We received our first three pledges for the ebook-openaccess-transformation-project transcript OPEN Library Political Science 2020! It's good to have
on board! And we are sure that more will follow.
Find out more about the project:
That is an open question. To approach it, we looked into available figures on open-access journals.
Out of the 13,337 journals that are listed in the DOAJ, a broad majority (9,752 journals) do not charge APCs (there is no information according APCs for 53 journals, as of 2019-06-05). However, the largest open-access journals, which partially have a very high reputation, pursue quite often an APC business model, for example, PLOS ONE, Scientific Reports, Nature Communications, RSC Advances, Optics Express and Nucleic Acids Research. These journals publish minimum one thousand articles, reviews and proceedings papers per year. So, what’s right?
As often the answer is: It depends.
After the successful first round of the transcript OPEN Library Political Science (2019), the follow-up project can now be started: The transcript publishing house's entire frontlist Political Science 2020 is now available for open-access transformation in the consortium model (crowdfunding). And once again, the Political Science Information Service (POLLUX) will be there as a supporter, paying 25% of the package costs.
The transcript OPEN Library Political Science in a nutshell
Find out more: https://www.transcript-verlag.de/open-library-politikwissenschaft and at the pages of OA2020-DE: transcript OPEN Library Political Science
In scientific libraries, loan statistics and standardized usage statistics (COUNTER reports) are well-established instruments for the library acquisition management. In the course of the open-access transformation, the collection and usefulness of organization-specific usage reports are called into question (see, e.g. Rösch, Henriette (2019): Open Access als Zumutung für die Erwerbung? Auswirkungen der Open-Access-Transformation auf die Erwerbungs- und Bestandspolitik der Bibliotheken. In: b.i.t.online 22 (3). Online available at https://www.b-i-t-online.de/heft/2019-03-fachbeitrag-roesch.pdf). The Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) considers this issue as an essential requirement in its principles for negotiations with publishers (“Usage Reports Should Include Open Access”); others have a quite different position. We think that it is important to collect and evaluate organization-specific usage statistics for open-access publications. This blog post explains the reasons and aims at contributing to the ongoing discussion.
In its open-access strategy, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - BMBF) aims at fostering the open-access transformation with a set of measures that seek to make open-access standard in the area of scholarly publishing. Along the lines of the „FP7 post-grant Open Access pilot“ 2015–2018 of the European Commission, the BMBF set up a post-grant fund for open-access publications. Researchers can apply for funds to cover charges for open-access publications that resulted from finished BMBF-funded projects. A full funding can be granted for charges up to EUR 2,000 (excl. VAT) for each open-access publication.
On several occasions, the National Contact Point Open Access OA2020-DE was asked whether this BMBF post-grant funding is applicable to articles in journals only or to books as well. We contacted the project management agency, which is responsible for the implementation of the post-grant fund, with this question. They clarified that also open-access books can be funded via the BMBF post-grant fund under the same conditions (e.g. the same maximum amount).
We would like to encourage research and higher education organizations with an open-access advisory service to point BMBF-funded researcher to the possibility of this funding for covering open-access publication charges.
Last month the updated version of the CWTS Journal Indicator of Leiden University appeared. We took this as an opportunity to update our list of frequently cited open-access journals with the new SNIP values and also to update the metadata from the DOAJ. The searchable list now contains around 800 open-access journals from almost all scientific disciplines and helps researchers to select suitable open-access journals from their discipline for submission.
Link to the list: https://oa2020-de.org/en/pages/frequentlycitedoajournals/
In the field of open-access transformation of scientific journals, many different paths have been established. In selecting the appropriate model, not only the publication culture is taken into account, but also the composition of readers, authors and subscribers. In addition to factors such as acceptance of publication costs on the part of the authors (more likely to exist in the natural and health sciences), the overlap between readers and authors as well as the amount and typology of the subscribing institutions also play a role. For example, an Article Processing Charges (APCs)-based model can hardly be implemented in the humanities and social sciences, not least because the resources and acceptance for APCs are not available there. Thus, alternative transformation logics and approaches are needed, which take into account the other factors mentioned.
How can a common understanding between the actors of the scientific publication system and a resulting common path for the implementation of the open-access transformation be developed? Under this central question, an open-access transformation workshop organised by OA2020-DE took place for the third time in Bielefeld on 03 and 04 April 2019 (Agenda). The aim was to provide the participating publishers and libraries with information on various developments and approaches of the open-access transformation as well as ideas on how to implement them in their own library and publishing practice. In addition, the direct exchange between them served to answer the central question.
There are far more open-access business models than the established variants of Article or Book Processing Charges. The Hands-On Lab "New business models and workflows in open access" organised by us at the 7th Library Congress (= 108th Library Day) in Leipzig therefore aimed to present the participants with concepts and ideas for further/other business models in the field of open-access publishing. The common basis is the understanding of scientific publishers, intermediaries, traders and libraries as partners in the publication process.
With the signing of the Wiley contract on 15 January 2019, the alliance project DEAL has achieved key project goals:
We recommend that all eligible institutions (see "What institutions can participate?" in the DEAL Wiley FAQs) sign the sign-up letter and the participation statement by 18 April 2019. The DEAL-Wiley contract marks not only the entry into the large-scale open-access transformation in Germany, it offers above all the scientists of participating institutions clear advantages:
