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I thought subscribers to this list would be interested in this announcement from the PLS and the Research Assessment Exercise. ****** With the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) results imminent, the Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) has described its role in helping publishers simplify access to articles submitted for assessment by UK higher education institutions (HEIs). Facilitating the provision of online access to over 150,000 journal articles without authentication barriers or licence conditions was the challenge presented to the PLS during the planning stages of this years RAE. After discussions with the PLS, the recommended solution to the time-consuming, largely paper-based processes of the last assessment carried out in 2001 was for participating institutions to submit the Digital Object Identifier (DOIs) of selected journal articles to the RAE team. The RAE team would then create a database of DOIs and, using the CrossRef database, link through to the journal article on the publisher site. A specially created Athens account would take care of authentication and the whole process should save assessors and the RAE team a great deal of time and effort. It then fell to PLS, which represents publishers’ collective licensing interests, to broker a deal to allow fee-waivers and direct access to publisher content,and to co-ordinate the project on behalf of around 2000 publishers’. Alicia Wise, CEO PLS, says “It was a very interesting challenge and one that I knew the PLS could provide valuable input to. The sheer choreography of getting 100s of individual publishers to understand and agree to a single, fee-waived licence, for access to content for the purposes of the RAE was significant. It has been the most complex licence I have ever worked on and the most demanding from the point of view of co-ordinating the sheer number of participating publishers, trade associations and industry bodies that provided input to the project. I am very impressed with the way the publishing community responded to this challenge and proud that the PLS was instrumental in helping marry technological solutions and licensing considerations to help with this important exercise.” Ed Hughes, RAE Manager, said: ‘We would like to thank publishers for not only agreeing to a licence solution for the RAE, but also for allowing our expert review panels direct access to their content. We wanted to make it easier for submitting HEIs to provide material to the panel electronically and we needed to simplify access for our 1100 panel members. These arrangements have allowed us to accomplish the RAE in a more efficient way, and has eased the burden on both submitting institutions and panels. I’m delighted that publishers and HEFCE were able to collaborate effectively on this vital project.’ About the Research Assessment Exercise The Research Assessment Exercise is conducted jointly by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and the Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DEL). The primary purpose of the RAE 2008 is to produce quality profiles for each submission of research activity made by institution. The four higher education funding bodies intend to use the quality profiles to determine their grant for research to the institution which they fund with effect from 2009-10 - over £1.5 billion per year will be allocated for research using the results of the 2008 RAE. Any higher education institution in the UK that is eligible to receive research funding from one of these bodies is eligible to participate in the exercise. About the PLS The Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) is a non-profit organisation representing UK publishers on matters relating to collective copyright and collective licensing. PLS works with thousands of publishers operating with the trade associations for publishers’ rights. For more information visit www.pls.org.uk Contact Details: For more information please contact: Tracy Gardner Tel: 07884 438007 Email: [log in to unmask] lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn