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University-based open access publishing

This report, prepared for SPARC Europe, sketches the landscape of university-­‐based not-­‐for-­‐ profit publishing in Europe with a primary focus on open access publishing of journals. It provides a view of the different types of initiatives in terms of their size, operational and business models, technologies used, stakeholder involvement, concentration of scientific fields, growth, as well as regional characteristics and recommendations for SPARC Europe and DOAJ.

The report attests to a rich and continuously evolving ecology of open access publishing initiatives in universities in Europe and elsewhere. Beyond the commercial publishing models, it appears that university libraries are largely the foci of intense activity in journal publishing and books (primarily where a university press exists), while national governments are moving towards building national collections, national portals and services paid for by public funds to make research published within the country more relevant and accessible internationally.

This ecology is primarily populated by small publishers who are largely invisible, and much smaller numbers of large and medium-­‐ sized university-­‐based activities. At the same time, a growing number of innovative initiatives in the University and outside, mostly initiated by scholars and University Presses, eager to experiment in developing a fair and sustainable scholarly communications system, attests to a vibrant and swiftly-­‐evolving landscape.

URL : University-based open access publishing

Alternative location : http://sparceurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SE_UPublishing_Report_0315.pdf

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EN

Open Scholarship Practices Reshaping South Africa’s Scholarly Publishing Roadmap

South African higher education institutions are the largest producers of research output on the African continent. Given this status, South African researchers have a moral obligation to share their research output with the rest of the continent via a medium that minimizes challenges of access; open scholarship is that medium. The majority of South African higher education libraries provide an open access publishing service. However, in most of these cases this service is via engagement with the green open access route, that is, institutional repositories (IR).

Some of the libraries have piloted and adopted gold open access services such as publishing of “diamond” gold open access journals and supporting article processing charges. The experiment with publishing open monographs is a new venture. This venture must be viewed against the backdrop of the need for open educational resources (OERs). OER is an area that is very much in a fledgling stage and is gaining traction, albeit, at a slow pace.

The growth of IRs, the growth in support for gold open access including the library acting as a publisher, the experimentation with open monographs, and OERs are all shaping South Africa’s scholarly publishing roadmap.

URL : Open Scholarship Practices Reshaping South Africa’s Scholarly Publishing Roadmap

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3040263

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EN

Considering Non-Open Access Publication Charges in the “Total Cost of Publication”

Recent research has tried to calculate the “total cost of publication” in the British academic sector, bringing together the costs of journal subscriptions, the article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open-access content, and the indirect costs of handling open-access mandates. This study adds an estimate for the other publication charges (predominantly page and colour charges) currently paid by research institutions, a significant element which has been neglected by recent studies.

When these charges are included in the calculation, the total cost to institutions as of 2013/14 is around 18.5% over and above the cost of journal subscriptions—11% from APCs, 5.5% from indirect costs, and 2% from other publication charges. For the British academic sector as a whole, this represents a total cost of publication around £213 million against a conservatively estimated journal spend of £180 million, with non-APC publication charges representing around £3.6 million.

A case study is presented to show that these costs may be unexpectedly high for individual institutions, depending on disciplinary focus. The feasibility of collecting this data on a widespread basis is discussed, along with the possibility of using it to inform future subscription negotiations with publishers.

URL : Considering Non-Open Access Publication Charges in the “Total Cost of Publication”

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3040248

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The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed

Open access, open data, open source, and other open scholarship practices are growing in necessity and popularity, rapidly becoming part of the integral workflow of researchers. However, widespread adoption of many of these practices has not yet been achieved. Understandably, researchers have concerns as to how sharing their work will affect their careers. Some of these concerns stem from a lack of awareness about the career benefits associated with open research.

Herein, we review literature on the open citation advantage, media attention for publicly available research, collaborative possibilities, and special funding opportunities to show how open practices can give researchers a competitive advantage.

URL : The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed

Alternative location : https://figshare.com/articles/The_open_research_value_proposition_How_sharing_can_help_researchers_succeed/1619902

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EN

Open Journal Systems and Dataverse Integration– Helping Journals to Upgrade Data Publication for Reusable Research

This article describes the novel open source tools for open data publication in open access journal workflows. This comprises a plugin for Open Journal Systems that supports a data submission, citation, review, and publication workflow; and an extension to the Dataverse system that provides a standard deposit API.

We describe the function and design of these tools, provide examples of their use, and summarize their initial reception. We conclude by discussing future plans and potential impact.

URL : http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/10989

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Opening the Black Box of Scholarly Communication Funding: A Public Data Infrastructure for Financial Flows in Academic Publishing

« Public access to publicly funded research » has been one of the rallying calls of the global open access movement. Governments and public institutions around the world have mandated that publications supported by public funding sources should be publicly accessible. Publishers are experimenting with new models to widen access.

Yet financial flows underpinning scholarly publishing remain complex and opaque. In this paper we present work to trace and reassemble a picture of financial flows around the publication of journals in the UK in the midst of a national shift towards open access.

We contend that the current lack of financial transparency around scholarly communication is an obstacle to evidence-based policy-making – leaving researchers, decision-makers and institutions in the dark about the systemic implications of new financial models.

We conclude that obtaining a more joined up picture of financial flows is vital as a means for researchers, institutions and others to understand and shape changes to the sociotechnical systems that underpin scholarly communication.

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2690570

Catégories
EN

Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Croatia

There is a vibrant Open Access environment in Croatia and several academic and research institutions initiate different activities concerning open access to the scientific information (Ruđer Bošković Institute, School of Medicine, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Faculty of Organization and Informatics at University of Zagreb, University of Zadar, University of Osijek, National and University Library, etc.). It is very important to improve collaboration among different stakeholders, as well as to provide top-down guidance harmonized with EU practices.

Important blocks of the existing Open Access research infrastructure are presented in the paper: the Croatian Scientific Bibliography CROSBI, the Croatian portal for Open Access journals HRČAK, and the common infrastructure for digital academic repositories DABAR. Future development of Open Access infrastructure in Croatia is discussed.

URL : http://dipp2015.math.bas.bg/images/lecturers/abstracts/Jadranka_Stojanovski_DiPP2015_abstract.pdf