk managed’ approach would be to contact the journal to request that a particular output be made available through the Green route, and - should there be no response - then to inform them that the Green route was being taken and ask that they contact the repository team should this not be in accordance with the wishes of the journal.
  • The ‘new’ REF 2021 Open Access exception (not deposited within 3 months of acceptance but deposited within 3 months of publication) is difficult to implement with a fixed system for recording compliance and exceptions.
  • Most of the time spent on Open Access is spent advocating to academics.
  • Overall compliance with the Open Access requirements across UK HEIs may correlate with the wealth of the institutions, due to the ability of wealthier universities to fund specific teams and services, as well as Article Processing Charges to support academics to meet the requirements.
  • The REF 2021 Open Access policy has been tremendously effective for making research outputs Open Access, but it has also changed the act of Open Access into an administrative burden for academics and institutions.
  • The definition of Gold Open Access is less important than a general encouragement towards openness of research outputs.
  • Consistency in the definitions is more important at the institutional level - i.e. when writing an environmental statement for REF 2021 - than at national level.
  • Conference proceedings and the REF 2021 Open Access requirements: some try to distinguish between category a) [online-only, journal-like series of proceedings] and category b) [books or book-like outputs] conference proceedings; some take a blanket approach to meeting the requirements for all conference proceedings; while others are dependent on software to distinguish between category a) and category b) conference proceedings.

Part 2: Research Data Management

Experiences of what Research Data Management services can realistically be offered with limited resources

Led by Stephen Grace (London South Bank University)

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants or the session leader)

  • RDM (Research Data Management) is principally about ‘looking after things’
  • The scale of RDM is intimidating
  • In some areas of RDM very specific technical knowledge is needed
  • GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a particular challenge though now is a good time to broach the subject with researchers when it is a newsworthy item. But if we don’t have the resources to support GDPR compliance then it is another burden that will fall to the academics.
  • Offering a tailored service is practically impossible when working with limited resources - better to be a ‘reflective friend’ and help researchers find their own answers by asking the right questions
  • Some Scholarly Communications or Research Support teams are maintaining a registry or catalogue of datasets being hosted by external repositories
  • It is a good idea to have an institutional policy on who inherits responsibility for datasets (e.g. Director of Research or similar) where there is not a named data steward and the original researchers are no longer at the institution. Otherwise repository staff may have to make difficult decisions with unclear significance and impact.
  • The trick is to offer a generic service but present it as bespoke!
  • Using a service like DMP Online, or some level of ‘boiler plate’ text can be useful - even if just for the Scholarly Communications or Research Support team
  • Encouraging RDM practices is a particular challenge as it means changing the entire research process. Target PhD students as the next generation and as advocates for RDM
Stephen Grace_RDM Spidergram.pdf
  • When advocating to Arts and Humanities use exemplars of successful RDM practice in similar disciplines
  • The terminology of ‘Research data management’ means nothing to many academics - better to advertise the practice as a benefit they’ll understand: ‘free storage for life’
  • Having RDM as part of other institutional research processes makes it far more likely that it will be implemented in practice, e.g. requiring a Data Management Plan as part of the ethics approval process
  • It is a challenge to know where to direct technical RDM enquiries in IT Services, so it is useful to have a named IT Services person who can then use their knowledge of the IT Services personnel to forward the enquiry on to an appropriate person

Experiences of supporting Research Data Management

Led by Michelle Mayer (Coventry University)

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants or the session leader)

  • Many ‘new’ universities are trying to develop their research capacity and impact, so supporting RDM means aligning with institutional goals (and may mean extra resource or support can be obtained from the institution)
  • Encouraging researchers to engage with RDM can mean offering drop-ins or workshops, plus attending events and conferences/symposia
  • Some institutions do not have the resources to offer an RDM service, whilst others have offered drop-in sessions that were poorly attended
  • Tapping into any existing network of research managers/coordinators can be an effective way of reaching researchers about RDM
  • REF 2021 may also offer an opportunity to encourage RDM practices through the environmental statement
  • RDM practices can be presented as ‘you are already doing this - you just need to be transparent about it’
  • Use case studies or RDM ‘champions’ who have experienced success - e.g. an academic talking about their data being unexpectedly reused in another project
  • Tell academics when their dataset has been downloaded (data re-use = impact)
Michelle Mayer_Experiences of supporting Research Data Management.pdf

Part 3: Repositories

Discussion: collaborating with other teams and integrating repositories with internal and external systems

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants)

  • José López Blanco from Bournemouth University described the experience of implementing a new data repository BORDaR
  • In several repositories, rates of deposits of datasets are quite low, in spite of the EPSRC mandate in 2013
  • Key Performance Indicators for data deposit may be challenging, though (as with Open Access) it is likely that the rates of deposit will increase dramatically as funders start to require data deposit as a condition of funding
  • Several institutions are interested to see how the JISC Research Data Discovery Services will develop

This session was curtailed due to lunch over-running: there was too much conversation happening!

José LópezBlanco_RDM solution BU.pdf

The future(s) of RADAR at Oxford Brookes

Led by Dan Croft (Oxford Brookes University)

Below are separate points of discussion, comments, or observations (not necessarily the views of all participants or the session leader)

  • Does an institutional repository need a good browsing experience or user experience?
      • No: Google Analytics shows users go straight to the file, and essentially repositories are a filestore
      • Yes: a good user experience is a benefit (as seen in commercial products) while a repository is a shop window for an institution’s intellectual output (and not all audiences will be academics)
  • What should an institutional repository contain?
      • Intellectual or scholarly outputs of any kind (but not ‘additional’ materials such as marketing or administrative documents)
      • Anything that the institution wants it to contain - e.g. marketing materials, programme guides, researcher profiles, or even to stand in as a Current Research Information System! A repository should develop to match the changing priorities of the institution
      • A specific collection of resources curated by the library - if an institution wants an filestore for other materials then it should invest in a separate tool
Dan Croft_The future(s) of RADAR.pdf




  • There were differences of opinion on the terminology of an ‘institutional’ repository - should it serve the institution or is it a tool for the library to curate a specific type or collection of content?
  • A decade ago the idea of what a repository could be was less fixed and more expansive: a 'repository' could be anything. But since then the scope of many repositories has become more limited to reflect local priorities (and limited local resources)
  • Can / should an institutional repository become a university press? If the role of a repository is dissemination of intellectual outputs then the terminology of ‘repository’ suggests passivity, whereas university press (e.g. UCL Press, Huddersfield, Cardiff, LSE, and Westminster) suggests active cultivation of content and promotion to audiences.
      • No: an institutional repository and university press play different roles, there are already other tools that offer that service (e.g. Open Journal Systems), many repository teams don’t have the time or money to offer a publishing service, and it might cause problems when negotiating with commercial publishers
      • Yes: the White Rose Consortium has already followed this path while UCL Press use their repository to host their files. Also some library services from other 'New' universities are interested or involved in publishing (if not necessarily using the repository as part of their publishing platform). Finally this might represent one potential end state of Open Access, where each institution publishes their own intellectual outputs

The End