scholarly journals The price of gold: The KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demmy Verbeke ◽  
Laura Mesotten

Watch the VIDEO.We need to ask ourselves why we support Open Access: is our main goal to provide free and unrestricted access to the results of scholarly research to everyone who might be interested, or is it to change the current model for scholarly communication because we consider it inefficient as well as too expensive? If our main goal is to open up research results as much as possible, there seems to be little reason to part ways with legacy publishers, who should – after initial resistance – prove to be willing partners as long as academic institutions are equally willing to pay. If, on the other hand, the intention is to introduce a new model for scholarly communication that operates according to cost-effective standards, then it seems very unlikely for academic institutions to achieve this together with the same partners, who have worked according to a commercial logic for decades. In short: do we want evolution or revolution?If we want a revolution, then it will not be brought by Green OA, which provides too little challenge for the traditional model for the publication and distribution of scholarly work. It will also not be brought by for-profit Gold OA, which is extremely expensive (even more so than the traditional model) and keeps commercial partners in control of the dissemination of research results. Therefore, an alternative model for no-profit Gold OA is on the rise, namely Fair Open Access. Publications in Fair Open Access are immediately freely available to all, are produced according to cost-effective (rather than commercial) principles and guarantee full control of researchers over the entire publication process.KU Leuven has been supporting Green OA through its institutional repository Lirias for many years already. As it is clear, however, that Green OA provides some but certainly not all of the solutions, the university was looking to intensify its efforts to maximize scholarly exchange, collaboration and innovation. This resulted in the establishment of the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access in March 2018. This fund provides financial support for the production costs of OA monographs published by Leuven University Press as well as articles in selected OA journals, on the condition that these journals are published according to the Fair OA model and maintain the highest academic standards.This paper analyses current business models for OA, explains the reasoning behind the establishment of the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access, discusses its day-to-day operation and presents its initial results.

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Nascimento Souto

New and alternative scientific publishing business models is a reality driven mostly by the information and communication technologies, by the movements towards the recovery of control of the scientific communication activities by the academic community, and by the open access approaches. The hybrid business model, mixing open and toll-access is a reality and they will probably co-exist with respective trade-offs. This essay discusses the changes driven by the epublishing and the impacts on the scholarly communication system stakeholders' interrelationships (publishers-researchers, publishers-libraries and publishers-users interrelationships), and the changes on the scientific publishing business models, followed by a discussion of possible evolving business models. Whatever the model which evolves and dominates, a huge cultural change in authors' and institutions publishing practices will be necessary in order to make the open access happen and to consolidate the right business models for the traditional publishers. External changes such as policies, rewarding systems and institutions mandates should also happen in order to sustain the whole changing scenario.


2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 654-667
Author(s):  
Nathan Hall ◽  
Sara Arnold-Garza ◽  
Regina Gong ◽  
Yasmeen Shorish

This investigation explores scholarly communication business models in American Library Association (ALA) division peer-reviewed academic journals. Previous studies reveal the numerous issues organizations and publishers face in the academic publishing environment. Through an analysis of documented procedures, policies, and finances of five ALA division journals, we compare business and access models. We conclude that some ALA divisions prioritize the costs associated with changing business models, including hard-to-estimate costs such as the labor of volunteers. For other divisions, the financial aspects are less important than maintaining core values, such as those defined in ALA’s Core Values in Librarianship.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demmy Verbeke ◽  
Laura Mesotten

KU Leuven has been supporting Green OA through its institutional repository Lirias for many years already. As it is clear, however, that Green OA provides only part of the solution for the crisis in scholarly communication, the university was looking to intensify its efforts to maximize exchange, collaboration and innovation thanks to the dissemination of scholarly results. This led to the establishment of the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access in March 2018. This fund initially provided financial support for the production costs of OA monographs published by Leuven University Press as well as for the production costs of articles published in OA journals, on the condition that these journals are published according to the Fair OA model and maintain the highest academic standards. As of 2019, the scope of the fund was broadened to include financial support to non-commercial publishing initiatives and infrastructures in general. This poster briefly presents the KU Leuven Fund for Fair OA and details which articles, books, initiatives and infrastructures are supported during the first two years of operation. It also discusses the future of the fund and how it ties in with the open scholarship roadmap within KU Leuven.


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.


Author(s):  
Joost Kollöffel

Academic publishing is a 'need to have' process that is very important in the academic world. This chapter focuses on the business models that were/are/might be used to finance the processes and the innovation in scholarly communication. What sparked the serials crisis? Is Open Access publishing feasible? Why are there predatory publishers? Can scientometrics and altmetrics be made into saleable products? These types of questions are answered in this chapter, where the focus lies on the financial feasibility of the main processes that occur in academic publishing.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandros Nafpliotis ◽  
Evi Sachini ◽  
Victoria Tsoukala

