Preparing for the next REF 
is only 12 months away!
Bill Hubbard
Director, Centre for Research Communications
University of Nottingham
ARMA Open Access Good Practice Exchange
FOSTER Initiative
Hilton Euston, 19th March 2015
Open Access and the REF
To be eligible - 
• Deposited at the point of acceptance
• Metadata immediately available
• Full-text available after 12 or 24 months
• Applies from April 2016
• In-house systems, processes, workflows:   
                   12 months to be tested and 
ready for business!
REF is not alone . . .
Open Access policies for compliance
• National Funding Council REF policy
• Research Council policies
• Institutional policy
• Publisher policies
Dealing with policies . . .
• How do you mesh together all policies and 
get meaningful actions to take?
Authors cannot be left to sort it out for you
Researcher’s view from the past. . .  
Researcher
Other Funder
Institution
Publisher 
Funding
RCUK
REF
Researcher’s view . . . 
Institutional 
OA Fund
Researcher
Other Funder
Institution
Publisher 
with OA Option
Open Access
Publisher
Central/subject
Repository
Institutional 
Repository
?
?
Mandate
RCUK
Funding
Mandate
Institutional 
Database
Dealing with policies: using SHERPA
• What we do
• Value proposition and benefits we offer
• Example use case
RoMEO
• Global service of author’s rights for using 
repositories, giving details journal by 
journal
www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
JULIET
• Registry of policies on Open Access form 
research funders worldwide
www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet
FACT
• Advice to UK authors on compliance with 
funders’ policies in their journal of choice
www.sherpa.ac.uk/fact
OpenDOAR
• The world’s authoritative and quality 
assured directory of open access 
repositories
• www.sherpa.ac.uk/opendoar
What we do
Benefits
• Efficiency gains at sector level
• Single points of information
• Quick access to policies and information
• Allows quick comparison of policies and 
information
• Takes pressure off institutional support
Using SHERPA Services
• Support staff can use RoMEO, JULIET 
and OpenDOAR directly
• Authors can use FACT directly
• Institutional systems can use our APIs
• SHERPA/REF is in the pipeline
Centralised datasets
Use-case:  FACT
• Uses data from RoMEO and JULIET via 
the APIs
SHERPA FACT Screenshot #1
SHERPA FACT Screenshot #2
Some figures
• RoMEO - 26,000 Journals, 1,800 
publishers
• JULIET - 143 Funders
• OpenDOAR - 2,811
• Interactive use - c. 30,000 per month
• RoMEO API use - c. 4,000,000 per month
Support for policies - what else?
12 months to find out:
• Who does what, when?
• What is the “life-cycle” of the output and to 
track its policy compliance?
• What needs to be built in-house?
– policies, systems, processes, workflows
• And to build it!
Thoughts on REF
• Is the default to take everything?
• Deposit is not the same thing as access
• Recognition that this will underpin eligibility
• Buy-in and engagement from academics
• Change in research output workflow
– Link between researchers and research 
support office/ repository staff day-to-day
• Institutional policy support
REF - institutional developments #1
• Business process analysis
– who needs to know what, when?
• Advocacy
– for top-level recognition and support
– for academic engagement 
– recognition of need for change to workflows
– for policy development
REF - institutional developments #2
• Workflow change
– for researchers and for support staff
– sensitive ground
• IT development of support services
– financial
– administrative
– sophisticated use of repository by authors 
and support staff
Summary
• Researchers need to know what to do - 
clear, concise, contextualised
• Research support offices - on top of OA as 
an idea; as a process; as a work-flow; as 
requirements; as a developing policy 
environment
• Institutions need to accept the repository 
and OA services as essential 
infrastructure
There are issues  -  BUT !
• Open Access is a real benefit for 
researchers, the research process, 
institutions, funders, tax-payers, the public 
and for our culture and our future
• Support and belief from all of the 
stakeholders in the research process
• All of the issues can be resolved
Bill Hubbard
Director, Centre for Research Communications
University of Nottingham
bill.hubbard@nottingham.ac.uk
sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
sherpa.ac.uk/juliet
sherpa.ac.uk/fact
sherpa.ac.uk/opendoar