An invitation from Bodley's Librarian to Oxford D.Phil. authors

Response to the Bodleian Libraries’ call for DPhil theses to be digitized has been extremely good (and if you have already proposed your thesis for digitization, there is no need to contact us again). We are pleased to let you know that there is still an opportunity to take up this offer and add your digitized thesis to the Bodleian’s digital collections at no charge.

Theses in digital format are rapidly becoming ubiquitous, as scholars want to make their research widely available and easily find the work of others. Thanks to the generosity and vision of Dr Leonard Polonsky, the Bodleian Libraries are able to offer to digitize a number of Oxford D.Phil. theses. This opportunity enables us to add to the growing Oxford digital thesis collection, and should result in new citations to your work. Digital copies will be made available online in ORA (Oxford University Research Archive).

ORA is the university's principal online collection of research outputs produced by Oxford scholars. It offers high visibility for Oxford research. Wherever possible, the full text of research is made freely available for easy online access. You can find out more about Oxford digital theses on the ORA Help & Information website.

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If you would like us to digitize your DPhil thesis and make it available in ORA, please send details to 

thesis-digitisation@bodleian.ox.ac.uk 
as soon as possible, having provided the information below:

* Your name (as it appears on your thesis):

* The title of your thesis:

* The year of your thesis:

* If possible, the Bodleian shelfmark of your thesis on SOLO [eg MS.D.Phil. d.2804] (You may be able to find this on SOLO):

* An email (or postal) address where we can contact you: 

You will be informed if your thesis is included in this digitisation and the URL will be sent to this address.

Also, please indicate your responses to the following questions:

* Do you grant the Bodleian Libraries permission to digitize the print copy of your thesis and make the digital copy available online in ORA? YES/NO

* I agree to be bound by the terms of the ORA Grant of Non-exclusive Licence and I warrant that to the best of my knowledge, making my thesis available on the internet will not infringe copyright or any other rights of any other person or party, nor contain defamatory material. I AGREE / I DISAGREE


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If you already have a digital copy of your thesis which you would like to deposit in ORA, please contact ORA@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. 

I very much hope you will take advantage of this exciting opportunity.


Please send details for the digitization of your thesis to 

thesis-digitisation@bodleian.ox.ac.uk 

Non-publication of negative results: Today on 'Today'

This morning the 'Today' programme on Radio 4 featured a problem that is highlighted in the current issue of the BMJ. In its editorial, 'Missing clinical trial data' the BMJ goes as far as to use a subtitle 'A threat to the integrity of evidence based medicine.' This is not a new problem and I am no medical scientist, but the main points seem to be:

1. selected results of clinical trials are published. Inconclusive, un-interpretable, negative or (in the words of Prof Colin Blakemore on the Today programme) 'boring' results are not favoured by traditional journals and therefore remain unpublished
2. results of trials can be scattered around various locations and difficult (even impossible) to locate
3. although the Government and Research Councils are doing sterling work to ensure that the publications and data of publicly funded research are made freely available (see previous blog 'Government research strategy for innovation and growth'), this is not necessarily the case for research funded by private organizations nor for all publicly funded research (possibly because of 1). 

This can result in:

• an incomplete picture of the results of trials
• erroneous conclusions about the efficacy of treatments - both positive and negative
• possible harm to patients

The BMJ states that 'what is clear from the linked studies is that past failures to ensure proper regulation and registration of clinical trials, and a current culture of haphazard publication and incomplete data disclosure, make the proper analysis of the harms and benefits of common interventions almost impossible for systematic reviewers.'

The logical conclusion would appear to be that results of trials need to be:

• easily available
• in a timely fashion
• and complete (ie include all information provided that allows for the most accurate conclusions to be drawn)

Prof Blakemore agreed with Evan Davies on the Today programme, that making information freely available online is easy and 'everything should be out there' so that scientists can scrutinze, use and datamine the data produced by their fellow researchers. The editor-in-chief of the BMJ, Fiona Godlee, agreed: 'technology can improve the access to data.'

This is where services such as ORA (Oxford University Research Archive) provided by the Bodleian Libraries can step in. An online archive like ORA provides a means for researchers to disseminate research outputs where the papers (or reports or other documents whether published or not) can be safely stored for the long-term (including after an academic has left the university), easily discovered and read by other researchers. Such services do not offer peer review, however the current problem seems mainly in disseminating this information so that other researchers can have an opportunity to evaluate the findings. In doing this, other researchers check, review and comment on these 'boring' results, which will then add to the body of knowledge and could lead to a different direction in treatments and other outcomes. 

Such archives are not going to solve all the problems, and as An-Wen Chan describes in the article 'Out of sight but not out of mind: how to search for unpublished clinical trial evidence' (BMJ 2012;344:d8013), there are plenty of existing places that researchers can track down evidence information. Most HEIs now provide some form of managed online repository for research outputs that can contribute to rectifying this unacceptable situation. In addition, here at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, we're working on creating a data repository and Oxford data catalogue to do much the same thing for research data.

Fortunately the articles published in the BMJ about this matter are open access, so anyone who is interested can easily get hold of them and read about this topic for themselves. The editorial and item by An-Wen Chan aren't.

SallyR

Government report on Innovation & Research Strategy for Growth

In Dec 2011 the UK Government published its paper 'Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth.' This paper is of great interest to anyone working within the area of research dissemination be they author or other actor in the dissemination process, because the government states its view of the economic benefits to the country of open access to research publications and data.


In the section 'Expanded Access to Research Publications and Data' (paragraphs 6.6 - 6.10) the Government states that it is 'committed to ensuring that publicly-funded research should be accessible free of charge.' Harvard University is cited as an example of a university where academics often make their research publications freely available via the University's DASH service. The report is more than a statement of the status quo: it sets out concrete actions, some of which are already underway. An independent working group has been set up under Janet Finch to consider how access to research publications can be improved. Other actions include those for investigating how research data might be made more accessible, and for making government data more accessible. The government has also asked the Research Councils to ensure that researchers comply with Council policies on access to publications. It's great to see positive actions such as these actually getting off the ground. Let's wait to see if these concrete actions deliver concrete results.


The main tenet of this report is one of economic advantage to UK PLC by supporting innovation, leading to economic growth, and it acknowledges that change will not happen quickly. It is hardly surprising that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills would do anything other than focus on the economic benefits of open access, particularly in the current challenging economic times. However, one should not be completely swept up by the economic argument: there is one section that reads 'free and open access to taxpayer-funded research offers significant social ... benefits by spreading knowledge.' This not only points out that the hard-pressed taxpayer has a right to access what he/she has ultimately paid for, but also raises the prospect of enabling easy access to knowledge which offers other significant benefits to society. 

SallyR