Introduction

HEFCE’s / UKRI’s Open Access requirements for REF (Research Excellence Framework) are complicated to follow and apply to many of our research outputs. With that in mind the best practice to follow is to 'Act on Acceptance' and add all your journal articles and conference proceedings to Converis as soon as the publisher confirms that your output has definitely been accepted for publication.

Please follow these steps even if you think you may not need to meet the Open Access requirements for a particular article or conference proceeding, or if you think someone will meet the requirements on your behalf - it is easy to misunderstand the Open Access requirements of REF and we should aim to meet all the requirements ourselves rather than relying on an external person or organisation.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Go to Converis: https://cris.brookes.ac.uk and click ‘LOGIN’ in the top right corner

2. Click ‘Add new’ and then ‘Output’ in the top right corner

Note: This guide is about adding new Converis records manually, but it is also possible to import publication information into Converis from Web of Science, PubMed, or your ORCID account. For more information about this please contact us at openaccess@brookes.ac.uk

3. Select either ‘Journal article’ or ‘Conference proceedings article’ (these are the only outputs that must meet the REF Open Access requirements)

In the rest of this document we’ll use a ‘Journal article’ in our example.

4. Enter the title of your article in the ‘Title’ box

Note: If there is already a record in Converis with the same title as the one you type in, you will receive a warning message that you may be creating an unnecessary duplicate record.

5. Enter the authors of the article (following the format given in the guidance text)

6. Add the journal you are publishing by clicking the ‘+’ symbol

Then type in the name of the journal and click the magnifying glass icon

And click the ‘+’ symbol next to your journal

Note: if your journal doesn’t appear in the search results then please use the other ‘+’ button to add the journal to the database of journals

7. Add the ‘Acceptance Date’ - this is the date that the journal confirmed that the article would definitely be published with no further changes. We’d like you to ‘Act on Acceptance’ to give us the best chance of meeting the Open Access requirements of REF, so hopefully the ‘Acceptance Date’ is the same date you are adding the article to Converis.

Click the calendar icon and then select the date (e.g. 5th September in the example below) from the calendar that appears

If you are adding your article to Converis after it has been published then please also add the ‘Publication Date’ and the ‘Publication Year’

8. Upload a PDF or Microsoft Word document of your Author’s Accepted Manuscript - this is the final version of the text, after peer review, that is intellectually identical to what will be published but without the publisher’s branding, typesetting, or copyright information. In the ‘Fulltext of the publication’ section click the folder icon then find the file on your computer and click ‘Open’

If your output will be published as Gold Open Access (meaning the publisher will make the output freely available to the public with a Creative Commons licence, usually after an Open Access Fee has been paid by the authors) then you do not need to upload a manuscript to Converis.

9. Upload evidence of the date that the article was accepted for publication (e.g. a screenshot of an email from the publisher). In the ‘Evidence of Acceptance Date’ section click the folder icon then find the file on your computer and click ‘Open’

As with step 9, if your output will be published as Gold Open Access then you do not need to provide evidence of acceptance.

10. Click ‘Save & Close’ (please note, do not click ‘Save’)

Then select ‘For validation by library’ and click ‘Done’ (see screenshot over the page)

Next steps

The Scholarly Communications team will then ‘validate’ the record if all the necessary information has been provided and will then deposit the fulltext of the article in the Oxford Brookes institutional repository RADAR (https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar). Please note that ‘validated’ status does not mean the output has met the Open Access requirements of REF.

If we can do this within three months of the acceptance date then we will have met the deposit and discovery parts of Open Access requirements of REF. Please notify the Scholarly Communications team (openaccess@brookes.ac.uk) when your article is published as this will help us to meet the access part of the Open Access requirements of REF.

Books, book chapters, and other outputs

We must meet the Open Access requirements of REF for journal articles and conference proceedings, but please also add any other research outputs to Converis that you would like to appear on your web profile or in your Converis CV. Add the outputs in the same way as described above (selecting the appropriate publication type at step 6) and when the Scholarly Communications team ‘validates’ the outputs they will then appear in your web profile and Converis CV.

We would also like to make as many of your research outputs Open Access as possible (e.g. books and book chapters) so please do upload your Author's Accepted Manuscripts for these outputs as well. The Scholarly Communications team will check the publisher’s policy on Open Access publication of the book or chapter. If the publisher allows us to publish the Author’s Accepted Manuscript then we will do so after any embargo period (e.g. 12 or 24 months after publication is common) has elapsed.