Open Book Publishers (OBP) represents an innovative model of scholarly publishing, where all titles are available as free digital versions from the OBP site, and additional formats including pdf and print can be purchased. Some of OBP's publishing costs are covered by research grants awarded to authors, and the income from the additional formats ensures this model of open access publishing is sustainable.
OBP is just one of a number of developments taking advantage of the digital environment to create open access books. The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) blog provides a useful roundup from a recent conference session: Spotlight on Open Access Books at COASP 2012
While much of the OA debate surrounds the response to new funder policies and published journal articles, we are seeing an exciting future for OA books. Publishing models include consortial funding by libraries, funding from University presses, re-use of exisitng 'CC' licensed content, collaborative peer review and publishing by groups of academics, income generation through add-on services such as print-on-demand.
The UKCoRR (The United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories) held its annual meeting at Teesside University on 9th November 2012. After a summer of high visibility for open access issues and recent activies during Open Access Week, the introduction by UKCoRR Chair Yvonne Buddon was aptly titled "Living in interesting times?". The role of UKCoRR membership in raising awareness of both 'gold' and 'green' options for open access was a particular focus, with one of the top questions from researchers currently being 'which journals are compliant with the new RCUK open access policy?' A wishlist of enhancements for the Sherpa/Romeo service is hoping to address this need.
Yvonne highlighted how Universities can analyse and present statistics to make the case for continuing use of Institutional Repositories (IRs), and later in the day we heard details of the IRUS-UK service which is developing COUNTER-compliant reports on article usage. IRUS-UK is part of UKRepositoryNet+ "a socio-technical infrastructure supporting deposit, curation & exposure of Open Access research literature." We heard about exciting new developments that will harness the power of IRs and improve efficiency for 'green' open access. Presentations on the services in development from Andrew Dorward and Pablo de Castro are available online at http://ukcorr.org/2012/11/13/uk-repositorynet/
Keeping things interesting, we heard more details on the RCUK open access policy from Gerry Lawson of NERC. Gerry emphasised the underlying aims of the policy for research outputs - improving accessibility, quality, efficiency and preservation - and reviewed the requirements for proper acknowledgement of funding source in articles, along with details on location of underlying data. The plans for monitoring compliance are still in development, but it is likely we will need to provide metadata on 'open access status' via our repositories or Current Research Information Systems (CRIS). Data requirements will include funder name and project ID, OA version, embargo and reuse rights, with additional information on payment of APCs. This ties in with work currently under way for repositories and CRIS on OpenAire compliance and metadata specifications to come out of the RIOXX project, and should allow data to be captured by the RCUK's Research Outcomes System and ResearchFish. Busy times ahead!
The final sessions provided an interesting view of developments in Hull - taking advantage of the flexible Hydra infrastructure/set of services - and work at LSE to enhance their repository to support REF reporting.
One of the things I took from the day was a real desire to make IRs more interoperable: to harness the power of aggregated content, use recognised standards and link or extend exisiting registries for authority control (such as CrossRef and FundRef, or ORCID and other researcher ID schemes such as ResearcherID and the Names project). It is exciting to see how well 'green' open access continues to be supported by this community.
It is now a week since the main event hosted by the University of St Andrews Library for Open Access Week: The humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges, and we have had time to reflect on some very interesting presentations and discussions. The keynote address and Q and A session from Professor Gary Hall are now available on YouTube, and a summary of the rest of the day follows.
12:10 Starting the open access journey - why choose open access?Dr Chris Jones (Director of Research, School of English, University of St Andrews) Chris has wide research interests in poetry, especially that of the Anglo-Saxon period and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chris started off by giving us his perspectives on open access self-archiving. He remembers being intrigued, though 'a little scared', at the idea of striking out the clause on copyright assignment in his early publishing career. He now finds that more publishers will give permission to deposit in a repository. He is concerned about the authority of published work being accepted when it is open access (he acknowledges the REF may be seen as the ‘problem’ here) but he has also learnt that good metadata and the possibility to add coversheets to author versions ensures that definitive versions can be cited.
