Last year we blogged about the development of a new service that wasn’t quite available yet, called Sherpa REF. The beta version of Sherpa REF is now available for use and as it’s the beta version, the developers are also very keen to hear your feedback on it.

Sherpa REF is jointly funded by JISC and HEFCE. The homepage has the clean, simple and almost austere appearance of the other SHERPA services but this is not in any way a criticism. In fact, it makes the service look straightforward and easy to use.

So, what does Sherpa REF do? You can find out if the journal you want to publish in allows you to comply with REF open access requirements. How do you do this? It’s easy, just put the journal title into the search box, select the correct REF panel and click Check. Sherpa REF will then tell you if the journal is REF compliant and tell you what you need to do to make sure you meet REF requirements.

Sherpa REF is a very useful tool and sits well alongside the other SHERPA services, SHERPA/FACT, SHERPA/JULIET and SHERPA/RoMEO