Étiquette : open access publishing

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Landscapes of Research: Perceptions of Open Access (OA) Publishing in the Arts and Humanities

“It is widely known now that scholarly communication is in crisis, resting on an academic publishing model that is unsustainable. One response to this crisis has been the emergence of Open Access (OA) publishing, bringing scholarly literature out from behind a paywall and making it freely available to anyone online. Many research and academic libraries are facilitating the change to OA by establishing institutional repositories, supporting OA policies, and hosting OA journals. In addition, research funding bodies, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), are mandating that all published grant research outputs be made available in OA, unless legal and contractual obligations prevent this. Despite these broader changes, not all scholars are aware of the new publishing environment. In particular, the rate of adoption of OA models in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) has historically been lower than Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) disciplines. Nevertheless, some local and international OA exemplars exist in HSS. At Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, the faculty-administered environmental humanities journal, Landscapes, was migrated to the institutional open access repository in 2013. Subsequently, researchers in the Faculty of Education and Arts were surveyed regarding their knowledge, understandings, and perceptions of OA publishing. The survey was also designed to elicit the barriers to OA publishing perceived or experienced by HSS researchers. This article will present the findings of our small faculty-based OA survey, with particular attention to HSS academics (and within this subject group, particular attention to the arts and humanities), their perceptions of OA, and the impediments they encounter. We argue that OA publishing will continue to transform scholarship within the arts and humanities, especially through the role of institutional repositories. The “library-as-publisher” role offers the potential to transform academic and university-specific publishing activities. However, the ongoing training of university researchers and personnel is required to bring into balance their understandings of OA publisher and the demands of the broader Australian and international research environment.”

URL : Landscapes of Research: Perceptions of Open Access (OA) Publishing in the Arts and Humanities

DOI : 10.3390/publications3020065

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The “total cost of publication” in a hybrid open-access environment: Institutional approaches to funding journal article-processing charges in combination with subscriptions

“As open-access (OA) publishing funded by article-processing charges (APCs) becomes more widely accepted, academic institutions need to be aware of the “total cost of publication” (TCP), comprising subscription costs plus APCs and additional administration costs. This study analyzes data from 23 UK institutions covering the period 2007–2014 modeling the TCP. It shows a clear rise in centrally managed APC payments from 2012 onward, with payments projected to increase further. As well as evidencing the growing availability and acceptance of OA publishing, these trends reflect particular UK policy developments and funding arrangements intended to accelerate the move toward OA publishing (“Gold” OA). Although the mean value of APCs has been relatively stable, there was considerable variation in APC prices paid by institutions since 2007. In particular, “hybrid” subscription/OA journals were consistently more expensive than fully OA journals. Most APCs were paid to large “traditional” commercial publishers who also received considerable subscription income. New administrative costs reported by institutions varied considerably. The total cost of publication modeling shows that APCs are now a significant part of the TCP for academic institutions, in 2013 already constituting an average of 10% of the TCP (excluding administrative costs).”

URL : The “total cost of publication” in a hybrid open-access environment

DOI: 10.1002/asi.23446

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Monographs and Open Access : A report to HEFCE

“This report examines, and seeks to clarify, the range of issues that emerge when we think about the relationship between open access and monographs (including under this latter term other long scholarly publications). It arises from the immediate need of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and its sister funding councils in the UK, to examine the issues for open access in relation to books in a context where both funding and research councils in the UK have already established open-access requirements for publications in journals and conference proceedings, but the issues are much greater than those of defining the practicalities of mandates and the sustainability of open-access models. Furthermore, although the principal focus of the report is defined by the culture and policy preoccupations of higher education in this country, the international character of research, publishing, and academic careers has to be acknowledged.”

URL : http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/pubs/indirreports/2015/monographsandopenaccess/2014_monographs.pdf

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Making open access work for authors, institutions and publishers

“This report arises from a roundtable event hosted by Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at University College London on 6 October 2014. The roundtable brought together representatives from academic institutions, publishers and vendors to discuss the challenge of “making open access work”.

