Higher Education Authority an tÚdarás um Ard-Oideachas HEA

Following a very supportive public consultation process, the HEA has established and will promote the following policy relating to the placement of research publications in Open Access repositories.

HIGHER EDUCATION AUTHORITY POLICY RELATING TO:  THE OPEN ACCESS REPOSITORY OF PUBLISHED RESEARCH

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An Open Access repository is an information storage and retrieval system where published research findings and papers are stored and made available for full, open and free access by the research community and the general public.  Typically, open access repositories are managed by academic institutions.

Using funding provided under a SIF 1 proposal (€1.6 million, 3 year project), a number of Irish universities have developed open access repositories of their own and a consortium of the seven Irish universities are engaged in the development of a national open access repository system as part of phase 2 of the SIF 1 funded initiative - connecting the repositories of each participating institution for fuller public accessibility and to increase exposure of Irish University published research. 

In an Open Access repository system, the usual copyright and fair practice considerations are not waived and publication on Open Access does not preclude prior publication in a recognised research journal or commercial publication.  Making scholarly publications available on Open Access allows them to be freely accessed by anyone in the world using an internet connection.  The potential readership of Open Access material is far greater than that for publications where the full-text is restricted to subscribers only.  Open Access repositories are also designed to expose the details of their contents to web search engines. 

Sources of further information:
IREL-Open Project

IREL-Open is managed by the IUA Librarians' Group, supported by the IUA and funded through cycle 1 of the Strategic Innovation Fund.  IREL-Open is building online open-access institutional repositories in all seven Irish universities and linking these together through a national portal. For the first time, Irish research will be made freely available on a worldwide scale.

Please link here (http://www.irel-open.ie/) to access details of the IREL-Open Project Working Group.

IREL-Open Contact Points include the following:

Paul Sheehan (Librarian, Dublin City University), Working Group Chair
Telephone +353 1 700 5211 Email paul.sheehan-at-dcu.ie

Niamh Brennan (Trinity College Dublin), IREL Open Moodle site administration
Telephone +353 1 896 1646 Email niamh.brennan-at-tcd.ie