12:20 'Why open access is important for the humanities, the University, everyone...'Professor Gary Hall (coventry University and open humanities Press) Gary Hall is Professor of Media and Performing Arts and Director of the Centre for Disruptive Media at Coventry University, UK. He is author of Culture in Bits (Continuum, 2002) and Digitize This Book!: The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now (Minnesota UP, 2008).In 1999 he co-founded the open access journal Culture Machine, which was early champion of OA in the humanities. In 2006 he co-founded Open Humanities Press (OHP), the first OA press dedicated to contemporary critical and cultural theory, which currently has 14 journals in its collective. An OHP monograph project, run in collaboration with the University of Michigan Library’s MPublishing, was launched in 2009. Gary enlightened us with philosophical theories about ‘authorship’ and described the ideological motives behind open access, suggesting scholarship should be about cultivating ideas rather than ‘owning’ a definitive stance on a subject. He asked: ‘Do we need to explore new ways of being academics?’
He went on to describe a number of practical projects that creatively engage with open access, for example allowing contributors to learn about OA issues as they draw content from existing OA sources and repackage it, as in the Living Books about Life series. In the OHP monographs, scholars ‘come together’ around a topic of interest and carry out the editorial work. Each project facilitates a learning experience for authors and reviewers as well as new reusable content for a global readership, thus changing scholarly publishing culture.We heard about the importance of credibility, and this is being answered through the academic networks involved in OHP and the international experts on various Editorial Boards.
The Q & A section focussed on issues of quality, and it was recognised that academics need to consider when, and how far, they push the boundaries of ‘traditional’ publishing.
14:00 Journal hosting services Angela Laurins & Claire Knowles (Digital Library, University of Edinburgh) [Presentation on slideshare] Angela gave us an overview of Open Journal Systems (OJS), how it is used globally and the variety of approaches in Edinburgh University’s journal hosting service. We saw how easy it could be to set up and run a new journal with an open access model ‘out of the box’, leaving time for people to concentrate on quality and promotion of content. Claire described how they have helped journal managers use statistics to analyse their readership, for example forging links with Universities in regions where they see a high volume of visitors.
Janet Aucock & Jackie Proven (Library, University of St Andrews) [Presentation on slideshare] Janet described how a journal hosting service moved from initial conversations about what might be possible, to an embedded service. Jackie continued the idea of conversations to explain the iterative process of setting up hosted journals, and how we have found it a learning experience for all involved.
Gillian Duncan (Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews) Gillian gave a case study of how and why the Journal of Terrorism Research uses OJS, particularly the opportunity it gives to students and early career researchers to get experience of publishing. Open access is crucial to many of their readers who could be located in war zones without easy access to subscription journals.
14:45 Disciplinary perspectives Dr Guy Rowlands (Centre for French History and Culture, University of St Andrews) Guy gave a detailed account of how he came to publish an open access ebook series: St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture. 2 years ago he saw a need for shorter-length works (25 – 50,000 words), and describes them as ‘midigraphs’. (It is interesting to note Palgrave’s recent move to introduce works of this length in the humanities and social sciences, with its Pivot imprint). Print copies are currently produced for major libraries and as promotional tools, but print versions will be phased out by 2015 when he believes open access versions will have sufficient credibility to stand alone. He is very encouraged by the level of downloads from Research@StAndrews:FullText – far surpassing what print sales would achieve.
Prof Mario Aguilar (School of Divinity, University of St Andrews) We were given an interesting insight into the Editorial process of an open access journal: Sociology Mindand the way that scholarship happens when ideas are challenged. Through layers of peer review before and after publication, we heard how how ‘open access open a new world’. The quality of articles is improved over time, as well as their ability to reach far corners of the globe.
