UPDATED: 5th December 2008
![[The University of Leicester]](../images/unilogo.gif)
What is the Leicester Research Archive (LRA)?The Leicester Research Archive will showcase your research to the wider world.
Leicester Research Archive (LRA) is a digital archive of research outputs from the University of Leicester, also know as an institutional repository. It currently contains articles, book chapters, conference presentations and abstracts, reports, software and theses. It has the potential to include data sets, images, video or audio files.
The Leicester Research Archive itself is at https://lra.le.ac.uk
Leicester's new Open access mandate for research publications
Much material is available in full, to anyone, free of charge (open access). This is our preference, although we are now archiving material that can only be accessed by University of Leicester members.
Repositories are part of a wider open access movement ![[External Link]](../images/earbull.gif){kind=small}
, making the results of research freely available to any interested parties. The Leicester Research Archive will help the University "develop coherent and coordinated approaches to the capture, identification, storage and retrieval of [its] intellectual assets" (JISC briefing paper
- see page 1).
The Library will do all the work of archiving for you - all you need to do is send us your work.While the version that we can make live on the LRA varies from Publisher to Publisher, initially you should provide us with the author's finally submitted version (the peer-reviewed, corrected, final word or PDF version you sent to the publisher). We cannot usually archive the publisher's PDF versions.
We will check the format of the file, and convert it to another format if we feel that will help us preserve the work and make it available. We will check copyright issues for you, and ask you to sign a licence, which allows us to make the work freely available through the Archive. Once the licence has been signed you'll need to send it to the LRA Administration Team, based in the David Wilson Library. Your work will then be centrally stored and preserved as part of this showcase of research. Archiving published work has copyright implications but the Library will check this out for you. We will not archive an item if it breaks copyright to do so.
Two versions of the Author License are available. A PDF one for physical signature and return, and a Word 2007 version which may be digitally signed and emailed to the LRA team.
Self Archiving
To self-archive is to deposit a digital research document in a publicly accessible website, in this case the LRA. Depositing involves using a simple web interface where the depositor copy/pastes in the metadata (date, author-name, title, journal-name, etc.) and then attaches the full-text document. Self-archiving takes only about 10 minutes for the first paper and even less time for all subsequent papers.
Currently the LRA is looking for interested academics (or their administrative assistants) who would like to participate in a self archiving trial. Final verification of copyright status and metadata will be then performed by the LRA team before the item goes live. Brief training and support are available – just contact the LRA Manager for more information.
For everyone else the proxy self-archiving service (or mediate deposit) as currently operated by the LRA, to do the keystrokes on behalf of our researchers, will continue.
Do you need to use the LRA?Some of the UK research councils, and some major grant making bodies now mandate grantholders to make resulting publications available on open access. For some grant making bodies this means using an institutional repository, which is exactly what Leicester Research Archive is.
You can find details of the policies of many grant making bodies in this document produced by the Library and Research Support Office (PDF) and on the JULIET website
Open access mandate for research publications
In addition the University, following a decision ratified by Senate on 27 May 2009, has joined a growing number of UK institutions in adopting an open access mandate for research publications. Further information on the requirements open access mandate can be found here.
Open access mandate for doctoral (PhD) theses
If you are a doctoral student at the University of Leicester, submitting your thesis in 2008 or later, the University now mandates that you place a digital copy of your thesis in LRA.
Advantages and benefits of having your work in LRAIf you put your work in LRA, you will ensure its long term preservation, as well as making it easy for other researchers to access it. The work will get a stable URL (web address) which you can use to link to it. The contents of repositories like LRA are searchable with general search tools like Google, and specialist tools like OAISter , BASE , or Scientific Commons thus making your work more visible. You will create a shop window for your department or research group.
And you have not signed away any rights to use the work in other ways.
CopyrightTo put work in the LRA, you need to have either retained the intellectual property in that work, or have permission from the rights holder to archive the work with us, as we will ask you to sign a licence to that effect. If your work has already been published in a journal, or is awaiting publication, you may have assigned some rights to a third party, although this need not preclude its inclusion in the Leicester Research Archive. Some publishers will allow authors to archive their work in repositories such as this one and the Library will investigate thoroughly before archiving anything.
