Phil Devine :: Feeds

A_L_T: AGM calling notice and nomination forms for election as Vice-Chair or a Trustee of ALT: http://t.co/HZvaP2tk

A_L_T: Book now to attend: Large-scale curriculum redesign - @A_L_T @AoC_info conference in Birmingham on 21May #lscrd http://t.co/s1L447XG

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A_L_T: Book now to attend: Large-scale curriculum redesign - @A_L_T @AoC_info conference in Birmingham on 21May #lscrd http://t.co/AAlYq20U

via Twitter / A_L_T

A_L_T: Book now to attend: Large-scale curriculum redesign - @A_L_T @AoC_info conference in Birmingham on 21May #lscrd http://t.co/cTewgboQ

via Twitter / A_L_T

A_L_T: ALT Scotland Meeting: ALT Scotland, a group of representatives of Organisational and Sponsoring Members as wel... http://t.co/7ASG7lY4

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A_L_T: Free lunch time @A_L_T webinar 31/5. Dan Barker: a rough guide to Google Analytics http://t.co/rN7c5ktp

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Podcast: New business model for National Centre for Text Mining

Podcast Logo Jisc funded the National Centre for Text Mining for 7 years between 2004 and 2011. The Centre, based at the University of Manchester, is now independent of Jisc funding, but what does that mean for the researchers who rely on its services? And what can others learn from their new business model? Nicola Yeeles from Jisc caught up with centre director Sophia Ananiadou to find out.

Listen to the podcast (Duration 6:21)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT

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A_L_T: Jimmy Wales advising government on #OpenAccess to research welcomed by UKCORR http://t.co/WisnUTtE

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A_L_T: Naace General Secretary - an interesting job for the right person http://t.co/Qs4bPQHc

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A_L_T: WISE invites holders of outstanding projects from all sectors & levels of #education to apply for the 2012 #WISEAwards http://t.co/51nV1tiy

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A_L_T: A Rough Guide to Google Analytics: ALT is pleased to be offering a free lunchtime webinar with Daniel Barke... http://t.co/yjJk8u8Q

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Public sector saves £28 million through open access, but much greater rewards to come, says report

Open Access to published scholarly research offers significant benefits to the UK, according to two reports released today by the UK Open Access Implementation Group.

The UK public sector already saves £28.6 million by using open access. The reports make it clear that both the public sector and the voluntary sector would see further direct and indirect benefits from increased access to UK higher education research publications.

Already, more Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations use open access than pay for subscriptions, despite the fact that subscription journals make up the vast majority of journals on offer.

image by mollyali on flickr

The UK public sector spends £135 million a year, made up of subscriptions and time spent trying to find articles, accessing the journal papers it needs to perform effectively. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via open

access on the web would save the public purse £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved.

The UK's valuable voluntary and charitable sector would also benefit from open access to academic research. For survey respondents, the two most frequently mentioned barriers to accessing research were cost (80%) and lack of time (46%).

Professor Martin Hall, vice-chancellor at the University of Salford and chair of the OAIG, says, “These findings mark a turning point in the quiet revolution of open access. There are many good reasons for making research available on an open access basis, and the reports are clear that one reason is because open access makes economic sense. The UK Open Access Implementation Group is committed to helping the public, private and academic sectors benefit from UK research and I am proud that these reports further that cause."

Making more research free at the point of access, and easier to search across could produce significant savings, but could also lead to better decisions based on all the available evidence. As one senior scientific officer in a specialist scientific unit of large department of state observes “Open access would allow a lot more speculative reading and reading around the subject which is really useful for a holistic and high quality view to be developed."

This, in turn, offers benefits back to researchers, boosting the impact of their research by increasing its reach outside the academy.

These findings are borne out across all three reports in this series, and this body of new, quantitative work provides compelling evidence that increasing open access to research articles will have direct financial and practical benefits for the UK as a whole, benefits that are especially valuable in a time of austerity.

Professor Martyn Harrow, executive secretary of Jisc, which is a member of the OAIG, said: “Jisc is pleased to contribute expertise and assistance to the important work of the OAIG and we welcome this report.”

The reports make a number of recommendations around increasing awareness of open access in these two important sectors. These include promoting the value of the information produced as a result of public research funding and exploring ways of improving relationships between academic researchers and workers I other sectors who rely on their research to do their jobs well.

The UK OAIG is working to add value to the work of the member organisations to increase the rate at which the outputs from UK research are available on open access terms, and these reports show how important that work is to the UK.

Read the report Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector

Read the report Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations

See the references for this press release on the OAIG website

via JISC News Web Feed