Dr Sarah Dillon (School of English, University of St Andrews) Sarah started by saying she found out by accident she was involved with open access – as she had simply chosen to publish with the most appropriate publisher and it turned out to be Open Humanities Press. Work on her research project ‘What Scientists Read’ has also led her to consider visibility and impact of her outputs, and how open access can really help with public engagement. She then described the very real issues faced by academics faced with pressure to publish with ‘reputable’ publishers when research assessment was imminent, perhaps being forced into an outdated publishing format by prevailing culture. She suggested academics have real power to change things, and they need to use it to push boundaries.
In summing up this section, Guy reminded us that what hasn’t changed for scholarly communication since the 17th century is the importance of credibility.
15:35 Open access projects and current awareness [Presentation on slideshare] Jeremy Upton (Deputy Director of Library Services, University of St Andrews) Jeremy highlighted new developments with open access ebooks, particularly the OAPEN initiative and Knowledge Unlatched
15:45 Institutional/library perspectives John MacColl (University Librarian and Director of Library Services, University of St Andrews) John rounded off the day with some quotes from each of the presenters to illustrate the hopeful and inspirational opportunities offered by open access, as well as the pragmatic and sometimes difficult challenges we face in this period of transition.
The sun shines on St Andrews for the end of Open Access Week, as we prepare to welcome our keynote speaker Gary Hall, Professor of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, co-founder of Open Humanities Press and Series Editor, Living Books about Life to our main event:
We have had great feedback and many interesting comments over the course of the week, from a student who believes open access means the quality of articles she reads will improve with increased visibility, to early career researchers who plan to publish only open access as a point of principle from now on.
Going forward, our Open Access Libguide will continue to evolve, and one of our priorities will be to update information on funder open access mandates on our web pages.
We will circulate a report on the week's activites and build on our experince for the coming year.
Open Access Week 2012 is well under way with events being held across the world and information, resources and opinion being widely shared. A series of blog posts from Creative Commons NZ sheds light on a number of areas, including:
Open Access in the Book Disciplines(Sigi Jöttkandt, co-founder, Open Humanities Press) - While the move towards open access is often framed in terms of journal articles, Sigi considers “the growing need for viable open access dissemination options, particularly in Humanities disciplines, which are heavily reliant on the book form.”
The first of these topics is very relevant to us in St Andrews, with our main event of the week focusing on the opportunities and challenges of open access in the humanities.
In advance of worldwide Open Access Week, the Harvard Open Access Project released version 1.0 of a guide to good practices for university open-access policies. The new guide has been compiled by OA and scholarly communication experts Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber and is designed to evolve as new experiences of good practice emerge.
As well as recommendations on drafting, adopting and implementing an OA policy, the guide is full of useful examples and practical suggestions, including strategeies for increasing 'green' open access through repository deposit > Filling the repository
A rather foggy start to Open Access Week in St Andrews (weatherwise), but we aim to use this week to clear any fogginess about open access! The Library has arranged a series of events to encourage all members of the University to find out how scholarly communication is changing.
Today we launch our new Open Access LibGuide - if you need a quick introduction or pointers to some OA resources, this is for you. You will also find links to the support that the Library can offer our authors, what's new in Research@StAndrews:FullText and some additional links.
There will be information for visitors to the library about our repository, and about 'green' and 'gold' open access.
We will also have a drop-in session to answer informal queries, a workshop for academic staff, a Gradskills workshop and to round off the week on Friday 26th Oct our event Humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges is also open to external visitors.
Open access is bringing exciting changes to scholarly communication. It is currently a widely discussed and debated topic by government, institutions and publishers. Open Access Week provides an opportunity to come and find out why open access is important for you, your institution, your discipline, and everyone.