The Library is aware that you may have concerns about archiving your work, and if the publisher will not allow us to put the work into the LRA, or if putting it in will jeopardise your intention to publish, then we will not archive it. If you are worried that archiving a particular piece of work will stop you from publishing that work in the future, please ask us to investigate for you.
The licence you sign will cover all future deposits, so you need only sign one licence. If you are one of a number of joint authors, we ask one author to sign on behalf of all the authors.
What is happening now?There are now over 1300 open access full text items in LRA, along with metadata (catalogue records) describing all the submissions made to the RAE 2007. 38 departments are represented. The importance of the repository for enhancing the institution's research visibility was further highlighted with the introduction by Research Committee in May 2009 of an open access deposit mandate for Leicester.
role the research deposited on the repository
If you would like to submit material for archiving, please contact your Information Librarian. If you have questions about LRA itself, please contact the LRA Team.
We have made presentations to the University Research Committee, the Library Users' Consultative Group, and to individual departments. If you would like us to talk to your Faculty, School or department, please contact your Information Librarian.
More information about Open AccessIn 2003/4 the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology recommended that:
"...all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way." (from the summary of the 10th report of that committee for the session 2003-04)
Since then, there have been developments. You can find details of the policies of all the UK research councils, the Wellcome Trust and the NIH in the JULIET website If your funding body mandates you to place your work in an "institutional repository", then LRA will satisfy them. If you are not clear whether LRA fulfils your funders' requirements, please contact your Information Librarian.
aimed at institutions and academics on open access.is just that, and covers open access repositories and open access journals. The SPARC Open Access Newsletter which he writes, is a monthly update on open access matters. is short and very readable, and gives more details about open access moves by publishers, and about the NIH and RCUK statements on availability of research.will lead you to more publications. This Bibliography is updated periodically. The same author's Open Access Bibliography (129 pages) covers the entire open access field in much more detail.Sources of Further Information
You will find other information on these sites:
- includes a directory of repositories, information about copyright, and about the policies of funding bodies with regard to open access, and much more., the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition - includes news, and a range of resources on copyright, repositories and open access. The SPARC Europe website is useful also.- includes information targeted at Repository Managers, but includes useful briefing papers on many aspects of open access and repositories.- a developing resource aimed at librarians, researchers, publishers and students. Contains an overview of the benefits and discussions surrounding open access to research publications. The contents of LRA appear in Google, but there are specialist search tools that index open access material. The LRA (and other repositories) are indexed on the following sites and resources.
We are listed in these directories of repositories:
The University of Leicester's research publications mandate is registered here:
Further reading
Contact Us Please contact us if you would like to:
Contact:
For general enquiries:
LRA Administrators Team
Email: lra@le.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)116 252 2039 - Internal tel. 2039
For matters relating to copyright:
Library Copyright Officer
Email: copyright@le.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)116 252 2039 - Internal tel. 2039
For advice on compliance with funders' mandates
Your Information Librarian
For all other enquiries contact
Gareth J Johnson
Leicester Research Archive Manager
Email: gjj6@le.ac.uk
Tel. +44(0)116 252 2039 - Internal tel. 2039
LRA Publicity & Presentations Presentations
Open Access, the REF & the Leicester Research Archive Gareth J Johnsons (Feb 2010)
Demystifying Publication Policies: Open Access & the REF, Update for Dept. of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation Gareth J Johnson & Juliet Bailey (Nov 2009)
UKPMC Funders' Mandates Margaret Hurley, Wellcome Trust (Oct 2009)
Wellcome Trust Open Access Publishing Fund Juliet Bailey, RSO (Oct 2009)
Open Access: The Leicester Perspective Gareth J Johnson (Oct 2009)
Open Access Update for Dept. of Engineering Gareth J Johnson (Oct 2009)
Publicity
Download a leaflet (2009)
Older publicity
Download a poster (2007)
Longer LRA presentation (2007)
Shorter LRA presentation (2007)