(9 Jan 2024) The rising cost of academic publishing is causing consternation across the research ecosystem and prompting calls in Europe for a transition to not-for-profit publishing models. Rob Johnson argues that expecting emerging not-for-profit providers to offer a cheaper solution than commercial players is a surefire way to keep them small – or make them…
(7 Dec 2023) Richard Poynder has long been one of the most respected and insightful commentators on the scholarly communication ecosystem, and in particular on the development and progress of the open access (OA) movement – to which he has always been a friend, but one admirably willing to speak truth even when the truth was…
(19 Dec 2023) Eleven countries have introduced open science policies, strategies and legislative frameworks since the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science two years ago, according to the UNESCO Open Science Outlook 1: Status and Trends Around the World. This means that the the total number of countries with open science policies has…
(3 Dec 2023) A newly established database represents China’s latest step towards open access publishing, but major obstacles remain if the country is to revolutionise its model of scholarly communication, experts said. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently launched PubScholar, an academic database that offers free access to about 170 million science resources, including over 87 million articles, more than 1 million…
(15 Nov 2023) From 1 January 2024, UKRI’s open access policy will apply to monographs, book chapters and edited collections that need to acknowledge UKRI funding. The policy aims to ensure that findings from the breadth of research UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funds with public money can be freely accessed. This will…
(Oct 2023) In 2021, the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (Sveriges universitets- ochhögskoleförbund, SUHF) decided to convene a beyond transformative agreements working group(the BTA group) to lay the foundation for further advancing the transition to open access. The group includes researchers, representatives of higher education institutions, funders and negotiators from the Bibsam Consortium. It…
(14 Nov 2023) Article-processing charges levied by publishers on authors have become an integral — and sometimes unpopular — part of the open-access revolution. Other options are being explored. As the open-access landscape evolves, various publishing and payment models are emerging in addition to standard APCs, ranging from ones tailored to small communities of…
(15 Nov 2023) Interactions and collaborations between the Chinese research community and international scholarly publishers are as numerous and wide-ranging as at any point in past 20 years, during which China has become the world’s top producer of research papers. Yet in some ways the perception gap between these two groups is widening. Some of our…
(10 Oct 2023) The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and Open Access Australasia wish to express our joint concerns over the recent introduction of the Article Development Charge (ADC) model by the American Chemical Society (ACS). CAUL Members and others across the Australian scholarly community have expressed many concerns about this development in…
(19 Sep 2023) The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) and Ithaka S+R today publish “Print Revenue and Open Access Monographs: A University Press Study.” This report is the result of research funded by a Level I Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to investigate the effect of open digital editions on the…