UNIVERSITY BASED OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING: State of Play

[From the Executive Summary]  “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 …”

Launching new Lund University Press | EurekAlert! Science News

“Working with Manchester University Press, the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology at Lund University are launching a new publishing operation called Lund University Press. Its aim is to channel excellent Lund research straight into the international scholarly conversation. The goal is to bring the best of Lund research to global audiences. Initially, operations comprise the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology (HT) only; but the HT Faculties would be glad to see other Faculties joining the enterprise. Lund UP books are published in English only, starting in 2017. Appearing simultaneously in print and Open Access, they will achieve maximum dissemination and exposure. Some of our books will be written directly in English for an international readership, says Marianne Thormählen, professor and initiator of Lund UP, but others will be translations into English of first-class research in Swedish on Scandinavian topics. With the English language as the medium and our strong partner’s resources as instruments, Lund UP will make the voice of Sweden more audible in the global research community. An Editorial Committee with representatives from a number of different disciplines determines the selection of books following a stringent and independent peer-reviewing process. Our partner Manchester University Press is in charge of production, marketing and sales. Manchester UP is a pioneer when it comes to Open Access publishing of high-class academic books in Britain, and they could see a Scandinavian ally, small but dedicated, in the new Lund press.”

UCL Press: the UK’s ‘first fully open access’ university press

“The purpose of this article is to set in context the launch of University College London Press (UCL Press), which describes itself as the UK’s first fully open access (OA) university press. The drivers for this launch are bound up with the global movement towards open access and open science – developments in which UCL is acknowledged as a European leader. The first part of the article looks at these movements and relates them to the relaunch in May 2015 of the UCL Press imprint as an OA imprint. This analysis has been undertaken by Dr Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services and Chief Executive of UCL Press.  The second half of the article is a personal account by Lara Speicher, Publishing Manager at UCL Press, of the relaunch of the Press. This section looks at staffing structures, business models, technical infrastructures, publishing programmes and content.  In the final part of the article, Paul Ayris draws some conclusions from the history of the relaunch of UCL Press and sets these in the context of the global open science discussion …”

International Association of STM Publishers

“Research is inherently collaborative with the sharing of information and expertise essential to advance our collective understanding and knowledge. STM would like to make sharing simple and seamless for academic researchers, enhancing scholarly collaboration, while being consistent with access and usage rights associated with journal articles.

To gain a better understanding of the current landscape of article sharing through scholarly collaboration networks and sites, STM is undertaking an open consultation across the scholarly community. The aims of this consultation are to facilitate discussion by all stakeholders, to establish a core set of principles that maximize this experience for all. Our goal is that publishers and scholarly collaboration networks work together to facilitate sharing which benefits researchers, institutions, and society as a whole.

To initiate the consultation, STM has drafted a set of ‘Voluntary principles for article sharing on scholarly collaboration networks’.  Stakeholders are invited to provide feedback and share their views. Suggested questions for submissions are outlined in the section below. Organisations and individuals are also invited to formally express support for these principles.

We envision that this is the first step in an ongoing collaborative process, and invite a wider representation of the scholarly community to help identify and action future steps …”

Open access in South Africa: A case study and reflections

Use the link to access the full text article published in the South African Journal of Science, “In this paper, we locate open access in the South African higher education research context where it is, distinctively, not shaped by the policy frameworks that are profoundly changing research dissemination behaviour in other parts of the world. We define open access and account for its rise by two quite different routes. We then present a case study of journal publishing at one South African university to identify existing journal publishing practices in terms of open access. This case provides the springboard for considering the implications – both positive and negative – of global open access trends for South African – and other – research and researchers. We argue that academics’ engagement with open access and scholarly 

communication debates is in their interests as global networked researchers whose virtual identities and 
online scholarship are now a critical aspect of their professional engagement.”