Jill Taylor-Roe, Newcastle University

1. OA Communication & Advocacy at
Newcastle
Pathways to OA Workshop,
20 March, 2015
Jill Taylor-Roe,
Deputy University Librarian

2. Newcastle University
• Civic University
• Research Intensive
• 23864 students
• 5257 staff
• 3 Faculty structure:
Medical Sciences
• Science, Agriculture and Engineering
(SAgE)
• Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS)

3. Initial Experience re OA
• Wellcome OA grant since 2006
• Pilot Central OA fund 2009- 2012
• Light touch advocacy –
• publicity via Faculty Research Strategy Committees
• Application forms on web pages
• Minimal staffing:
• Deputy led advocacy, Library assistant to process
gold OA, Repository managed by Tech Services
Staff

4. Game Changers
• Finch Report, 2012
• RCUK OA policy, 2013

5. Issues and Challenges!
• Senior academics unhappy with Finch recommendations
• Perception that Librarians pushed for gold OA - “It’s all your
fault!”
• Fears that gold OA takes funding away from core research
• Anxiety in HASS subjects about “pay to say” culture
• Uncertainty about what gold and green OA really mean
• Sceptical about Creative Commons licences
• Faculty-specific approach to allocating RCUK funds

6. A new Advocacy campaign was needed
Target audiences: Faculty Research
Committees, School Research Groups, PGR and
Post Doc Training Programmes
Key Messages:
• Explain RCUK OA policy
• Define green and gold OA
• Explain different types of CC licences
• Outline Library Support and how to access it
PLUS: LISTEN to academic concerns

7. Further Actions/Activities
• Set up Open Access Steering Group, jointly led
by Library and Research Office
• Reports to University Research Committee
• Set up library research support team, bringing
together gold and green OA support
• Recruited OA Advocacy Officer plus Library
Assistant support for gold and green OA
• Revamped OA web pages and developed FAQ

8. Phase 1 Achievements
• Established library as non-judgemental, trusted
agent to “sort it all out”
• Persuaded faculties to move to a single University
RCUK Fund with same conditions for access
• Effective partnership between Library and Research
Office

9. The way we were: tri-
faculty workflow for
RCUK OA!

10. Next challenge!

11. Current Round of OA Advocacy: Post 2014
REF requirements
Strategic Advocacy
• PVC Research OA briefing
• OA video
• OA key facts postcard
• Library-led briefings at school/institute
• summary reports to Faculty Research Committees
and OA Steering Group re issues raised, solutions
offered etc.
• “temperature check” before and after briefings

12. Successes so far
• Pushing at an open door – schools now much
more welcoming of advocacy sessions
• Evidence of post-briefing follow up – increase
in green deposits
Issues and Challenges
• Building robust staffing capacity
• Addressing Compliance-monitoring agenda

13. Summary Points
• Advocacy programme has been a slow burn
• Tri-faculty approach re RCUK grant was challenging to
manage – not readily scaleable
• Subtle advocacy/persuasion finally led to unified approach,
first come first served
• Important to listen to academic concerns – build bridges
• Library now assumed to own the OA agenda

14. Any Questions?
• Jill Taylor-Roe@ncl.ac.uk
• Library OA webpages:
• http://www.ncl.ac.uk/openaccess/

15. Additional Info: post 2014- Ref Guide and
deposit instructions

17. Job done!