Contribute to the PALOMERA Survey on Open Access Book Policies – LIBER Europe

“The PALOMERA Project (Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area) focuses on ensuring that academic books and monographs are not neglected in Open Science and Open Access (OA) policies. The project is conducting a survey on the needs, obstacles and challenges of policy-making for open access books. LIBER, as partners in the project, encourage library stakeholders and the wider research community to take part in the survey to help provide actionable recommendations for the development of open access book policies on the European, national and institutional level….”

TAKE 5 With PALOMERA partners: OAPEN

The “Take 5 with PALOMERA partners” is a blog series featuring the members of the PALOMERA project, you can get to know them in 5 questions and a quick read! 

The PALOMERA project is dedicated to understand why so few open access funder policies include books, and to provide actionable recommendations to change this situation. PALOMERA is funded for two years under the Horizon Europe: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System .

For the debut of the series, we talked to Niels Stern, from the OAPEN Foundation.

Banner for the series "Take 5 with PALOMERA partners". A green background with the logo for the series, the name of the partner and a visual graphic from the project. In the footer, the PALOMERA project logo and the EU funding logo.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself as an organisation and your role in it? 

I represent the OAPEN Foundation, which is a not-for-profit organisation providing open infrastructure services for scholarly books. Together with OpenEdition we also operate the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), which is an index of over 70,000 peer-reviewed open access books. Whereas DOAB is an index, OAPEN hosts the books (full-text) on our open source DSpace platform.

It all began as a project among a handful of university presses 15 years ago. Today there are more than 30,000 books from several hundred publishers in the OAPEN Library.

Recently we had this article published about the evolution of OAPEN. I think it’s a fascinating story that I’m fortunate to be part of, firstly as a project partner back in 2007 and for the past couple of years as its director. As the momentum for open access (OA) books is growing, I see OAPEN as a longstanding, very much used and fully open infrastructure centrally positioned in a fast-evolving landscape. This spring we published our POSI self-audit (Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure) to share how we work and how we strive to comply with these important principles. Being transparent about our operations, finances, and governance is important to us and to our main stakeholders, the libraries. We are very pleased that thousands of libraries integrate the OAPEN Library and DOAB in their discovery systems and that over two hundred of those also support us financially through our library support programme. We are greatly thankful for that. Without this support, we could not operate. Four years ago, we were selected by SCOSS which helped our library support campaigning efforts immensely. 

Niels Stern, OAPEN Director.

2. Why do you think the PALOMERA project is relevant and timely?

With a few exceptions, books have been left on the side of OA policymaking for many years. This is unfortunate because policies are important drivers of change. As mentioned, we now see a momentum for OA books and a lot of interest. However, we don’t have a proper overview of the landscape. PALOMERA will help us to develop that, at least in part, by investigating the European Research Area. Furthermore, the project will analyse all the data that we are busy gathering which can give us a better understanding of challenges and bottlenecks preventing policies from emerging.

Such understanding will enable us to better help funders and institutions who want to implement new or improve existing OA policies for books.

The project has also given us the opportunity to convene research funders and policymakers in what we have called a Funder Forum focussed on OA books. Our first meeting in that forum saw representation from over 20 countries, which I think shows the increasing level of interest. We look forward to our next meeting on 20 November – maybe more will join.

Two years ago I was co-organising an OA Books Network event called ‘Voices from the OA books community’ which saw a lot of engagement from actors across the board of scholarly communication. Around 450 people participated in the five events that were held. In PALOMERA we want to build on that engagement. We have therefore just issued a survey (https://bit.ly/3QODjA0), we are performing interviews, and importantly we have planned what we call validation exercise events. Those are inclusive events with the purpose of getting feedback on our work from anyone who’s interested in open access books. It is essential that our scope remains broad because funder policies and institutional strategies for open access books affect all who are engaged in scholarly book publishing.

3. What is your role within the project?

I am the scientific coordinator of the project. So, I drafted the first pages of the application, coordinated the application process and chair our Executive Committee/WPL meetings. However, this is of course a collective effort of highly skilled and very friendly people from 16 different organisations across Europe plus an excellent international advisory board. I guess the central role was given to OAPEN because we have years of experience working closely with research funders, including DFG, FWF, SNSF, NWO, ERC and Wellcome. Using the OAPEN infrastructure we can provide these funders with a number of services that they ask for. I also hope PALOMERA will give us a better understanding of how we should develop these services and see more funders making use of them.

