Étiquette : open access publishing

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Open Access Publishing: What Authors Want

Campus-based open access author funds are being considered by many academic libraries as a way to support authors publishing in open access journals. Article processing fees for open access have been introduced recently by publishers and have not yet been widely accepted by authors.

Few studies have surveyed authors on their reasons for publishing open access and their perceptions of open access journals. The present study was designed to gauge the uptake of library support for author funding and author satisfaction with open access publishing.

Results indicate that York University authors are increasingly publishing in open access journals and are appreciative of library funding initiatives. The wider implications of open access are discussed along with specific recommendations for publishers.

URL : http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2011/06/10/crl-203.abstract

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OAPEN Final Report OAPEN started its activities…

OAPEN Final Report :

« OAPEN started its activities on September 1, 2008 and has now completed its project phaseco-funded by the European Commission. The final stage of the project focused on the launch
of the OAPEN Library, usability, and especially sustainability after the project period. The results were presented during the final conference in Berlin in February 2011.

In the future OAPEN will continue as an independent foundation governed by representatives of the participating institutions. The objectives for the foundation are to stimulate further OA
publishing of academic books, to further develop OAPEN as a platform for OA books and to develop a sustainable business model. In the meantime, OAPEN is conducting a number of experiments in Open Access book publishing, in the form of pilot projects. The first pilot is conducted in the Netherlands with support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Ministry of Education. For the UK a similar pilot project is being prepared by JISC Collections. »

URL : http://project.oapen.org/images/documents/oapen_final_public_report.pdf

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Journal tendering for societies: a brief guide

Hundreds of societies publish journals in collaboration with publishers. Some may be considering how and whether to renegotiate or go out to tender. Some may be considering whether they can/should/wish to change the business model of the journal (e.g. by a move to Open Access). Other societies may be considering using an external publisher for the first time.

This guide, based on our experience, is written for all of these. In their negotiations with publishers learned societies – especially smaller ones – may have difficulty articulating their requirements and assessing the publishers’ offerings. This is true where they wish to compare the newer models with typical « conventional » models, or simply compare different conventional offerings.

The reasons are complex and include:

  • lack of knowledge of the publishing industry on the part of the society’s executive staff (who cannot always find the time to acquire the knowledge);
  • the « author/research funder pays » models, which, whilst becoming more prevalent in the domains of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), appear (but may not actually be) rather less feasible in other domains.

This guide draws on the experience of one learned society, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), in reviewing the publishing arrangements for its journal Research in Learning Technology, between September and December 2010.

URL : http://repository.alt.ac.uk/887/

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Heading for the open road costs and benefits…

Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications :

« This new report investigates the drivers, costs and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. It identifies five different routes for achieving that end over the next five years, and compares and evaluates the benefits as well as the costs and risks for the UK.

The report suggests that policymakers who are seeking to promote increases in access should encourage the use of existing subject and institutional repositories, but avoid pushing for reductions in embargo periods, which might put at risk the sustainability of the underlying scholarly publishing system. They should also promote and facilitate a transition to open access publishing (Gold open access) while seeking to ensure that the average level of charges for publication does not exceed c.£2000; that the rate in the UK of open access publication is broadly in step with the rate in the rest of the world; and that total payments to journal publishers from UK universities and their funders do not rise as a consequence.

At a time of financial stringency for universities, research funders and publishers, it is important that all the stakeholders in the scholarly communications system work together to find the most cost-effective ways of fulfilling their joint goal of increasing access to the outputs of research. This report provides the first detailed and authoritative analysis of how this might be achieved over the next five years. We hope that it will stimulate new dialogue and new approaches to policy and practice across all stakeholders. »

URL : http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/heading-open-road-costs-and-benefits-transitions-s

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Open access readership citations a randomized controlled trial…

Open access, readership, citations: a randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing :

« Does free access to journal articles result in greater diffusion of scientific knowledge? Using a randomized controlled trial of open access publishing, involving 36 participating journals in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, we report on the effects of free access on article downloads and citations. Articles placed in the open access condition (n=712) received significantly more downloads and reached a broader audience within the first year, yet were cited no more frequently, nor earlier, than subscription-access control articles (n=2533) within 3 yr. These results may be explained by social stratification, a process that concentrates scientific authors at a small number of elite research universities with excellent access to the scientific literature. The real beneficiaries of open access publishing may not be the research community but communities of practice that consume, but rarely contribute to, the corpus of literature.—Davis, P. M. Open access, readership, citations: a randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing. »

URL : http://www.fasebj.org/content/early/2011/03/29/fj.11-183988.abstract

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Results of the SOAP Survey: EIFL Partner…

Results of the SOAP Survey: EIFL Partner Countries :

« The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project has run a large-scale survey of the attitudes of researchers on, and the experiences with, open access publishing. In the SOAP Symposium on 13 January 2011 in Berlin, the results of the SOAP Survey were made publicly available. « Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think about Open Access Publishing » article is available in arXiv presenting preliminary analysis of the survey responses. To allow a maximal re-use of the information collected by this survey, the data were released under a CC0 waiver, so to allow libraries, publishers, funding agencies and academics to further analyse risks and opportunities, drivers and barriers, in the transition to open access publishing.

SURFfoundation made the first overview of the SOAP survey results, tailored to the situation in the Netherlands. Marnix van Berchum and Annemiek van der Kuil selected the questions and the selection should be considered as a first attempt to analyse the SOAP data for the Dutch situation. Further analysis could include different questions, and comparisons with other countries. SURFfoundation also invited others to make use of the SOAP data, to make their own analyses.

We followed the approach of the SURFfoundation and made the first overview of the SOAP survey results, tailored to the situation in 11 EIFL partner countries: Bulgaria, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine. »

URL : http://www.eifl.net/news/results-soap-survey-eifl-partner-countries

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Support for gold open access publishing …

Support for gold open access publishing strategies at QUT :

« INTRODUCTION : Since the introduction of its QUT ePrints institutional repository of published research outputs, together with the world’s first mandate for author contributions to an institutional repository, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has been a leader in support of green road open access. With QUT ePrints providing our mechanism for supporting the green road to open access, QUT has since then also continued to expand its secondary open access strategy supporting gold road open access, which is also designed to assist QUT researchers to maximise the accessibility and so impact of their research.

METHODS : QUT Library has adopted the position of selectively supporting true gold road open access publishing by using the Library Resource Allocation budget to pay the author publication fees for QUT authors wishing to publish in the open access journals of a range of publishers including BioMed Central, Public Library of Science and Hindawi. QUT Library has been careful to support only true open access publishers and not those open access publishers with hybrid models which “double dip” by charging authors publication fees and libraries subscription fees for the same journal content. QUT Library has maintained a watch on the growing number of open access journals available from gold road open access publishers and their increased rate of success as measured by publication impact.

RESULTS : This paper reports on the successes and challenges of QUT’s efforts to support true gold road open access publishers and promote these publishing strategy options to researchers at QUT. The number and spread of QUT papers submitted and published in the journals of each publisher is provided. Citation counts for papers and authors are also presented and analysed, with the intention of identifying the benefits to accessibility and research impact for early career and established researchers.

CONCLUSIONS : QUT Library is eager to continue and further develop support for this publishing strategy, and makes a number of recommendations to other research institutions, on how they can best achieve success with this strategy. »

URL : http://eprints.qut.edu.au/39416/