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]

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