Hi,

I am currently involved in a JISC-funded project (OCRIS: Online Catalogue and Repository
Interoperability Study - http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ocris/about.htm) and am following
developments regarding the REF as this is clearly a major reason why interoperability
across all University systems is vital.

What interests me is that I cannot find much mention of Open Access repositories. For
example, the July 2009 Evidence report mentions that:

"It is valuable for institutions to work towards the most complete database or
repository for their internal research management purposes. It would then be feasible to
report this accurately and in a structured way, by research area and output type, in a
REF submission."

I suppose that in terms of citation counts, the database or system in which the article
was deposited/is located is not particularly relevant? However, by focussing on
commercial services: "REF analyses would be constrained to outputs published in
journals, or more specifically to articles and reviews from journals catalogued on
commercial databases" - is the methodology not overlooking the fact that many
instutitons now view IRs are the best way to make institutional outputs visible? And
that IRs are involved in promoting many useful developments regarding authority codes,
metadata, author names etc.?

I would be interested to know what the role of Open Access IRs might be in terms of the
REF.

Best wishes,

Kathleen

-- 
Kathleen Menzies
Centre for Digital Library Research
University of Strathclyde
Livingstone Tower
26 Richmond Street
Glasgow G1 1XH

Tel: 0141 548 4752

The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with
registration number SC015263