1.     Repository Scope

Research outputs created by Queen’s University Belfast Research Staff and Postgraduate Research Students can be deposited into Pure (the University’s Research Information System) for public display on the institutional repository, the Research Portal. Research outputs in the repository include but are not limited to journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, monographs, theses and research data.

 2.     Responsibilities of Researchers

It is the responsibility of Queen’s University Belfast Research Staff and Postgraduate Research Students to add their research outputs and student theses to Pure. By depositing their research outputs, researchers are agreeing to the terms of the Queen’s University Belfast Pure Deposit Licence (see appendix A).

All research outputs must comply with the University’s Research Governance Policies and the Research Publications and Copyright Policy. Research datasets will be subject to these policies regarding Governance, Ethics and Integrity and will also be subject to the University’s Research Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS).

It is essential that any researcher who holds a research grant should be aware of grant conditions that obliges them to deposit research outputs in an open access repository and to ensure they are in a position to comply with it. The researcher should ensure that there is no conflict between the funders’ open access mandate and the publisher’s copyright/self‐archiving policy.

In order to aid discoverability, impact and citation of records/outputs, high level metadata (information describing items in the Research Portal) is required. This is to embrace Open Research principles, particularly FAIR principles, and to encourage licensed use and reuse of content. It is the responsibility of the researcher to complete the required fields of each record in Pure (e.g. research outputs, theses and datasets) with as much bibliographic information as possible. This will enable the Open Research team to process the record more efficiently.

3.     Responsibilities of Library Services

The Open Research Team, in Library Services, will check the metadata of research outputs for accuracy and validity, ensuring compliance with our quality control standards. If a full‐ text document is uploaded to Pure, the team will check the publisher’s copyright policy and make full‐text documents open access where possible, respecting embargo periods and all other conditions set by the publisher in holding the document on the research portal.

The following outputs are prioritised for validation within Open Research Team workflows:

• Research outputs subject to the open access policy for REF
• Electronic theses being processed for The Open Research Team will apply any embargo requested in the Repository Deposit Form.
• Datasets deposited in outputs outside of the above listed items (e.g. non‐textual outputs, podcasts etc) are outside of priority scope and will therefore be subject to delays in validation.

Please note that records created for confirmation in post activities do not need to be validated to populate the academic CV.

 4.     Reuse of Content

This policy is subject to the University’s IP Policy.

The metadata in the Research Portal may be re‐used in any medium for not‐for‐profit purposes provided a link to the record in the Research Portal is given. Metadata may not be re‐used for commercial purposes without permission from Queen’s University Belfast.

Unless otherwise indicated, full text documents of research outputs made publicly available in the Research Portal are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. Some outputs may be made available under a Creative Commons license, and this will be specified on the cover sheet of the research output.

 5.     Take Down Policy

Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person’s rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please follow the steps below.

Send the following information to the Open Research team at openaccess@qub.ac.uk:

• Your name
• Your contact email
• Title of the publication
• Publication URL
• Reason for requesting

On receipt of your communication, The Open Research team will:

• Acknowledge receipt of your communication by email
• Temporarily withdraw the full‐text document from the Research Portal as soon as possible, pending further

If the request is considered legitimate the document will be permanently withdrawn from the Research Portal, but the metadata will remain available. The outcome of the review will be communicated to the requester and the author of the Queen’s publication.

 6.     Related Policies

This policy should be read in conjunction with:

• IP Policy
• Research Governance Policies
• Research Data Management Policy
• Research Publications and Copyright Policy

 

Appendix A: Deposit License Agreement

In order for Queen’s University Belfast to make research outputs available on the Research Portal, researchers agree to the following terms:

The Researcher grants the University a non‐exclusive worldwide, perpetual and royalty free licence to reproduce and make their research outputs available to the public, subject to any agreed publication delay or embargo or restricted access.

The Researcher confirms that the research output is their original work that they have the right to commit to this license agreement, and that their research output does not infringe any intellectual property rights, nor contain any confidential information, or personal/restricted data.

The Researcher also confirms that any jointly owned or third party copyright material, i.e. others’ work, included in research outputs, is clearly identified and acknowledged and sufficient and appropriate permissions have been secured for the material to be reproduced and made available under the terms of this licence. Any copyright violations within the research outputs are the sole responsibility of the Researcher.

Queen’s University Belfast will ensure that the Researcher is clearly identified as the creator of the research output.

 

Policy History

Policy Name: Queen’s University Belfast Research Portal Policy

Approved by: Open Research Group

Policy effective date: 1 April 2024

Policy Owner: Library Services

Date of next review: 1 April 2025

Policy version: 3.0