Editing REF CC (section)

==Introduction==
The REF Compliance Checker plugin for EPrints has been developed to help your institution comply with the Open Access policy of the UK HE Funding Bodies. The key points of the policy are shown below; the full details may be accessed from the HEFCE website: [http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201407/ Policy for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework: Updated July 2015].

* The policy states that, to be eligible for submission to the post-2014 REF, authors’ outputs must have been deposited in an institutional or subject repository. Deposited material should be discoverable, and free to read and download, for anyone with an internet connection. The requirement applies only to journal articles and conference proceedings with an International Standard Serial Number. It will not apply to monographs, book chapters, other long-form publications, working papers, creative or practice-based research outputs, or data.

* The policy applies to research outputs accepted for publication after 1 April 2016. Institutions are being strongly encouraged to implement systems to enable them to meet this deadline as soon as possible.

* The policy allows repositories to respect embargo periods set by publications. Where a publication specifies an embargo period, authors can comply with the policy by making a ‘closed’ deposit. Closed deposits must be discoverable to anyone with an Internet connection before the full text becomes available for read and download (which will occur after the embargo period has elapsed). If still under embargo at the submission date of the next REF, closed deposits will be admissible to the REF.

* The output must have been deposited as soon after the point of acceptance as possible, and no later than three months after this date (as given in the acceptance letter or e-mail from the publication to the author).

* There are a number of exceptions to the various requirements that will be allowed by the policy. These exceptions cover circumstances where deposit was not possible, or where open access to deposited material could not be achieved within the policy requirements. These exceptions will allow institutions to achieve near-total compliance, but the post-2014 REF will also include a mechanism for considering any other exceptional cases where an output could not otherwise meet the requirements.