Author: jaking

On 6 November 2023, the University launched a new repository system, Figshare. As Lincoln approaches its first anniversary with Figshare, the Research Data and Systems team would like to share some reflections on the progress and usage of the platform since its introduction. 

Since the launch of the new repository, Figshare data confirms that records deposited by Lincoln authors have received a total of over 2.1 million views. Available files have been downloaded over 742,809 times. The most popularly viewed item types are journal contributions, with 1.2 million views, and conference contributions, with 337,717 views.  

Item type	View count (correct as of 17/10/2024)
Journal contribution	1,247,327
Conference contribution	337,717
Book chapter	198,200
Book	116,501
Thesis	60,737
Media	60,827
Report	53,391
Online resource	37,661
Figure	28,776
Dataset	13,888

The team are pleased to report that Lincoln research has been viewed all over the world. The University’s repository was most commonly accessed by users in the United States, France, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Ireland, and Singapore. Research tagged with the following JACS Codes was viewed by the most users respectively: C800—Psychology, I100—Computer Science, L300—Sociology, N100—Business Studies and A300—Clinical Medicine. 

Country	View count (correct as of 17/10/2024)
United States	1,675,266
France	320,237
United Kingdom	40,589
Indonesia	31,905
Ireland	29,334
Singapore	14,264
Japan	6,276
Germany	5,497
Australia	4,673
India	2,408
China	2,078
Canada	1,992
Finland	1,977
Netherlands	1,715
Denmark	1,592
Russia	1,515
South Korea	1,350
Sweden	1,248
Brazil	1,163
Turkey	1,138
Philippines	1,125
Lithuania	1,113
Italy	943

In the last six months alone, the Repository Team have processed 1,302 deposits (roughly 54 items weekly) from colleagues across the institution. Deposits were primarily comprised of journal contributions (62%); however, the team are excited to continue embracing data archiving, especially in relation to the funding landscape, where a growing number of bodies mandate open data requirements in line with the terms of their grants.  

As of October 2024, JISCs tool Sherpa Juliet (which archives funder’s open access requirements) revealed that 55 funders require data archiving, whilst a further 33 encourage this. Data archiving can also offer researcher benefits, with an article published by PLOS ONE finding an association between articles that include statements that link to data in a repository and up to 25.36% (± 1.07%) higher citation impact on average, using a citation prediction model. 

A record containing archived data, Supplemental files for: Separate and combined volatile profiles produced by Hanseniaspora uvarum and Metschnikowia pulcherrima yeasts are attractive to Drosophila suzukii in the laboratory and field, is one of the most viewed and downloaded items on the repository. This data was uploaded to the previous EPrints repository in 2020 and, since its migration to Figshare less than a year ago, boasts an impressive 348 views and 264 downloads.  

The data, gathered by Matthew Goddard (Professor of Population and Evolutionary Biology at the University), Rory Jones (a Lincoln PhD student), Michelle Fountain and Paul Eady, underpins this article, published open access in Springer’s Scientific Reports. The output explores ways to control agricultural pests without the use of chemical pesticides. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and the University of Lincoln funded this project, in collaboration with NIAB-EMR. According to Springer Nature’s Altmetric data, the open access article has been accessed 2530 times, cited on 17 occasions and is in the 88^th percentile of the 511,613 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals.  

As our previous system did not provide usage data, we are unable to tell how often the files were accessed historically. However, we hope that Figshare’s Usage Metrics and grant database (powered by Dimensions) offers colleagues across the institution an exciting opportunity to track the visibility and dissemination of their items published on the repository. 

Datasets are not the only outputs which benefit from repository dissemination. Some of the most viewed items on the University’s Figshare repository are theses.

Alison Raby (Senior Lecturer in Study Skills and Business English Communication and Programme Leader for International Year One Business and Management) added her PhD thesis, An Exploration of the Relationships between Chinese Students and their Personal Tutors: An IPA Study, to Figshare in December 2023. In only 8 months, the thesis has garnered almost 500 views and over 100 downloads.  