See video of the presentation.The present contribution concerns a case study of open access publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Greece, its history and effect in helping the local researcher community transition from a print-only mode of work to online working environments and in rendering Greek publications and scholarship more relevant to the international scholarly community. The presentation provides Greek context in scholarly communication with an emphasis on HSS; it elaborates on the goals of the project and the challenges that were encountered and addressed during its implementation. One of the main reported successes of the project is the increased awareness among Greek researchers in HSS of the capabilities and potentials of modern scholarly communication systems and the creation of a demand originating from the corresponding research communities themselves for the continuation and expansion of similar activities in the future.The project, which started in 2007 with the transition of three print journals in the humanities to an online and print format and online working environment, culminates with the development of an online platform that provides access to content and services from a single point in the web, ePublishing.ekt.gr. As part of EKT’s services, we systematize and upgrade the journals’ policies according to international standards, provide an online working platform and training, digitize and release in open access academic articles (2,555 articles in established journals, published by small, non-profit, academic/scholarly society publishers, so far), gradually provide DOIs, and concentrate (apart from articles) on books and conference proceedings but in the future we’ll also include purely online books.In a nutshell, we have focused on providing publishers of journals in HSS a range of comprehensive services which are constantly updated and improved in the light of the developments in scholarly communication, and which foster the internationalization, visibility, and preservation of research in these fields. We have also concentrated on increasing the awareness of the Humanities and the Social Science communities on open access and electronic publishing. It is worth mentioning here that the aforementioned services constitute only one of our activities relating to HSS. Another major and relevant project concerns the Greek Reference Index for Publications in the HSS, a comprehensive registry of Greek peer-reviewed journals that registers metadata, provides access to content where this is possible, and measures a variety of indicators.We continue our efforts to provide a comprehensive digital framework for HSS research in Greece, and, given that we are aiming at further expansion in our range of services and further growth in our output, we are also exploring a variety of business models that will help us achieve our goals. Particular effort will be placed in further researching the financial implications of this endeavour and choosing the appropriate business models for the future, as well as promoting awareness about digital scholarship and OA to researchers. Future plans include the intensification of our efforts to publish more e-journals and the exciting new prospect of publishing OA monographs in HSS, in collaboration with institutions in Greece and abroad.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eelco Ferwerda

See video of the presentation.Ferwerda will talk about the various ways in which the transition to OA is taking place within HSS and STEM disciplines. He will discuss the specific features of many HSS disciplines that need to be taken into account for a successful transition to OA. HSS has different publishing profiles, in some disciplines monographs are still the dominant format. Authors in HSS have different values and a different perspective on Creative Commons licenses. A key driver in the current publication culture is the reputation and reward system. In many countries the way research is funded is also an important issue. Ferwerda will also look at business models for OA publishing and discuss the models that may work for HSS. These and other issues will lead him to the conclusion that a successful transition to OA will require the involvement of all stakeholders in scholarly communication.


Author(s):  
Collence T. Chisita ◽  
Rexwhite Tega Enakrire ◽  
Masimba C. Muziringa ◽  
Agnes Chikonzo

Zimbabwe has adopted Education 5.0 which is an educational transformation typified by five missions of Teaching, Community Outreach, Research, Innovation and Industrialization. The Education 5.0 seeks to produce relevant and cost effective knowledge products that results in the production of new goods and services towards the modernization and industrialization of Zimbabwe. Electronic Thesis and Dissertations (ETDs) are at the core of knowledge production by universities in Zimbabwe. ETD's are important data sets for research and development and are critical in the knowledge creation and production that must lead to innovation and industrialization driven by academic institutions. The management of e-scholarship underpins the success of academic institutions to cause the industrialization and modernization of Zimbabwe under the new transformation. The chapter explores the opportunities in managing ETDs in Zimbabwe. The chapter explored how ETD's are transforming scholarly communication landscape through knowledge creation and sharing for industrialization and modernization. The chapter highlights new transformation by academic institutions in creating and developing ETD's to be linked with innovation hubs. Furthermore, the chapter explored the extent to which academic libraries are grappling with the emerging genres of ETD's for example the use of linked data to enhance discoverability. The chapter suggested strategies to enhance the ETD's culture.


Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ncamsile Nombulelo Dlamini ◽  
Maritha Snyman

The purpose of this paper is to assess the current status of institutional repositories (IRs) in Swaziland’s academic institutions. The factors under discussion are the number of IRs in Swaziland, their usage, the level of awareness of these IRs, and the challenges that prevent the implementation of IRs in Swaziland’s academic institutions. A webometric approach, interviews and semi-structured questionnaires completed by IR managers or librarians working for the Swaziland’s academic institutions were used to collect data for this study. Responses were received from 11 respondents. The findings indicated that there is one IR in Swaziland that is accessible to the institution’s community via the intranet. This IR was, at the time when this study took place, not registered in any of the international registries of repositories, such as the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). Currently, this IR faces problems of insufficient content, a low level of IR awareness, limited knowledge of effective and appropriate IR advocacy strategies and limited knowledge of effective IR implementation and management strategies. Based on the findings and information gained from a literature review of IRs, the paper recommends strategies to academic institutions in Swaziland that may enable them to increase their number of IRs, the awareness level of IRs and consequently the use of IRs. The findings and recommendations may also benefit other African countries in similar situations.  


Author(s):  
Markus Wust

This qualitative study investigates how faculty gather information for teaching and research and their opinions on open access approaches to scholarly communication. Despite generally favorable reactions, a perceived lack of peer review and impact factors were among the most common reasons for not publishing through open-access forums.Cette étude qualitative examine comment les membres du corps professoral recueillent l’information pour l’enseignement et la recherche, et leurs opinions envers les approches de la communication scientifique à libre accès. Malgré des réactions généralement favorables, le manque perçu de révision par les pairs et les facteurs d’impact comptent parmi les motifs habituellement évoqués pour ne pas publier sur ces tribunes à libre accès. 


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