4. In your opinion, what is the biggest impact PALOMERA will have within the scholarly communication sphere?

I hope our study of policies and related documents in 39 countries that we are investigating, and the community validation thereof will give us an increased and generally accepted understanding of the landscape. The analysis of our vast data collection will help us structure all this data and get a fuller picture of the challenges in OA book policy making. Currently the picture is a bit scattered; we need this overview. The data and the analyses will be stored in our knowledge base and made publicly available for everyone to make use of. Once we get towards the end of the project, we will issue recommendations that should be helpful to funders and institutions – whether they have policies in place or not.

All in all, I think the impact of the project will be an increased focus on open access to books in scholarly communication, raising the general level of knowledge in the area, and providing insights that can be used as points of reference in future conversations and studies.

The knowledge base will be maintained by OAPEN after the project ends as part of the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit. We also plan to continue the Funders Forum in some form after the end of the project. So, it is my hope and our ambition that the impact will be enduring.

5. How do you see things evolving after the project finishes? 

As mentioned above, we plan to sustain the main project results like the knowledge base (containing the data, analysis, and recommendations) and the Funder Forum. These will all be essential components of something like a future capacity centre or an information hub for OA books. We draw inspiration from the ongoing EC-funded project DIAMAS which aims to create a federated capacity centre for Diamond OA journals. What a future capacity centre for OA books should look like, I am not really sure about at this moment. I think that would require another project to figure out. But I am excited about the idea, and I think PALOMERA is the perfect stepping-stone to get us there.


To get to know more about the PALOMERA project: visit the project’s page. 

This series is produced by the Work Package 5 team from the PALOMERA project. Stay tuned for the next posts coming soon! 

PALOMERA Survey on Open Access Book Policies

Purpose of study

Academic books continue to play an important role in scholarly production, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. Nevertheless, academic books have not been a focal point for open access policy-makers so far. PALOMERA is an EU-funded project that addresses this challenge.

More information: https://operas-eu.org/projects/palomera/

This survey is a contribution to an extensive collection of data on the needs, obstacles and challenges of policy-making for open access books. Based on the evidence given by the survey results, PALOMERA will provide actionable recommendations for the development of open access book policies on the European, national and institutional level. By taking part in this survey, you are making a contribution to the research needed to speed up the transformation of the book market to open access.

 

Research team

This survey on open access book policies is carried out by Bielefeld University Library, Germany (Project manager: Jan-Philip Tummes). Cooperation partner for this survey is Göttingen University Library, Germany (Project managers: Hanna Varachkina and Malte Dreyer). The project is funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement number 101094270: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101094270).

 

Study procedure – What exactly awaits you in this study?

This survey includes 35 questions within five content sections and takes approximately 15-20 minutes to fill out. You are asked to answer questions within the following survey sections:

General questions
Questions about the existence and the awareness of policies
Questions about stakeholders who are involved in policy-making
Questions about attitudes towards policy-design
Questions about attitudes towards measures to promote open access books
Questions about policy measures

This survey is anonymous, unless you voluntarily enter personal data. Due to the selected query categories/answer options, the data cannot be assigned to a specific person at any time. Further, the underlying survey software only utilises cookies which are strictly necessary for its functioning.

Until the end of this survey, you have the option to object to the storage of your survey data by cancelling the study. You can do this simply by closing the web browser window. Your data will then be deleted. After finally submitting the survey, targeted data deletion is no longer possible, as we store your data in anonymised form.

[…]

 

Webinar recording: “Creating Community-Driven Pathways to Equitable Open Scholarly Publishing” | DIAMAS @ YouTube

Three projects. Over 40 partners. One goal: Community-led Open Scholarly Publishing. EU projects CRAFT-OA, DIAMAS, and PALOMERA are working for an equitable future for scholarly communication, with academic communities at the centre. In the webinar, participants were introduced to each project and their individual aims. Following this, discussion focused on how, despite their separate focus areas, their efforts work towards a broad and common vision for a more open and equitable scholarly publishing ecosystem. CRAFT-OA empowers regional journal platforms and publishing service providers to upscale, professionalise, and reach stronger interoperability with other scientific information systems, by providing services and tools. The DIAMAS project is developing common standards, guidelines and practices to build capacity for the Diamond publishing sector. Formulating recommendations of this kind aims to create a more sustainable future for OA Diamond Publishing in Europe. PALOMERA has set out to provide actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for Open Access books. Doing so involves assessing challenges and bottlenecks that currently slow the widespread implementation of OA book policy.

Slides available on Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/record/8070435

The growing world of open access books | OPERAS Innovation Lab

Authors: Marta B?aszczy?ska, Graham Stone
Reviewers: Jadranka Stojanovski, Ronald Snijder

 

Welcome on board, scholarly innovation aficionados!

2023 is a very important year for open access books due to the high number and variety of developments supporting them. So, it felt like a great area to focus on with our first blog post from the series Innovation Lab’s Observatory. 