Alison has kindly granted permission for us to spotlight her thesis, adding that opportunities have arisen as a result of the thesis being available on the repository. Since the record was made live on the repository, Dr Raby was asked to lead a webinar at Bristol University, alongside being invited as a guest on a podcast, which is being recorded this month. Alison is also co-authoring a second edition of a seminal book on personal tutoring and has seen her thesis’ recommendations used in staff training for personal tutoring at another institution.  

If you are interested in adding your thesis to the repository, please complete this MS Form, and a member of the team will upload this on your behalf. 

Over the next year, the team will be continuing to develop additional resources for Figshare users as well as  including the development of institutional guidance for the deposit of practice-led, non-traditional, and multi-component research. This will be led by feedback from a new Non-Traditional Research Outputs Working Group (NTROWG). The details of this group, including information on how to participate, will be circulated by the end of 2024. 

If you would like to know more about Figshare, please visit the Repository Help Blog, which contains a suite of resources, including deposit guidance for both routes (“Deposit Research” and “Deposit Data”) and FAQs. 

This contribution was authored by Jade King, Research Repository and Research Data Officer.

There are so many different open access policies but one that is close to my heart is the REF (Research Excellence Framework) Open Access Policy.

The policy was introduced for the first time for the REF2021 submission. The underpinning ethos is that the four UK HE funding bodies (Research England, Scottish Funding Council, Commission for Tertiary Education and Research and Department for the Economy Northern Ireland) believe that the outputs from publicly funded research should be freely accessible and widely available. What’s the point in carrying out all that lovely research if it’s difficult for people to read about it?!

The intention of the policy was to set minimum requirements for open access, whilst at the same time encouraging researchers and HEIs to develop a culture and environment that goes beyond this. For the REF2021 submission the policy considered all journal articles and conference contributions with an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) published after 1st April 2016 to be ‘in scope’.

The policy states that ‘outputs should be deposited, discoverable, and free to read, download and search within, by anyone with an internet connection’. Although, the gold open access route (accessible via the University’s Transitional Agreements or the payment of an Article Processing Charge) is a route to REF compliance, authors can also meet the requirements without incurring a cost. The free route to open access is available through the deposit of the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) on an approved repository (Figshare is fine). For an output to be considered compliant, the AAM must be deposited within 12 weeks of the output being accepted for publication by the journal/publisher. There were exceptions to the policy, but REF2021 required that no more than 5% of a unit of assessment’s outputs were non-compliant. In the case of the University’s submission this amounted to no more than one or two outputs per unit. This route, making your accepted manuscript available on a repository, instead of paying gold open access charges, is called green open access.

The repository team has lots of resources available to support staff throughout the deposit process, as it is essential that our outputs comply with the policy. It would be devastating to have to exclude a really strong output from the REF submission because it is not compliant with the REF’s Open Access Policy.

As we move into REF2029, the policy has undergone review; we are expecting further details to be launched before Christmas. Whilst we don’t know the exact rules yet we do know a few things.

Firstly, despite rumblings earlier in the REF cycle that the policy would be extended to longform publications (books, monographs etc.) it has been decided that this change won’t be implemented until the start of the next REF cycle (is it too early to mention REF2035?). The earliest date that changes surrounding longform publications will take effect from is the 1st January 2029.

Any other updates to the policy will be implemented no earlier than 1st January 2026, which allows HEIs time to implement the new changes (whatever they may be). It’s a shame that the release of the new policy hasn’t coincided with International Open Access Week but rest assured that whenever the policy arrives, we will pour over it and share all the relevant details with you. In the meantime, please make sure you’re still complying with the REF2021 policy. If you need any advice or guidance, please contact the Repository Team (repository@lincoln.ac.uk) and we’ll be happy to help.

This contribution was authored by Alison Wilson, Deputy Head of Research & Industrial Partnerships.