- The Library

Open Access Publications: Full-Text Deposit Mandate 


What is it? 

  1. An Open Access Full-Text Publications Deposit Mandate signals the University’s intention to make the full-text of our research publications widely accessible and without barriers. The Mandate aims to achieve increased visibility, use and impact of Bath research publications.

  2. The University of Bath requires researchers to deposit full-text copies of their peer-reviewed journal articles and papers from published conference proceedings (subject to copyright provisions) in the University of Bath research repository, Opus1.
     
  3. The mandate applies to items published after 1 June 2011. Publications from 2008 onwards should also be added in readiness for the REF.
     
  4. The full-text of the paper and its details should be uploaded to Opus as close to publication as possible. See the Quick Start Guide for details.
     
  5. Optional deposit of other research outputs such as book sections, reports, working papers and conference presentations is supported. These items will be identified as peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed as appropriate.
     
  6. Full repository policies are available from the Opus website. The Library provides support for this activity and will check copyright permissions on all deposited papers.
     
  7. The Mandate has the support of the University Research Committee.
 
 

Why do this? 

  1. Increasing the availability of full-text peer-reviewed research articles and papers will lead to improved citations2 and usage. 
     
  2. Not all potential readers of your work can subscribe to the publication it appears in. Increasing journal subscription prices and University budget cuts will see alternative access routes to research papers (such as Open Access copies) more widely utilised.
     
  3. Some publishers allow authors to make their papers publicly available only if it is mandated by the institution or funder. 
     
  4. Open Access is strongly supported by many funders, including the Research Councils, the European Commission, the Wellcome Trust and other charities3. These bodies already mandate that publications based on funded research must be made publicly available. 
     
  5. Many other research-intensive universities have established open access mandates. This includes University College London4, Royal Holloway, University of Southampton, University of Leicester and others. This gives these institutions an advantage for publication dissemination and availability.
     
  6. Publication details in Opus will be re-used to cut duplication of effort by researchers. Opus can feed to researcher profile web pages and will be used for the University REF submission. Lists can also be exported for appraisal or CV purposes.
     
 

What does it mean for researchers? 

Quick Start Guide 
deposit-mandate-quickstart

 

Connect to Opus
 

1. Opus is the University of Bath research repository, accessed from http://opus.bath.ac.uk/ All Bath staff and postgraduate students can submit publication details using their BUCS username and password to login

2. An annotated bibliography on improved citation rates for open access material is available. See: Wagner, A. B. 2010. Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography.  Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Winter 2010: http://www.istl.org/10-winter/article2.html 

3. The Sherpa JULIET database lists funder policies for publications: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/index.php

4. “UCL to implement Open Access policy to all research”: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/media/library/OpenAccess