While the Lab aims to bring fresh news about novel approaches to different spheres of scholarly communication, we also wish to summarise and present highlights of important initiatives and projects that support innovation. 

Today’s topic is open access books, using this opportunity to introduce activities of the OPERAS Special Interest Groups (OA Business Models, Open Access Books Network) and projects (OPERAS-P, COPIM, Open Book Futures, PALOMERA) related to book publishing and the recently published ‘Collaborative models for OA book publishers’ white paper by the OPERAS Open Access Business Models Special Interest Group.

[…]

 

Laakso (2023) Open access books through open data sources: assessing prevalence, providers, and preservation | Emerald Insight

Laakso, M. (2023), “Open access books through open data sources: assessing prevalence, providers, and preservation”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2023-0016

Purpose

Science policy and practice for open access (OA) books is a rapidly evolving area in the scholarly domain. However, there is much that remains unknown, including how many OA books there are and to what degree they are included in preservation coverage. The purpose of this study is to contribute towards filling this knowledge gap in order to advance both research and practice in the domain of OA books.

Design/methodology/approach

This study utilized open bibliometric data sources to aggregate a harmonized dataset of metadata records for OA books (data sources: the Directory of Open Access Books, OpenAIRE, OpenAlex, Scielo Books, The Lens, and WorldCat). This dataset was then cross-matched based on unique identifiers and book titles to openly available content listings of trusted preservation services (data sources: Cariniana Network, CLOCKSS, Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico). The web domains of the OA books were determined by querying the web addresses or digital object identifiers provided in the metadata of the bibliometric database entries.

Findings

In total, 396,995 unique records were identified from the OA book bibliometric sources, of which 19% were found to be included in at least one of the preservation services. The results suggest reason for concern for the long tail of OA books distributed at thousands of different web domains as these include volatile cloud storage or sometimes no longer contained the files at all.

Research limitations/implications

Data quality issues, varying definitions of OA across services and inconsistent implementation of unique identifiers were discovered as key challenges. The study includes recommendations for publishers, libraries, data providers and preservation services for improving monitoring and practices for OA book preservation.

Originality/value

This study provides methodological and empirical findings for advancing the practices of OA book publishing, preservation and research.

 

PALOMERA: the case for open access academic books – Research

“In January 2024, a new open access policy from UKRI for monographs, book chapters and edited collections comes into force. Jisc is supporting the implementation of this policy, and we feel that participation in the PALOMERA project will be of mutual benefit to Jisc and its members as we start to build up knowledge of the open access (OA) books policy landscape across the European Research Area (ERA). We hope that our experience of implementing an OA books strategy in the UK will be of use to our colleagues in Europe.

PALOMERA stands for Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area. The project has been funded for two years (2023-24) under the Horizon Europe: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System with the aim of understanding why so few OA funder policies include books, and how this can be changed. It will:

Collect and analyse a wide variety of data source related to open access book publishing and funder policies across geographies, languages, economies, and disciplines within the ERA, creating a Knowledge Base that will structure and make available knowledge to explain the challenges and bottlenecks that hold back open access to academic books
Create a forum for funders to focus specifically on OA books and related issues
Produce actionable recommendations and resources to support funder and institutional policies for OA books, with the overall objective of speeding up the transition to open access for books to further promote open science
Address all relevant stakeholders (research funders and institutions, researchers, publishers, infrastructure providers, libraries, and national policymakers), facilitating co-creation and validation events throughout the project to ensure that the views and voices of all relevant stakeholders are represented…”

CRAFT-OA/DIAMAS/Palomera Webinar, June 20, 2023 | CRAFT-OA

On June 20, 2023, CRAFT-OA will take part in a webinar in collaboration with two other HORIZON Europe-funded projects: DIAMAS and PALOMERA.

June 20, 2023 | 1 p.m CEST

The three projects work towards an equitable future for scholarly communication, with academic communities at the centre. The webinar will present this vision and introduce each project’s area of focus. The discussion will demonstrate the projects’ common goal for open and equitable scholarly publishing.

While CRAFT-OA looks at the IT systems behind journal platforms to help them upscale, professionalise, and reach stronger interoperability, DIAMAS and PALOMERA have different aims. The former focuses on developing common standards, guidelines and practices for the Diamond publishing sector. The latter, PALOMERA, is developing actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for Open Access books.

In the session, DIAMAS will be placed in a broader context, displaying how we collaborate with other actors in the Open Access space and plan for long-term impact in the advancement of community-led publishing.

Participants will have the chance to engage with the three projects and their vision for community-driven open scholarly publishing.

Register for this webinar to be part of this conversation and help us shape the future of Open Access as a community!

REGISTER HERE!

