RSP - OA

REF Open Access

Most staff will already be aware of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which is a system for assessing the quality of research outputs in UK Universities which affects future research funding. 

Since April 2016, to be eligible to submit to the 2021 REF exercise or its successor (details yet to be confirmed), staff will have to meet open access requirements. These must be met at the time papers are accepted for publication - making your papers open access retrospectively during the REF selection process, will not meet the open access requirements. These requirements will apply to all universities in the UK.

The REF Guidance on Submissions document sets out the guidelines, which are summarised below.  
 

 Key points

• The policy applies to all journal articles and any conference papers published in proceedings that have an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

• The REF policy applies for eligible outputs accepted for publication after 1st April 2016. However, the University's own Open Access policy came into effect prior to this from 1st August 2015. 

• An author's final peer-reviewed manuscript (Version Types) must be deposited in an institutional or subject repository on acceptance of the publication

• Deposit must occur within three months of the acceptance date (as given in the acceptance letter or email from the publisher to the author)

The REF Open Access policy has three elements:
 

DEPOSIT

• The accepted manuscript needs to be deposited to Pure, acting as our institutional repository system, within three months of acceptance.
• The accepted manuscript should be the version which has undergone peer review and reflects changes resulting from peer review, and which has received final confirmation that it has been accepted for publication. Please note that 'provisionally accepted' manuscripts where changes have been required don't satisfy this criteria. Please see the Version Types document for help in visualising where the accepted manuscript sits within the publication cycle.
• The deposited version can be replaced with an updated manuscript if there are late editorial changes not related to peer review or the academic content of the work. The final Version of Record can also be later added if the publisher permits this to be shared.

DISCOVERY

• The output must be publicly visible and discoverable. To comply with this requirement we advise the visibility of a Pure record being set to 'public' from the point a publication has been accepted. This means the output's metadata (title, publication venue, list of authors etc.) being made publicly visible through the Pure Portal.
• The default setting on Pure is for visibility of records to be set to ‘public’. The overall visibility of the record operates independently to the access to a document which has been uploaded.

ACCESS

• Where outputs have no embargo (a restriction on sharing the paper during a time limit imposed by the publisher) they must be made open access within one month of deposit.
• For outputs with an embargo period, those periods should not exceed 12 months for REF main panels A and B, or 24 months for REF main panels C and D. Unit of assessment and Panel information for the 2021 REF is available here. In cases where a longer embargo period is required by a publisher, or a journal's policy is otherwise not compatible with the REF Open Access policy, an exception may be applied provided the publication can be evidenced as being the most appropriate venue for the publication. Please note that in this circumstance the output would still need to meet the Deposit and Discovery criteria outlined above.
• Once any embargo period has lapsed, deposited material should be 'presented in a form that allows anyone with internet access to search electronically within the text, read it and download it without charge'.

Please note -  Any output submitted to the REF which does not meet the requirements of this policy and does not meet with any of the allowed exceptions is liable to be given an unclassified score and will not be assessed.

A consultation is expected to be opened on the Research Assessment Open Access policy. This is expected to result in a revised Open Access policy to take effect at a later date. More information will follow on this in due course. 

Library Support

The Open Research and Scholarly Publications team monitor newly created records in Pure and where further action or information is required to ensure an output's compliance with the Open Access policy they will contact the author(s).

We offer regular drop in sessions around campus to support researchers using Pure and complying with Open Access requirements. We are also happy to meet virtually online or one-to-one in person to answer any questions individuals may have, please contact us via: oa.lib@coventry.ac.uk and we will be in touch.