Engagement & Impact through Open Access policy and Practice research & Resources via Australian Policy Online by Amanda Lawrence - presented at the Research Support Community Day 2017

1. Engagement and impact through
open access policy and practice
research and resources
Amanda Lawrence,
Research and Strategy Manager, APO
alawrence@apo.org.au

2. Towards ‘evidence-informed’ policy and practice
“The quality of public decision making depends significantly on the quality of
analysis and advice provided through public organisations.” Brian Head, 2016
Reliable information, evidence and expertise is essential to good decision making
But the use of best available evidence in policy and practice is patchy
Political and ideological issues are part of this
Discovering, evaluating, analysing and applying research and information is also a
huge issue...

3. Who produces policy and practice evidence?

4. Traditional publishing products – 28,000 peer-reviewed
journals and 2.5 million articles published each year
Trade and
academic
book
publishing
Academic
journals

5. Organisation publishing/NTROS/“Grey literature”
Published online and (historically/still) in print

6. Knowledge translation and dissemination
- diversity is the key
Highlight: Five-line-Summary Report for Decision Makers - Tweet
Briefing: One-Page Summary Report for Decision Makers
Executive Summary: Tailored Executive Summary for Decision Makers
Multimedia: Motion graphics, Video interviews with experts, Info graphics,
Presentations
Policy Paper
Journal article
Concise Report presenting best practice policies
Case Study: Regional Case Study, Trends Report, Survey and Data
Extended Summary: Comprehensive Abstract Report for Experts and Researchers
Project report: Full details of all activites and findings
Technical Report: Status Report for Experts and Researchers
Annexes and Data Series
Assessment or field Reports
Adapted from Global Building Performance Network strategy: from report to a tweet
gbpn.org

7. Data – increasing steadily but still a long way to go…
Source: Linked open data cloud diagram: lhttp://lod-cloud.net/

8. Most important materials used - by sector
Source: Lawrence, Houghton, Thomas and Weldon, 2014

9. How do users find out about new research and information for
policy and practice? Most important alert services - %
Grey literature strategies 9

10. How often are the following services used to access
information?
Grey literature strategies 10

11. Perceptual map of document types for policy research
Source: Amanda Lawrence

12. Issues users report with finding and accessing
information they need for policy and practice
Grey literature strategies 12
Finding relevant resources, including knowing what exists and
where to look, and the amount of time required to sift and the
lack of collections are major issues for 45% of information
users.
“With regard to grey literature, it is very hard to know what exists and how
to find it…reports produced are generally held on individual websites and
there is no way to search for particular subjects across separate websites
other than search engines like Google but they also pick up a lot of chaff as
well making it frustrating.”
Information user, NGO sector

13. Issues users report with finding and accessing information
they need for policy and practice
Grey literature strategies 13
Accessing resources, particularly the cost of
journal articles and market research and problems
accessing government content, are problematic for
43% of information users.
“University researchers who do not publish commissioned
reports but hold this information back in favour of a peer-
reviewed article at a later date. Local officials who fail to
recognise the importance of open publishing of evaluative
reports they have commissioned and keep them locked away
in internal systems. Often metadata is not properly described -
authors, dates etc.”
Information user, NGO sector

14. Economic value of grey literature
Source: Lawrence, Houghton, Thomas and Weldon, 2014

15. APO apo.org.au
APO is
Not-for-profit
Open access
Digital research library &
Alert service
that provides free access to full text
research sources that are essential for
public policy development in Australia
and New Zealand.

16. About us
We host publications sourced from
close to 4000 organisations, by over
16,000 authors / creators
The content is mostly scholarly and
practical research as well as
commentary, video, audio, data,
news, events, websites, book
reviews, courses and jobs from
universities, governments, NGOs,
think tanks and journals.
Established in 2002, the APO
database is continually updated
with both new and historical
resources.