For additional details and registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqf-morT4jGNa5L7IaZv5TOLGu4Z1Czi4

 

WEBINAR: DIAMAS with CRAFT-OA and PALOMERA – DIAMAS

“The three projects work towards an equitable future for scholarly communication, with academic communities at the centre. The webinar will present this vision and introduce each project’s area of focus. The discussion will demonstrate the projects’ common goal for open and equitable scholarly publishing.

While DIAMAS focuses on developing common standards, guidelines and practices for the Diamond publishing sector, CRAFT-OA and PALOMERA have different aims. The former looks at the IT systems behind journal platforms to help them upscale, professionalise, and reach stronger interoperability. The latter, PALOMERA, is developing actionable recommendations and concrete resources to support and coordinate aligned funder and institutional policies for Open Access books.

In the session, DIAMAS will be placed in a broader context, displaying how we collaborate with other actors in the Open Access space and plan for long-term impact in the advancement of community-led publishing.

Participants will have the chance to engage with the three projects and their vision for community-driven open scholarly publishing.”

OPERAS on Twitter: “#PALOMERA project: Publishers & Librarians, share your thoughts on #OpenAccess book funder policies.”

Organised by the Open Access Books Network, the PALOMERA series next 2 online events call all publishers and libraries to share their concerns and challenges with OA book funder policies. Sign up for the event that works best for you:

Tuesday 16 May, 3pm BST / 4pm CEST / 10am EDT: a 90-minute PALOMERA Series engagement session with Publishers. Sign up here https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsdeuurj4oHtGSlWk-YCxcq9go37C84LQ4#/registration

Wednesday 17 May, 3pm BST / 4pm CEST / 10am EDT: a 90-minute PALOMERA Series engagement session with Librarians. Sign up here https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctceyhrDgtGNd3yn-IkLsiQp9YO8Q8gkrl#/registration

Job: Project manager | OPERAS

Job Summary

The Project Manager works closely with the Secretary General for the daily implementation and management of the OPERAS’ projects portfolio. The Project Manager will be primarily in charge of OPERAS’ coordinated projects and, on demand, support the coordination of OPERAS’ contribution to participated projects. The main tasks and responsibilities are centred around the day-to-day administration of the consortium, the monitoring of the resources, the development and implementation of the quality and risk management plans and consist of:

Leading preparation of the contractual documentation: grant agreement and consortium agreement;
Supporting the technical or scientific coordinator and the project boards (General Assembly, Project management boards), organising the meetings and writing minutes;
Implementing the consortium progress monitoring;
Coordinating, supervising and submitting the EU periodic reports (financial and technical);
Managing the project budget, distribution of the prefinancing, redistribution of budget in case of amendment;
Set up the necessary procedure for quality and risk management (only for coordinated projects);
Organising the EC review(s) in liaison with the project boards members;
Representing OPERAS vis à vis the EU project officer.

The Project Manager will also contribute to developing the project proposals and set up the Grant Agreement to launch project proposals granted. The Project Manager will be responsible for maintaining and evolving the project management processes as part of the Integrated Management System.

 

OPERAS on Twitter: “Engage with PALOMERA on the 28th of March during a panel discussion organised by @oabooksnetwork! Info: https://t.co/wXOc5dJsdQ.”

Join this panel discussion with Q&A to find out more about the recently launched PALOMERA project funded by Horizon Europe as part of their call: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System. The project seeks to understand why so few open access funder policies include books, and to provide actionable recommendations to change this. 

Engage with PALOMERA via the OABN! Launch event March 28, 2023, 4pm (CEST) | Open Access Books Network

The Open Access Books Network (OABN) is working with the PALOMERA project, a two-year initiative funded by HORIZON Europe that seeks to investigate why so few Open Access (OA) funder policies include OA books, and to provide actionable recommendations to change this.

We will be hosting a PALOMERA Series of events that will provide a forum for anyone interested in open access book publishing to:

engage with PALOMERA via the OABN, 
contribute your knowledge and expertise as the project progresses, 
offer feedback to help shape PALOMERA’s outputs and recommendations. 

We want to gather a broad group of representatives from different stakeholders in open access book publishing, as we did for our Voices from the OA Book Community workshop series in 2021, and enable you to contribute to the PALOMERA project via the PALOMERA Series.

Launch event

We will host a launch event on Tuesday 28 March at 3pm BST / 4pm CEST where you will hear from some of the project’s leaders, including Niels Stern (OAPEN/DOAB) and Ursula Rabar (OPERAS/OAeBU). You will have the opportunity to ask questions about the project and to let us know the best ways for you to engage with PALOMERA. The event will also be recorded.

Sign up for the launch event: it’s free and everyone is welcome! 

Please also share the link with anyone who might be interested.