Recent policy changes in the United Kingdom are driving a rapid increase in the number of article processing charges, or APCs, being paid to publishers in order to make articles open access. The attendees gathered to discuss the challenges faced by their organizations as APC volumes rise, and to explore the role that third-party vendors such as CCC can play in helping to address these. Discussions during the course of the day covered a wide range of issues. Institutions and publishers offered a range of different perspectives, but there was a striking commonality in the challenges faced, and a high degree of consensus on what is needed to address them:
Author engagement – Author engagement is crucial to the success of open access, but the complexity of the process at present means many need support at an early stage. This requires a fundamental shift from a two-way relationship between author and publisher, to a three- or four-way relationship that also involves the institution and potentially an external funder.
Streamlining the APC process – Workflows for handling APCs remain unstable, with institutions and publishers both grappling with the need to constantly adapt processes and systems as volumes rise. Greater consistency and automation is needed if efficiencies are to be achieved.
Copyright and licensing – Authors lack familiarity with the range of licensing options available and the licensing requirements of funders. Direct engagement between publishers and institutional  administrators can help address this in the short term, but in the long term authors must be equipped to make informed licensing choices that take account of funder mandates.
Management and billing of APCs – The payment of individual APC invoices is not a sustainable solution for either institutions or publishers, but some institutions have concerns over a loss of transparency where alternative models are used. The complex relationships among APC pricing, subscription revenues, licensing, and embargo periods remain a subject for debate.
Standards and interoperability – The need to improve sharing of information through development of common vocabularies and data standards was universally agreed. Identification of suitable persistent identifiers is part of the solution, but even where these exist low levels of uptake remain a concern.
Reporting and compliance – Achieving compliance with funder requirements places a significant burden on institutional administrators, and results in growing demands for information from publishers.”

URL : http://www.copyright.com/content/dam/cc3/marketing/documents/pdfs/Report-Making-Open-Access-Work.pdf

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Indian research going global: A study on the status of open access publishing

Aims to measure quantitatively the scholarly journals which were produced with full immediate open access (OA) from 2003 to 2013. Focuses on the amount of India’s contribution to scholarly literature through the repositories of their institutions, amount of literature produced in various disciplines and the open source software’s (OSS) used for it.

Aims to know the current status of open access publishing in India. A survey of the open access journals indexed in the Directory of Open access Journals (DOAJ) and the repositories indexed in the Open DOAR is followed for this study. India started making its journals open access in 2003 with about 13 journals in a year and has reached about 197 journals till September 2013, which shows a growth of 15 fold of the open access journal output within a year.

The percentage of the multidisciplinary repositories is highest with 43% and the repositories of the disciplines such as Technology, Chemistry and Chemical Technology and Physics and Astronomy are 18%, 15% and 14% respectively among the 64 repositories listed in OpenDOAR.

With about 650 open access journals and about 64 open access directories, India has made important contributions towards the growth of Open access publishing.

URL : http://www.spoars.org/journal/v3n4p4

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The Scholarly Communications Needs of Faculty: An Evidence-Based Foundation for the Development of Library Services

“Objectives – This exploratory research seeks to broadly understand the publishing behaviours and attitudes of faculty, across all disciplines, at the University of Saskatchewan in response to the growing significance of open access publishing and archiving. The objective for seeking this understanding is to discover the current and emerging needs of researchers in order to determine if scholarly communications services are in demand here and, if so, to provide an evidence-based foundation for the potential future development of such a program of services at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Methods – All faculty members at the University of Saskatchewan were sent personalized email invitations to participate in a short online survey during the month of November 2012. The survey was composed of four parts: Current Research and Publishing Activities/Behaviours; Open Access Behaviours, Awareness, and Attitudes; Needs Assessment; and Demographics. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated.

Results – The survey elicited 291 complete responses – a 21.9% response rate. Results suggest that faculty already have a high level of support for the open access movement, and considerable awareness of it. However, there remains a lack of knowledge regarding their rights as authors, a low familiarity with tools available to support them in their scholarly communications activities, and substantial resistance to paying the article processing charges of some open access journals. Survey respondents also provided a considerable number of comments – perhaps an indication of their engagement with these issues and desire for a forum in which to discuss them. It is reasonable to speculate that those who chose not to respond to this survey likely have less interest in, and support of, open access. Hence, the scholarly communications needs of this larger group of non-respondents are conceivably even greater.

Conclusion – Faculty at the University of Saskatchewan are in considerable need of scholarly communications services. Areas of most need include: advice and guidance on authors’ rights issues such as retention of copyright; more education and support with resources such as subject repositories; and additional assistance with article processing charges. The University Library could play a valuable role in increasing the research productivity and impact of faculty by aiding them in these areas.”

URL : The Scholarly Communications Needs of Faculty

Alternative URL : http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/21764

 

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“Free to All”: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access

“There is a significant and important responsibility as libraries move into the role of publishing to retain our heritage of “access for all.” Connecting and collaborating with colleagues in the publishing industry is essential, but should come with the understanding that the library as an organization is access-prone. This article discusses the complexities of navigating that relationship, and calls for libraries and publishers to embrace and respect the position from which we begin. Finally, the article forecasts several possible characteristics of what “publishing” might look like if libraries press the principle of access in this growing area.”

URL : “Free to All”: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1181