scholarly journals The ScholarLed Consortium

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Barnes ◽  
Rupert Gatti

ScholarLed, a consortium of five not-for-profit, scholar-led OA book publishers, was founded in 2018 in order to develop powerful, practical ways for small-scale, scholar-led Open Access presses to grow and flourish in a publishing landscape that is changing rapidly. We comprise Mattering Press, meson press, Open Book Publishers, Open Humanities Press, and punctum books: five publishers with different business models and publishing practices, but with a shared commitment to making high-quality research available OA without levying Book Processing Charges (BPCs). We have approached this task with the philosophy of ‘scaling small’; in other words, rather than seeking to grow our reach by any one of us becoming exponentially larger, we want to create systems that allow a large number of diverse, small-scale scholarly publishing initiatives to operate collaboratively, and so to foster a robust, inclusive and community-managed publishing ecosystem in partnership with all actors in the scholarly publishing ecosystem (including scholars, libraries, and funders). Collectively the ScholarLed presses have now published over 500 books, and expect to publish over 80 new titles in the coming year. What would the publishing landscape look like if, rather than 5 presses, we were 25, 50, or 100 in number? Accordingly, in our first year we became key partners in the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project, which we developed along with organisations including Coventry University; Loughborough University Library; University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Library; Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB); Jisc Collections; and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). In June of this year, this project successfully secured funding of £2.2 million from Research England to build the necessary open infrastructure over the next three years to transform open access book publishing, by moving away from a model of competing commercial service operations to a more horizontal and cooperative, knowledge-sharing approach. In this presentation, we will discuss the ‘scaling small’ philosophy that underlies ScholarLed, and how this chimes with growing international movements such as the Invest in Open Infrastructure initiative. We will also explore how this impacts the COPIM project and our firm conviction that, in order for open access publishing initiatives to thrive, we have to develop more robust definitions of ‘open’ that go beyond releasing content from behind paywalls. COPIM will pilot a range of interventions, from developing open, transparent, sustainable, and community-governed infrastructures for the curation, dissemination, discovery, and long-term preservation of open content and open data, to helping publishers transition away from a BPC-based business model, to following the best practices for integrating open content into institutional library, digital learning, and repository systems. COPIM prepares the ground for OA publishing to thrive, increasing its strength and heterogeneity within a robust, inclusive and community-managed publishing ecosystem: Scaling Small. Keywords: scholar-led; community-driven; open access publishing.

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Anderson ◽  
Seth Denbo ◽  
Diane Graves ◽  
Susan Haigh ◽  
Steven Hill ◽  
...  

There is a broad difference of opinion among the many stakeholders in scholarly publishing about how to precisely define open access publishing. Are “open access” and “open data” what we mean by open? Does “open” mean anything else? Does it mean “to make available,” or “to make freely available in a particular format?” Is a clearer definition needed (or maybe just better education on the current definition)? Why or why not? At present, some stakeholders see public access as being an acceptable stopping point in the move toward open access. Others see “open” as requiring free and immediate access with articles being available in CC-BY format. The range of opinions between these extremes is vast. How should these differences be decided? Who should decide? Is it possible to make binding recommendations (and how)? Is consensus necessary? What are the consequences of the lack of consensus?


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Barnes ◽  
Erik Lieungh

Our guest today is Lucy Barnes, Editor and Project Coordinator at Open Book Publishers. She talks about what it is to be a small not-for-profit open access book publisher. Together with other publishers, they have formed ScholarLed with the philosophy of ‘scaling small’; in other words, rather than seeking to grow their reach by any one of them becoming exponentially larger, they want to create systems that allow a large number of diverse, small-scale scholarly publishing initiatives to operate collaboratively. The host of this episode is Erik Lieungh. This episode was first published 9 January 2020.


