Category Archives: oa.open_book_futures

Job: Metadata & Publisher Outreach Specialist @ Thoth Open Metadata. Applications invited by Aug 27, 2023 | Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM)

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Under the remit of the recently-launched Open Book Futures project funded by Research England and Arcadia, we are working to accelerate Thoth’s outreach to publishers.

To help us with facilitating this, we are looking for a motivated Metadata and Outreach Specialist.

In this exciting role, you will act as the main publisher-facing point of contact at Thoth for all metadata-related questions, and work with publishers to ensure careful creation and management of associated book metadata in Thoth.

Doing so, you will support the existing publishers working with the Thoth Open Metadata management and distribution platform and service with regard to e.g. the formatting of book and chapter metadata, backlist ingest, and metadata validation and enhancement, while also supporting the Thoth team with reaching out to prospective publishers interested in using Thoth.

This is a fully remote / working-from-home position, with an understanding that the role holder will be available for five hours per day between 9am and 5pm (UK time) to attend team meetings etc.

Responsibilities

Onboarding: support publishers in getting set up in the Thoth backend; run checks of pre-existing metadata sets that are to be ingested

Metadata management & Dissemination:

Work with publishers to create and manage enriched book- and chapter-level metadata

Interact with publishers to check for missing data, support them with regard to publishing workflows and processes

Interact with dissemination platforms to submit publisher data & content

Outreach: Reach out to prospective publishers & platform dissemination channels

Additional: Work with the development team to improve Thoth User Interface and workflows

Key details

Salary: Between £30,000 and £40,000 per annum, negotiable depending on experience.

Contract: Full-time, 1.0 FTE, fixed-term

Start date: Oct 01, 2023 / as soon as possible

End date: April 30, 2026.

Location: Fully remote, work from home. Flexibility as to country of residence.

Application process: rolling, end of play Aug 27, 2023.

 

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Job: Project Manager: Open Access Publishing @ Open Book Futures. End-of-play 21 July 2023 | Jobs at Lancaster University

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Salary:   £37,386 to £43,155 pro rata
Closing Date:   Friday 21 July 2023
Interview Date:   To be confirmed
Reference:  0296-23-R

Employment type: Fixed Term

Duration: 32 months (starting on September 1st)

Hours: Part time (0.64 FTE)

Location: Lancaster University, UK 

This is a 32-month, part-time appointment, to support a major new international, multi-institutional project led by Lancaster University and focused on developing infrastructures and practices to underpin the expansion of Open Access (OA) academic publishing. The project builds on the pioneering work of the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project. COPIM is nearing its conclusion and has involved launching initiatives such as the Open Book Collective, Thoth, and the Opening the Future revenue model. 

We are looking to appoint a Project Manager to the new project. You will be jointly appointed to the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology and the Department of Sociology, and will also collaborate with colleagues in Lancaster University Library. You will be working closely with the project Principal Investigator Dr Joe Deville, as well as the wider project team. This team comprises colleagues working in UK Universities, as well as non-academic partners including Open Access book publishers, infrastructure providers, and advocacy groups. Many partners are based outside the UK, including in the European Union, South Africa, and the USA. 

The Project Manager, in dialogue with the Principal Investigator, will lead the delivery of the project, including ensuring that the project remains on track throughout, that project milestones and deliverables are met, as well as liaising with and reporting to funders. 

You will possess a relevant degree level qualification, excellent project management skills and have experience of responsible administrative or managerial roles in a complex organisation, such as a university. You will have excellent communication, negotiation and persuasion skills with an ability to engage with staff across a range of contexts. You will also have proven financial and budget management skills and excellent writing skills. Ideally, you will also have an interest in Open Access publishing and/or scholarly libraries, as well as experience in disseminating news and/or project outputs to wider audiences, especially via Twitter.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups and can support family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis.

You will be able to work some of your time remotely, with the exact proportion of remote working to be determined in discussion with the line manager and in accordance with University guidelines. There are also opportunties for family friendly, flexible working arrangements.  

Please upload a cover letter with your application.

This varied and challenging role offers wide scope for personal and professional development. Informal enquires may be directed to Dr Joe Deville at j.deville@lancaster.ac.uk

Creating resilient publishing infrastructures | PubPub Community Spotlight

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Adema, J., Deville, J., Steiner, T., & Gulliford (Kearns), S. (2023). Creating resilient publishing infrastructures. PubPub Help. Retrieved from https://help.pubpub.org/pub/n5lqcqb4

In this Spotlight interview, we chat with a few of the folks at COPIM — Janneke Adema, Joe Deville, and Tobias Steiner — about the many work packages and projects that have come out of their organization. This includes, but is not limited to, the Open Book Collective, Experimental Publishing Compendium, Thoth, and their latest project Open Book Futures. Given all these ideas and projects, we talk about what it means to adapt as an organization with shifting funding all the while “scaling small.”

 

Birkbeck plays leading role in project set to increase access of valuable research to the general public — Birkbeck, University of London

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“Open Book Futures (OBF) is a new project working to increase access to valuable research through developing and supporting organisations, tools and practices that will enable both academics and the wider public to make more and better use of books published on an Open Access basis. In particular, the project aims to achieve a step change in how community-owned Open Access book publishing is delivered. 

Funded by Arcadia and the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the project marks a shift in the ambition, scope and impact of community-owned Open Access book publishing. It will significantly increase and improve the quantity, discoverability, preservation and accessibility of academic content freely and easily available to all.  

This will be done by building the infrastructures, business models, networks and resources that are needed to deliver a future for Open Access books, led not by large commercial operations but by communities of scholars, small-to-medium-sized publishers, not-for-profit infrastructure providers, and scholarly libraries.  

This includes expanding the work of the recently launched Open Book Collective, which makes it easier for academic libraries to provide direct financial support to Open Access publishing initiatives, as well as the Thoth metadata management platform; the Opening the Future revenue model, piloted with Central European University Press and Liverpool University Press; and the forthcoming Experimental Publishing Compendium….”