17. APO is a free, open access knowledge commons
APO operations supported by:
Partnerships
Grants and funding
Community advertising
Projects and services
User contributed content,
volunteers and inkind
collaborations
Current Partners

18. New Grants and Projects 2016
ARC LIEF Grant 2016
High Value Collections
Project 2016
CRC LCL Knowledge Hub
Project 2016 - 2018

19. Discover
New reports posted daily
Browse
• Broad topic areas
• Special collections
• 1000s of topics based on an internationally
interoperable subject taxonomy
• User generated keywords
• Geographic coverage terms
• Wide range of content types – reports,
papers, events, jobs, audio, data etc
Pages for
• Authors and creators
• Publishing organisations
Search
• Faceted search
• Filters by date, content type, authors, topics,
keywords, source
• Full text search
Historical reports digitised

20. Collections
● apo.org.au/collections
● Growing area
● Variously funded
● Variously curated
● Active & archive
● Smallest 33 items
● Largest 2460 items

21. Feature Collection
● Fully funded
● Searchable
● Curated by APO
● Content vetted by partner
● Featured across APO
● Mindfully attended
Child Protection Collection
Supported by UniSA’s Australian Centre
for Child Protection (ACCP)
Global network of researchers wanting
to create an evidence-base of quality
grey literature resources

22. Project or conference
Collection
● Minimal cost
● Fully seachable
● Modular design
● Controlled content
● Expandable as needed

23. Keyword Collection
● Free
● User generated by tags
● Augmented by summary
● Mentioned in newsletter
● Open to group additions
● Massive scope for
user-generated collections

24. Powering new Knowledge Hubs

25. Faceted search
http://apo.org.au/topics/marketing
Filter searches by topic, date,
author, organisation, country,
resource type etc.

26. APO Briefings
http://apo.org.au/files/apo_briefing_9_august_2016.htm
APO provides a free, bi-weekly
newsletter sent out to over 16,000
subscribers interested in keeping up to
date with the latest policy research.
Six weekly topic-focussed newsletters
also offer subscribers customised
content to suit their interests.
APO also offers a weekly newsletter of
New Zealand-related content.

27. Metrics
Google
Analytics
Custom
dimensions

29. APO Tools
The tools currently working on APO for registered users:
● Submit Content - Resources & Creators
● Profile Page - Username
● Dashboard
● Bookmarks
● Lists and shareable widgets of lists
● Customisable menu toolbar
● Request a DOI (permission based)
● Metric blocks on dash and profile pages. Metric Page
● Report Broken links
● Tag content - free tagging
● Share on social media….
● Citation tools
● My org metrics dashboard (APO assigned)

30. Document and data hosting
Built in Drupal open source CMS software – extended its capability to be a repository using
exisitng modules
Full text document storage and access
Deadlink fixing and uploading of full text
DOIs and long term management
Orcid integration
Currently developing data hosting capability with the integration of CKAN data storage software
New metadata schema to integrate publication and data
Linking between data and publications

31. Interoperability: OAI, API, RSS, XML, TXT citations
Research Management
and discovery systems
Citation exports

32. How you can work with us
Do you have researchers needing to bring together key online resources on a
particular topic of public or practice interest? Help them in 3 easy steps
1. Register
2. Start uploading interesting research or other useful content
3. Tag it with whatever name you want and share the link
You’ve just created your own specialist grey literature collection!
From there we can do lots more: embed on your site, create a special gateway
page, mint DOIs, link to Orcid IDs, provide metrics etc.

33. What’s next for APO?
Visual redesign and logo launching in 2017 - and a new name! Analysis and Policy Online
Research translation and publishing tools
Expanding collections and geographical coverage internationally and into specialised
knowledge hubs eg: Latin America, Africa, eHealth, Low Carbon Living and other topics
New tools and visualisations for accessing the collections and creating policy networks and
mappings
Increased text mining for machine augmented metadata
Collaborations with other projects and organisations in Australia and internationally
Integration with data collections to link documents and data

34. Digitisation collaboration with internet archive
First Internet archive table top
scribe in Australia
Non-destructive scanning of print
documents
APO collection on IA and free
full text access from APO
Scanners available to other
organisations on application
Enables new forms of analysis of
historical textual documents

35. In progress: Policy network mapping with APO data
Source: Mapping global media policy

36. Policy issues for public interest publishing
Copyright – need for Fair Use principles
Participation in the Research Infrastructure Roadmap
review being run by the Dept of Innovation and the Chief Scientist
New NFP Business models for research infrastructure projects
Need for coordinating body to support whole research and communication
system – not just data. Better support to improve researchers’ knowledge and skills
for effectively participating in the scholarly and public communication.
Access to information campaign and strategies for Gov publications and funded
research materials. Has to be included in funding agreements for ALL publicly
funded information. Open Government Partnership could play a role.

37. Thanks and questions
Get in touch if you would like to get involved in any way
Amanda Lawrence alawrence@apo.org.au
We also have volunteers and internships and lots of ways in which you can learn
and contribute to digital curation of policy and practice resources.
Email Penelope Aitken: editor@apo.org.au