scholarly journals Open Academic Book Publishing during COVID-19 Pandemic: A View on Romanian University Presses

Publications ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mariana Cernicova-Buca ◽  
Katalin Luzan
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Open Book ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
University Presses ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The University ◽  
Access Model

In the context of the 2020 public health crisis that discourages exchanges of physical objects in society, university-led publishing needed to rethink its operations. Worldwide the opening of quality scholarly content proved to be a solution. University presses reacted rapidly and offered books according to the open access model. The present research aimed to map the editorial landscape of Romanian university presses, to identify the main features displayed online by the university presses parented by public universities and to highlight the readiness of these players to further open access academic books, especially in the time of the COVID-19 crisis. The quantitative approach investigated the availability of e-books in the university presses’ portfolios, including the alignment to the open access scholarship movement, the use of social media accounts to promote the presses and the response of the presses to the challenges of the health crisis. Out of the 46 active university presses, only six had open book titles in their portfolios and only one genuinely responded actively to the challenges posed by the need for electronic formats in 2020. Unless Romanian university presses modernize and restructure their modus operandi, they can prove irrelevant in the post-crisis period.

scholarly journals Towards a sustainable Open Access monograph publishing workflow for academic institutions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Schrader ◽  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Michael Reiche
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Research Project ◽  
University Presses ◽  
The University ◽  
Publication Workflow ◽  
Publishing Workflow

Across the world, there is a growing interest in Open Access (OA) publishing. Therefore, OA publishing has become a trend and is of key importance to the scientific community. However, observing the publication landscape in Germany leads to a striking finding of very different approaches. In particular, OA book publishing is still in relatively early stages, leading to OA books being much less frequently published than OA journal articles. However, although well-established publishers offer the publication of OA books, only certain researchers can actually publish, because of high Book Processing Charges (BPCs). In contrast to such publishers, university presses publish books as OA without any or at significantly lower charges; however, university presses are often inadequately staffed and do not have the technical know-how of the state-of-the-art publishing of OA books possessed by well-established publishers. For these reasons, our research project aims to develop an ideal and transferable publication workflow for OA books that is both cost-effective and personnel-efficient as well as media-neutral to enable universities to publish their publications as OA. To this end, a one-day meeting with stakeholders of the publication landscape was held in June 2018 at the University of Applied Science in Leipzig, Germany. During the meeting, the stakeholders were asked to present their views on the current situation and also the lessons learned and the shortcomings of the existing approaches. As a result, the observation was confirmed that the publication landscape is very heterogeneous and that there are no standardised interfaces and no harmonised practices for publishing OA books. Furthermore, in a discussion with the stakeholders during the second part of the meeting, further various issues of OA book publishing were revealed that have to be considered. Additionally, the various challenges and wishes of the stakeholders could be classified into five topic areas. These findings illustrate that the primary task of the research project has to be the analysis of the existing publishing workflows and abstracting generally valid processes that are needed to publish OA books. Additionally, the further issues of OA book publishing, mentioned by the stakeholders, have to be addressed during the development. The five topic areas will help reduce the complexity of this project.

scholarly journals A Report from the NIMBioS/DySoC Investigative Workshop on the Mathematics of Gun Violence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelby Scott
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Gun Violence ◽  
Biological Synthesis ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
University Of Tennessee ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
The University

Gun violence is a central public concern in the United States, annually leading to the deaths of 36,000 individuals and the non-fatal injuries of 85,000 others. It has been called an epidemic and a public health crisis. In May of 2019, a diverse group of researchers participated in a workshop at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This workshop was sponsored by the Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity (DySoC) and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). The objectives of this workshop were to review the existing approaches on the mathematics and modeling of gun violence, identify and prioritize areas in the field that require further research, develop cross-disciplinary collaborations to gain new perspectives, and suggest research and data collection that could assist evidence-based policy recommendations. The purpose of this report is to present some of the responses to the mentioned objectives and to suggest areas of future research .

scholarly journals Open Access University Press | A Research Project at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, Germany

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Schrader ◽  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Michael Reiche ◽  
David Bohm
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Research Journal ◽  
University Of Applied Sciences ◽  
University Presses ◽  
First Results

The poster is an overview of the research project Open-Access-Hochschulverlag (in english Open Access University Press), that is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) for 23 months (Start in May 2018). Open Access (OA) book publishing is still in relatively early stages, leading to academic books being much less frequently published OA than research journal articles. This has various effects on the publication landscape, which are described here. Despite established publishers meanwhile also offer the publication of OA monographs, only certain researchers can actually publish, because of high Book Processing Charges (BPCs) up to 10,000 USD and more. In contrast, university presses have started to publish monographs as OA without any or at significantly lower charges; however, university presses often do not have the technical know-how of the state-of-the-art publishing of OA books possessed by academic publishers. This is why, our research project aims to develop an sustainable and easy-to-adopt publication workflow for OA monographs, which is media-neutral as well as both cost-effective and personnel-efficient. Universities shall be enabled to publish their book publications as OA by adopting this workflow. In addition, first results and an outlook ahead to the further steps of the research project are depicted on the poster.

scholarly journals Open Access publication workflow for academic books

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Schrader ◽  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Michael Reiche ◽  
David Bohm
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Final Version ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
University Of Applied Sciences ◽  
University Presses ◽  
The University ◽  
Publication Workflow