St Andrews University Library has organised a special event on Friday 26 Oct, 11.30-16.30:
Our invited speaker, Gary Hall, will explain why open access is important by focusing on a number of projects that creatively engage with open access research and publications: This talk will explain why open access is important for the humanities, the University, indeed everyone. In will do so by focusing on a number of projects that creatively engage with open access research and publications, including Living Books about Life (www.livingbooksaboutlife.org), aJISC-funded series of over twenty open access books which provides a bridge between the humanities and the sciences. Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors and open to ongoing collaborative processes with readers, these ‘living’ books repackage existing open access science research by clustering it around selected topics to form a series of coherent single-themed volumes - on air, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, extinction, human geonomics, pharmacology, veterinary science and so on. As the title of the project suggests, the theme that unites the volumes in the series is life, understood both biologically and philosophically.
We will also hear about open access activities from academics in St Andrews, new journal hosting services in both St Andrews and Edinburgh University libraries, and more. While focusing on the humanities, this event will be relevant for anyone who needs to understand why open access is important.
Lunch and refreshments included - come and join us for a lively debate!
"eLife, the new open-access journal for outstanding scientific advancements, has published its first four research articles."
The new journal, backed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Wellcome Trust, is due to launch officially later this year. eLife aims to publish high quality papers 'without delay' and so has chosen to make its first open access articles available on PubMed Central and UKPMC. All articles and supplementary material in eLife will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence allowing unrestricted re-use of the content provided the original source and authors are credited.
The journal is promoted as a researcher-driven initiative and innovative platform, using digital media and open access to maximise its impact. Publishing in eLife is currently free of charge to authors, and its open access model ensures research results are available to all potential readers without barriers.
Many research outputs are now published in open access (OA) journals, or deposited in open access repositories. Governments and funders support open access to publicly-funded research. New business models are emerging, and new opportunities are available to increase visibility of research.
Find out more about open access by joining us at one of our events to celebrate Open Access Week 2012, organised by the University of St Andrews Library.
Events for St Andrews staff and students:
Mon 22 Oct
Open Access LibGuide launch Visit the Library website and Main Library building to get yourself up to date and find out about open access resources
Tue 23 Oct
Open access 'coffee and cake' drop-in session (10:00-11:30) For support and admin staff - bring your questions to the Main Library, Level 2
Wed 24 Oct
Open access: publishing options, funder policies, support services and more (14:00-16:30) For St Andrews research staff - book CAPOD course online
Friday 26 Oct, 11:00-16:30. Parliament Hall, South Street, St Andrews
Hear from St Andrews researchers and external speakers about some practical open access projects. While focusing on humanities, this event will be relevant for anyone who needs to understand why open access is important.
The open access movement has been growing for 10 years since Open Access was first clearly defined in 2002. There is now a range of methods for making scholarly publications free to readers, and there is debate on the precise elements that make research outputs truly 'open' for all types of reuse.
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has released a new guide called How Open Is It? which describes the components that make up open access and analyses where a journal lies on the open access spectrum. The guide lays out Reader rights, Reuse rights, Copyright, Author posting rights, Automatic posting and Machine readability in a simple matrix and aims to help authors make informed choices about where to publish.
An announcement from SPARC describes the guidelines that mark 10 years since the first clearly defined ideas about open access by BOAI.
"The Open Access recommendations include the development of Open Access policies in institutions of higher education and in funding agencies, the open licensing of scholarly works, the development of infrastructure such as Open Access repositories and creating standards of professional conduct for Open Access publishing. The recommendations also establish a new goal of achieving Open Access as the default method for distributing new peer-reviewed research in every field and in every country within ten years’ time." (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)
The BOAI Recommendations for the next 10 years provide clear strategy for institutional, funder and publisher policy, guidance on licensing and infrastructure and advice on advocacy. The recommendations close with "truths about OA":
OA benefits research and researchers, and the lack of OA impedes them.
OA for publicly-funded research benefits taxpayers and increases the return on their investment in research. It has economic benefits as well as academic or scholarly benefits.
OA amplifies the social value of research, and OA policies amplify the social value of funding agencies and research institutions.
The costs of OA can be recovered without adding more money to the current system of scholarly communication.
OA is consistent with copyright law everywhere in the world, and gives both authors and readers more rights than they have under conventional publishing agreements.
OA is consistent with the highest standards of quality.
