The Challenge: Scholarly communications is changing – readers want access to a wide variety of formats delivered to a range of devices, at their own convenience – ‘anytime, anywhere’. In an increasingly open world they want to reuse, mix, annotate and share information. The boundaries between formats and type of content (articles, monographs, data, etc.) are blurring and new forms of peer review and quality assessment are developing. Authors want to disseminate ideas more quickly and more widely to achieve greater impact for their work. Research funders are increasingly focussing on the dissemination of the research they fund. Our institutions are looking to new ways of showcasing the range and breadth of the intellectual outputs produced by their researchers and students.

 

Promote innovative models for open access journals, monographs, and textbooks

  • Support collective models for the production of open access monographs
  • Secure competitive and transparent markets in article processing charges and support efficient payment mechanisms
  • Advocate permissive licensing terms for content
  • Improve the discoverability of Open Access materials

 

Explore new forms of scholarly communication

  • Help researchers explore a variety of ways to communicate their findings including through social media
  • Investigate the consequences of different forms of peer review on the scholarly output
  • Support the integration of institutional repositories within the research life-cycle

 

Encourage innovation in research data management (RDM)

  • Work with partner organisations to develop collaborative strategies for RDM
  • Create a service environment for research data that increases re-use and openness
  • Promote a collaborative approach to training in RDM for staff at RLUK member libraries
  • Influence stakeholders to recognise the role of research libraries in managing research data

 

Related working groups

 

Ethical and Effective Publishing Group (EEPG)

The Ethical and Effective Publishing Group (EEPG) pursues the interests of RLUK in relation to the purchasing of scholarly information content and services from publishers and other. Further, it acts as the main liaison point between RLUK and Jisc Collections.

EEPG Terms of Reference

Group Chair: David Prosser (RLUK)

Group members:

Susan Ashworth (Glasgow)
Paul Ayris (UCL)
Simon Bains (Manchester – ex officio as Chair of OAPP Group)
Chris Banks (Imperial)
Phil Sykes (Liverpool)
Jill Taylor-Roe (Newcastle)
Jan Wilkinson (Manchester)

 

Open Access Publisher Processes Group (OAPP)

The objective of the OAPP Group is to identify, share and understand the challenges, barriers and other issues involved in Open Access publishing where these relate to publisher processes and practices; to work collectively and with publishers to resolve problems, improve processes and achieve a better understanding on both sides of how best to support our researchers and funders; to inform, and receive direction from, the RLUK Board.

Group Chair: Simon Bains (Manchester)

Group members:

Theo Andrew (Edinburgh)
Jeremey Claridge (QMUL)
Helen Dobson (Manchester)
Ann Evans (Oxford)
Ruth Harrison (Imperial)
Kara Jones (Bath)
Jo Lambert (Jisc)
David Prosser (RLUK)
Jill Russell (Birmingham)
Catherine Sharp (UCL)
Pat Spoor (Leeds)
Dominic Tate (Edinburgh)
Kate Walker (Southampton)

OAPP Terms of Reference

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Top image courtesy of the University of Bristol Library