A draft (final version) of an media-neutral as well as both cost-effective and personnel-efficient publications workflow for Open Access (OA) monograph publishing at university presses is presented. The workflow has been developed as a result of the research project Open-Access-Hochschulverlag at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, Germany. The aim of the project is to develop a sustainable and adoptable workflow to enable universities to publish their publications as OA and printed books simultaneously in a state-of-the-art way and without any restrictions regarding the license, the variety of formats, print run etc. Up to now, we have defined 17 process groupswith up to 9processes,which a university press has to consider when publishing OA books state-of-the-art. These processes have been shown on the poster (it is the final version of the project, two preliminary versionswerealready published in April and June 2019). The arrangement and the arrows between the processes indicate in which order the processes should be ideally organised by the university presses. Since any university may adapt that workflow individually, it includes several possible ways by which an OA book can be published (see process group Ka or Qe at the poster). The visualisation of the publication workflow represents only a part of the results of our research project. In addition detailed descriptions for each process have been created, which explain a certain process in depth, e.g. who is responsible for it, what time it takes and what it may cost to complete the process. These detailed descriptions will be published elsewhere.

scholarly journals Mapping the Publishing Challenges for an Open Access University Press

Publications ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Open Access Publication ◽  
Marketing Analytics ◽  
University Presses ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
High Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Successful Production

Managing a New University Press (NUP) is often a one-person operation and, with limits on time and resources, efficiency and effectiveness are key to having a successful production process and providing a high level of author, editor and reader services. This article looks at the challenges faced by open access (OA) university presses throughout the publishing journey and considers ways in which these challenges can be addressed. In particular, the article focuses on six key stages throughout the lifecycle of an open access publication: commissioning; review; production; discoverability; marketing; analytics. Approached from the point of view of the University of Huddersfield Press, this article also draws on discussions and experiences of other NUPs from community-led forums and events. By highlighting the issues faced, and the potential solutions to them, this research recognises the need for a tailored and formalised production workflow within NUPs and also provides guidance how to begin implementing possible solutions.

scholarly journals Towards an Open Access publication workflow for monographs for university presses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Schrader ◽  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Michael Reiche ◽  
David Bohm
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
University Of Applied Sciences ◽  
University Presses ◽  
The University ◽  
Publication Workflow

Adraft (second version) of an media-neutral as well as both cost-effective and personnel-efficient publications workflow for Open Access (OA) monograph publishing at university presses is presented. The workflow has been developed as a result of the research project Open-Access-Hochschulverlag at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, Germany. The aim of the project is to develop a sustainable and adoptable workflow to enable universities to publish their publications as OA and printed books simultaneously in a state-of-the-art way and without any restrictions regarding the license, the variety of formats, print run etc. Up to now, we have defined 18 main processes (in green) with up to 8 sub-processes (in orange) which a university press has to consider when publishing OA books state-of-the-art. These processes have been shown on the poster (it is the second veersion of the workflow draft - the first version was published on25th April 2019). The arrangement and the arrows between the processes indicate in which order the processes should be ideally organised by the university presses. Since any university may adapt that workflow individually, it includes several possible ways by which an OA book can be published (see process 1 or 3 at the poster). The visualisation of the publication workflow represents only a part of the results of our research project. In addition detailed descriptions for each process have been created, which explain a certain process in depth, e.g. who is responsible for it, what time it takes and what it may cost to complete the process. These detailed descriptions will be published elsewhere.

scholarly journals Towards an Open Access publication workflow for monographs for university presses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Schrader ◽  
Alexander Grossmann ◽  
Michael Reiche ◽  
David Bohm
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
University Of Applied Sciences ◽  
University Presses ◽  
The University ◽  
Publication Workflow

A first draft of an media-neutral as well as both cost-effective and personnel-efficient publications workflow for Open Access (OA) monograph publishing at university presses is presented. The workflow has been developed as a result of the research project Open-Access-Hochschulverlag at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, Germany. The aim of the project is to develop a sustainable and adoptable workflow to enable universities to publish their publications as OA and printed books simultaneously in a state-of-the-art way and without any restrictions regarding the license, the variety of formats, print run etc. Up to now, we have defined 20 main processes with up to 12 sub-processes which a university press has to consider when publishing OA books state-of-the-art. These processes have been shown on the poster. The arrangement and the arrows between the processes indicate in which order the processes should be ideally organised by the university presses. Since any university may adapt that workflow individually, it includes several possible ways by which an OA book can be published (see process 1 or 3 at the poster). The visualisation of the publication workflow represents only a part of the results of our research project. In addition detailed descriptions for each process have been created, which explain a certain process in depth, e.g. who is responsible for it, what time it takes and what it may cost to complete the process. These detailed descriptions will be published elsewhere.

scholarly journals OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Rachel Emery
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Collaborative Writing ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
University Libraries ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Scholarly Communications ◽  
The University ◽  
Further Development

The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit is a brand new free resource for researchers, created through a collaborative writing process by global and diverse members of the academic community and scholarly communications organisations.  The toolkit aims to help authors better understand open access (OA) for books, to increase trust in OA book publishing, to provide reliable and easy-to-find answers to questions from authors, and to provide guidance in the process of publishing an OA book. The toolkit was developed in a series of workshops for authors, hosted by the university libraries at Oxford, Glasgow and Utrecht, in collaboration with Springer Nature and OAPEN. The idea for this toolkit came about in a Researcher to Reader workshop where discussions concluded that a trusted single resource was needed to tackle the lack of awareness and understanding amongst authors about OA book publishing, and common misconceptions about licensing and quality which form important barriers in the transition to OA books. This poster describes the content and layout of the toolkit, and the journey in developing it. We want the academic community to get involved by spreading the word about this toolkit and providing feedback for further development.  The OAPEN Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that works with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books through the OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.

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