July 16 was a big day for open access in the UK. The latest SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN) by Peter Suber describes the 'tipping point' for the open access movement.
SOAN #165 (Sep 2, 2012) gives a detailed analysis of 3 major announcements on 16 July 2012 from RCUK, HEFCE and the UK Minister for Universities and Science, including the potential consequences for journals and authors. The newsletter also covers the subsequent release of documents from the European Commission on OA policy. Taken together, these announcements appear to make the transition to open access for scholarly publishing innevitable - at least across Europe.
Discussions are now under way across institutions to decide how to manage the transition, including the costs involved and mechanisms for adapting to new business models from publishers. The UK government has recently announced additional funding for some universities, to 'kick-start' this process.
We are delighted to announce the publication of volume 5 in the St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture series, available from Research@StAndrews:FullText. This open access ebook is the latest to be published by the St Andrews Centre for French History and Culture, free for consultation, downloading, printing or circulation, either for private use or for educational purposes. The earlier volumes have had a high number of downloads and initial indications are that this new title will continue this success.
This volume seeks to investigate the testamentary practices of women in medieval and early modern France, examining the experience of a cross-section of the population, from artisans to the elite, in Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Marseille, Montpellier, La Rochelle, Brittany, and Burgundy. The making of a will was perhaps the single most prominent moment in women's lives for the assertion of agency. Though constrained to some degree by customary practice and the increasing influence of Roman law, women demonstrated remarkable initiative in the formulation of their last wishes. Wills permitted women to reward friendship and loyalty, to designate universal heirs as major beneficiaries, to stipulate conditions of inheritance so that last wishes were carried out, and, perhaps most importantly, to make pious donations to the Church for the salvation of the testators' souls. They chose their burial sites and arranged for funeral processions, and they endowed anniversary masses for their souls in perpetuity. Individual testamentary decisions differed, as did spousal strategies, but the reinforcement of family ties, even the assertion of relationship, was possible in wills.
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has announced a new scheme to help researchers pay for open access publishing.
“UK institutes who are RSC Gold customers will shortly receive credit equal to the subscription paid, enabling their researchers, who are being asked to publish Open Access but often do not yet have funding to pay for it directly, to make their paper available via Open Science, the RSC's Gold OA option.”
This follows a series of events that are reshaping the way research outputs are published. Over the last month there has been a flood of announcements about making publicly funded research outputs available to anyone for free (open access). The UK Government has backed a transition to open access, with the release of the report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (Finch report) which stated:
“The principle that the results of research that has been publicly funded should be freely accessible in the public domain is a compelling one, and fundamentally unanswerable.”
On 28 June The Wellcome Trust announcedthat it will be re-enforcing its open access mandate, with sanctions for institutions on non-compliance including future grant payments being withheld. Earlier this week RCUK announced a new policy on open access to research outputs, significantly strengthening the existing requirements for grant holders to ensure their peer-reviewed articles are freely available to all, and the following day the European Commission released a similar message:
“Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe's innovation capacity” (EU press release)
The new RCUK and EU policies continue to allow articles to be accessible either:
Directly by the publisher (usually through payment of a fee), known as ‘Gold’ open access; or
Through deposit of an author version in an open access repository (often after a limited embargo period) known as ‘Green’ open access.
There is much debate about how these changes will be managed, funded and resourced. In the meantime, this is an interesting and positive commitment from RSC to help researchers benefit from open access publishing and meet their funders’ requirements.
The aim of this Journal is to provide a space for academics and counter-terrorism professionals to publish work focused on the study of terrorism. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the study of terrorism, high-quality submissions from all academic and professional backgrounds are encouraged. Students are also warmly encouraged to submit work for publication.
Each article is published in PDF and HTML, and the complete issue is also available as a single PDF. All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
RCUK has announced a new policy on open access to research outputs, significantly strengthening the existing requirements for grant holders to ensure their peer-reviewed articles are freely available to all.