2021 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anson Parker ◽  
Abbey Heflin ◽  
Lucy Carr Jones

As part of a larger project to understand the publishing choices of UVA Health authors and support open access publishing, a team from the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library analyzed an open data set from Europe PMC, which includes metadata from PubMed records. We used the Europe PMC REST API to search for articles published in 2017–2020 with “University of Virginia” in the author affiliation field. Subsequently, we parsed the JSON metadata in Python and used Streamlit to create a data visualization from our public GitHub repository. At present, this shows the relative proportions of open access versus subscription-only articles published by UVA Health authors. Although subscription services like Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions allow users to do similar analyses, we believe this is a novel approach to doing this type of bibliometric research with open data and open source tools.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
C. Rossel ◽  
L. van Dyck

The movement towards an Open Science is well engaged and irreversible. It includes Open Access publishing, Open Data and Open Collaborations with several new orientations, among which citizen science. Indeed, in the digital era, the way research is performed, its output shared and published is changing significantly, as are the expectations of policy makers and society at large.


First Monday ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Borrero ◽  
Mila Ramos ◽  
Anna Arsenal ◽  
Katherine Lopez ◽  
Gene Hettel

Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, generate a large volume of research results emanating from donor-funded projects. The main objective is to disseminate, as widely as possible, the results of IRRI's research. There is also a strong push to provide free open access to these information resources through modes convenient to researchers in both developing and developed countries. Certain instruments for open access (OA) are already in place at IRRI, including links to full-text publications posted on the Institute's Web site (http://www.irri.org/), especially via the Library branch site (http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org/), the Rice Knowledge Bank (http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/), and Rice Publications Archive (http://rice-publications.irri.org/). The joint initiatives of the Library and the Institute's main science publishing units, particularly Communication and Publications Services and the Training Center, typify a convergence of practices to overcome hurdles to OA implementation. This paper explores how the links in IRRI's scholarly publishing chain, bridging information management and publishing, can effectively deliver public goods (knowledge about rice, in this case) to the intended primary users -- researchers and extensionists in the national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) in developing countries. It also discusses publishing models for delivering public goods generated by an international research organization. To meet its mission, IRRI must employ various demand-supply models to disseminate information. Open access publishing is one model to adopt but first, the onus is on the Institute to overcome issues such as intellectual property rights, funding, and connectivity. IRRI's donors, NARES partners, governments, and rice farmers and consumers expect it to create and share information for the common good, and it strives to convert its resources into electronic format for delivery over the Internet. However, not all its stakeholders are connected. To create impact, IRRI must deliver information through whatever appropriate form, be it cutting-edge digital versions or traditional hard-copy books. This paper discusses this dilemma and hopes to encourage further research and thought on open access publishing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Hauschke ◽  
Daniel Nüst ◽  
Anette Cordts ◽  
Svantje Lilienthal

The BMBF project OPTIMETA aims to strengthen the Open Access publishing system by connecting open citations and spatiotemporal metadata from open access journals with openly accessible data sources. For this purpose, we will extend Open Journal Systems (OJS) to give it functionalities for collecting and distributing open data by developing two OJS plugins for capturing citation networks and articles' spatial and temporal properties as machine-readable and accessible metadata. We will ensure the target group-orientated design of the plugins by performing a comprehensive needs analysis for key stakeholders: the editors or operators of OA journals and the researchers, as authors and readers of articles. The developments will be designed and tested in cooperation with several independent journals and OA publishers. Overall, OPTIMETA supports the attraction of independent OA journals as publication venues by substantially improving the discoverability and visibility of OA publications through enrichment and interlinking of article metadata.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Williams

