Presentation given by Ruth Harrison and Torsten Reimer at the 2016 RLUK Conference in London. We discuss how collaboration between Library Services and the Research Office has transformed Scholarly Communications Support (Open Access and Research Data Management, but also related areas such as reporting and ORCID) at Imperial College London.

1. Transforming scholarly communications
support at Imperial College London
RLUK Conference, London, 10th March 2016
Ruth Harrison, Head of Scholarly Communications Management, Library
Services, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2487-2981 / @ruthej
Dr Torsten Reimer, Scholarly Communications Officer, Research Office,
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8357-9422 / @torstenreimer
Imperial College London

2. Imperial College London
• Nine London campuses
• Faculties of Engineering,
Medicine, Natural Sciences
and the Business School
• Ranked 3rd in Europe / 8th in the
world (THE 2015-16 rankings)
• Net income (2015): £969m, incl.
£428m research grants and contracts
• ~15,000 students, ~8,000 staff, incl. ~3,900 academic & research staff
• Staff publish 10-12,000 scholarly articles per year
• Average quarterly APC commitment: £433 533 (2015 from 3 funds)
• Largest data traffic into Janet network of all UK universities

3. Library Services and the Research Office: early 2012
Crossover was minimal
Staff relatively unknown to each other
Knowledge of activities relatively unknown to each other
Library Services:
• management of APC applications to Wellcome Trust grant
• management of the College’s repository with colleagues in ICT, across
3 library teams
• advocacy role for College’s OA mandate from 1 January 2012
Research Office:
• reporting on Wellcome Trust grant
• monitoring compliance with the College’s OA mandate

4. Policy requirements
2011
• EPSRC “Expectations”
2012
• RCUK OA Policy
2013
• REF OA Policy

5. 2013 onwards: systems and support infrastructure
development for open access
This is where the
Information gathering points
(ideally) needed to take place
– how, by whom, when, using
which sources and systems:
all questions to be
answered…

6. How did we get there: agreement
that systems had to be efficient and time-saving for the academic
staff
from Directors of Library Services and Research Office that
cooperation would be beneficial
from senior College management (Provost downwards) that a
governance structure was required
between the SCM team, Liaison teams, and the Research Office
on communications strategy
with ICT that systems development would be in conjunction with
the Library Services and Research Office

7. Where we are now
1. Institutional management and staff structure
2. Combined green and gold workflow
3. ASK OA
4. ORCID iD project
5. RDM service infrastructure development
6. Communications strategy for OA, RDM and ORCID
7. Scholarly Communications website

8. 1. Open Access Publishing Group, chaired by Associate Provost
(Academic Partnerships)
2. Open Access Implementation Group, chaired by Scholarly
Communications Officer
3. Research Data Management Working Group, chaired by delegate
of Vice Provost Research (Head of Department of Materials)
New posts in the Library’s Scholarly Communications Management team
• Academic Support Manager post split into 2 full-time posts: Scholarly
Communications Support Manager, and Copyright and Licensing Support
Manager
• Research Data Support Manager and Research Data Support Assistant
appointed
• 3 new Open Access Support Assistant posts, in addition to existing 2 staff
supporting of gold and green workflows
Scholarly Communications Officer (Research Office)
Institutional management and staff structure

9. Combined green and gold workflow
On
acceptance
•Deposit
•Apply for APC
•Link funding
Manuscript
into
repository
APC data
into
ASK OA
Compliance
with green
& gold
mandates
in one step
Managed through Symplectic (+ASK OA)
Ask for minimum information required

10. ASK OA (cloud-based APC management system)

11. ORCID iD project
Imperial became ORCID member in 2014:
• Raise awareness and uptake
• Issue researchers with an iD
Approach:
• Capture existing iDs (in Symplectic)
• Create new iDs on behalf of academics
• Encourage academics to link iD to
Symplectic
Outcomes:
• ~75% of iDs claimed
• Academics linked 1,800 iDs to Symplectic
• Ongoing awareness raising and work with
ORCID community (Imperial hosted 1st UK
ORCID members meeting in 2015)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/orcid
https://dx.doi.org/10.1629/uksg.268

12. RDM service infrastructure development
1. Make a data management plan: use
DMPOnline
2. Store your data management plan
centrally: use InfoEd
3. Store your live data securely and
safely: use Box
4. Store your final data (and/or code)
for 10+ years, making it publicly
available: use Zenodo
5. Tell the College where your data
(and/or code) is published or stored:
use Symplectic
6. Reference your funding and your
data in the publications it underpins:
tell your publisher
Research Project
Data: Box
Software: GitHub
Data/software
stillneeded
Delete
External repositoryInternalStorage
Elements
Spiral
Creates data/software
Project ends
no
yes
Metadata, manual
or automatic
Can it be
published or
embargoed
externally?
yesno
Metadata, manual
or automatic
Can metadata
bepublished?
Library reviews
yes

13. Monitoring and Reporting
College Dashboard Symplectic OA Monitor

14. Communications strategy for OA, RDM and ORCID
Image
February
8th Feb FRC Medicine Meeting OA update, including compliance RO
18th Feb Liaison librarians Meeting OA update Library
Feb Academic staff Email Email to staff who have never deposited to Spiral Library/RO
Feb Academic staff Department
meetings
HEFCE policy and College OA support Library/RO
Feb HoDs Email Report on compliance levels (OA Monitor) Library/RO
Feb Electrical
Engineering
Meetings OA/RDM lunchtime session Library
Feb DoMs Email Data catalogue guide Library
Feb/Mar Symplectic
delegates
Meetings Arranging 1:1 with those who are delegates for researcher/authors in Symplectic to ensure
understanding of what is required.
Library
March
14th Mar Liaison librarians Meeting OA update Library
14th Mar
(tbc)
DOMs & ROMs Meeting HEFCE policy and compliance meeting Library
9th Mar Civ Eng Meeting Presentation at staff assembly (JC/NM) Library
16th Mar Civ Eng Roadshow Library
Mar Staff and
students
Website HEFCE implementation and OA service available: update for lead to 1st April Library
Mar Academic staff Department
meetings
HEFCE policy and College OA support Library/RO
Mar OA supporters Meeting HEFCE implementation, support, networking Library/RO
Mar HoDs Email Report on compliance levels (OA Monitor) Library/RO
Mar PhDs Workshop Intro to RDM 2 hr workshop for PhDs Library
Mar OA Team Meetings Organising a series of ‘roadshow’ visits – not a meeting but table promoting what is happening to
raise awareness
Library
Mar Symplectic
delegates
Meetings Arranging 1:1 with those who are delegates for researcher/authors in Symplectic to ensure
understanding of what is required.
Library

15. Scholarly Communications website

16. Results of successful cooperation
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
2013 2014 2015
Open Access outputs
Deposits
APCs
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
2013 2014 2015 2016
ORCIDs in Symplectic
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
12-15 01-16 02-16
“Box” users
• College meets RCUK and WT targets
• 18x increase in deposits since 2012
• College meets ESPRC Expectations
• >1TB research data added to Box daily

17. Conclusion
• Library Services and Research Office have broadened understanding
of scholarly communications, policy, workflows and strategic priorities
• Coordinated effort across College, making use of different channels
• Open Access and RDM seen as College priority
• Agreement of College (as opposed to service) requirements
facilitated implementation (e.g. technical work with IT)
• College leadership engaged and supportive
• Compliance is one driver, but College committed to OA in particular

18. Thank you for listening
Any questions?
Scholarly Communications at Imperial:
www.imperial.ac.uk/scholarly-communication
r.e.harrison@imperial.ac.uk
t.reimer@imperial.ac.uk