The new policy will apply to peer-reviewed research articles and conference proceedings submitted for publication from 1 April 2013. Researchers will still be able to choose whether to publish in an open access journal (which may require payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC)), or to deposit an accepted manuscript in an institutional or subject repository. Where an APC is paid, the resulting article must allow unrestricted reuse including downloading and text mining under a Creative Commons licence. If papers are made open access through the repository route, there will be a maximum delay (embargo) allowed of 6 months (12 months for AHRC and ESRC).
As well as publishing outputs in journals which comply with the policy, researchers will be expected to include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials – such as data, samples or models – can be accessed.
Institutions will now need to put in place mechanisms for managing APCs, which will be funded by block grants from RCUK.
The RCUK policy took account of the recently published Finch Report (report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings), however it has a notably stronger view on embargoes compared to the UK Government's response to the Finch recommendations (p5).
Library Open Access Support St Andrews researchers can contact the Library with queries about open access and funder requirements - contact Jackie Proven or Janet Aucock, email open-access-support or see details of current open access policies on our Library web pages.
We have now passed another milestone, with over 2000 items in our open access repository Research@StAndrews:FullText.
Our 2000th item turned out to be a little bit of Scottish History, with a thesis originally requested through the British Library's EThOS service:
Annette M. Smith (1975) The Forfeited Estates Papers, 1745: a study of the work of the Commissioners for the Forfeited Annexed Estates, 1755-1784, with particular reference to their contribution to the development of communications in Scotland in the eighteenth century
Our project to deposit retrospective theses has also added to our varied collections including English, Mediaeval History, Modern Languages, Divinity, International Relations and Biology.
We are delighted to see that we have less than 20 items to go until we reach 2000 in our open access repository!
Just over a year ago we celebrated reaching a landmark 1000 items in Research@StAndrews:FullText so it has been a busy and exciting year to see our content double.
There are now well over 1000 e-theses in the repository, over 500 research publications from our Research Information System PURE, nearly 300 Sustainable Development Commission reports and a range of other content including e-books and digitized items from our Special Collections.
The total has been boosted by a short project to upload nearly 200 theses from those requested through the British Library EThOS service, with the help of 2 interns. Most of these theses are in Humanities, with the earliest being a thesis awarded in 1949.
Specific titles will be featured on the blog as we reach this latest landmark total.
Our usage statistics also show an encouraging increase. Now over 4000 items are downloaded every month!
Earlier this year there was news that the Wellcome Trust would be introducing a tougher stance on compliance with their open access policy, and they have now outlined the steps they will take:
The Wellcome Trust today announces that it will be strengthening the manner in which it enforces its open access policy with immediate effect. Failure to comply with the policy could result in final grant payments being withheld and non-compliant publications being discounted when applying for further funding.
Support is available for St Andrews researchers who are in receipt of a Wellcome Trust grant. The Wellcome Trust has provided money to the University specifically to cover article fees for publishing in open access journals. The Trust also provides a list of frequently used journals with specific advice on how best to comply.
The report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (Finch report) has been released.
The report is very clear on its expectation for open access to become the norm in scholarly communication:
The principle that the results of research that has been publicly funded should be freely accessible in the public domain is a compelling one, and fundamentally unanswerable.
There is much made of the need to sustain publisher revenue, and therefore many of the recommendations relate to the 'gold' route to open access, looking at business models, licensing and funding for Article Processing Charges (APCs). Funders and universities will inevitably need to look at mechanisms for supporting and managing APCs for their researchers.
Repositories are discussed as both a 'threat' (p36) to commercial publishers (while acknowledging no evidence for a disruption to publisher income, p86) and an option (through the 'green' route to open access) with modest operating costs. Amongst the conclusions there is a comment that 'journals can work effectively with repositories' (p91).
It will be interesting to see how the report impacts on policies such as the proposed RCUK revised mandate, due later this summer.
We have already noticed some demand for print copies, for example we have purchased a copy of The theatre of Shelley / Jacqueline Mulhallen in addition to the open access version.