Objectives: This small-scale study explores the current state of connections between open data and open access (OA) articles in the life sciences. Methods: This study involved 44 openly available life sciences datasets from the Illinois Data Bank that had 45 related research articles. For each article, I gathered the OA status of the journal and the article on the publisher website and checked whether the article was openly available via Unpaywall and Research Gate. I also examined how and where the open data was included in the HTML and PDF versions of the related articles. Results: Of the 45 articles studied, less than half were published in Gold/Full OA journals, and while the remaining articles were published in Gold/Hybrid journals, none of them were OA. This study found that OA articles pointed to the Illinois Data Bank datasets similarly to all of the related articles, most commonly with a data availability statement containing a DOI. Conclusions: The findings indicate that Gold OA in hybrid journals does not appear to be a popular option, even for articles connected to open data, and this study emphasizes the importance of data repositories providing DOIs, since the related articles frequently used DOIs to point to the Illinois Data Bank datasets. This study also revealed concerns about free (not licensed OA) access to articles on publisher websites, which will be a significant topic for future research.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara I. Dewey

Building on the 2019 ACRL/SPARC Forum on Collective Reinvestment in Open Infrastructure, this program will explore how libraries can make different commitments to fund content created by open infrastructures. Library collections increasingly promote and reflect such open content and many have chosen to contribute to funding those products. There is not one formula or roadmap to underwrite the publishing and distribution costs of these open resources. There are many variables and considerations as some open content corresponds to serials and others are books or monographs. Open access content is increasingly found in nearly all subject areas, as scholarly publishing models have evolved. Open access does not come without a price to create, maintain and preserve the outputs. Libraries are reconsidering whether they want to commit so much to purchase materials or subscription-based products, when it is unclear what the anticipated use of any materials will be over time. Planning and opportunities for new and more flexible decisions concerning adjustments to and expenditures of the materials budget are under exploration by libraries. There are many options to invest in creating more content to be released as open access. Such options include contributing financially from the Library collections or materials budget to subsidizing or covering APCs, engaging in a more “library as publisher” model hosting journals, publishing books, creating OERs, and offsetting other expenses that ultimately drive a more intensive open infrastructure. Library leaders and partners will share their ideas about trying different approaches to contribute to more open publishing initiatives and explore whether efforts in deploying current book and serial costs to offset opportunities to build a wider and more open infrastructure is on the horizon. This analysis should incorporate the costs of analytical tools necessary to the use of such content in today’s research. Questions will be solicited ahead of time to reflect audience’s interest in such a rethinking of the library collections budget. Please email Julia Gelfand at with your questions.


Author(s):  
Tetiana Yaroshenko

Open Access to scientific information, transparency of research processes and data is one of the most important conditions for the progress of science and scientific communication, the basis of international collaboration of researchers globally. The COVID-19 global pandemic has once again highlighted the need for open, efficient and equal access to scientific information for researchers, regardless of geographical, gender or any other constraints, promoting the exchange of scientific knowledge and data, scientific cooperation and scientific decision-making, knowledge and open data. The Internet has radically changed scientific communication, particularly on the model of peer-reviewed scientific journals and the way readers find and access the scientific information. Digital access is now the norm, thanks to the Open Access model. Although 20 years have passed since the announcement of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and despite many achievements and advantages, there are still obstacles to the implementation of this model, there is some resistance from commercial publishers and other providers, and discussions continue in the academia world. The Open Access model is already supported by various strategies, policies, platforms, applications but is not yet established. Various business models for scientific journals are still being tested, a culture of preprints is being formed, and discussions are underway on the ethics of scientific publications, intellectual property, the need to finance the dissemination of research results, and so on. Various platforms and applications are being developed to help researchers “discover” research results. Nevertheless, this is not enough: it is important to “discover” not only the results but also the research data, allowing them be used for further research in the global world. Thus, the concepts and practices of Open Science, Open Data, development of research infrastructures, etc., are developing quite rapidly. The article considers the main stages of this 20-year path and outlines the main components and trends of the current stage. Emphasis is placed on the need to form a culture of Open Science and create incentives for its implementation, promoting innovative methods of Open Science at different stages of the scientific process, the needs of European integration of Ukrainian e-infrastructure development, the need for socio-cultural and technological change. The main international and domestic practices and projects in Open Access and Open Science, particularly the National Repository of Academic Texts and the National Plan of Open Science draft, are considered. The role of libraries and librarians in implementing the principles of Open Access and Open Science is emphasized.


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