The University encourages staff to make their research freely available in order to benefit the wider public.

Policies

In-line with Government, research funding bodies and publisher requirements, Bath Spa University has developed both an Open Access Policy and a Research Data Policy that underpins our commitment to the principle that scholarly research should be made freely available online.

ResearchSPAce

The University repository – ResearchSPAce – holds details of the research outputs of all academic staff, including links to the full text, video, audio file or image, where copyright and publisher regulations allow this. These can be downloaded by visitors to the site. All academic staff are required to deposit details of their research outputs on a regular basis, and ResearchSPAce allows the University to showcase its excellent research.

The content of the repository includes research outputs from academic staff such as journal articles, books, conference papers and commissioned reports as well as non-textual research outputs such as a digital representation of an image, artefact, or composition, or recordings of performances.

BathSPAdata

The University research data repository – BathSPAdata – enables academic staff to upload their research data into a secure space, and to share this data publicly where appropriate, or where funders or publishers require this as part of their conditions. Resources and toolkits for external use can be made available through this forum, and can be used by Schools, policy makers, business and industry, and the cultural sector.

Data management plans

All staff are required to complete a Data Management Plan through the DMP online service before submitting a research grant application. More information about research data management and a downloadable checklist specifically for Data Management Plans are available from CESSDA ERIC in their online guide for social scientists.

Transitional agreements

Transitional agreements, also referred to as transformative or “read and publish” agreements, are contracts negotiated between institutions and publishers that encourage scholarly publishing towards a fully open access model. They currently represent a shift away from a subscription-only model to one which covers both subscription payments and article processing charges.

Bath Spa University Library has signed up to a number of these agreements. This means that in some cases, corresponding authors affiliated to Bath Spa University are eligible to make their articles open access with the Library covering the cost of publication. For more information please read the FAQs on Sharepoint.

Please email repositories@bathspa.ac.uk for further advice on open research.