OAPEN-UK explores the challenges of open access scholarly monograph
The academic monograph is under threat. Increased costs and lower print runs are impacting on the principle means by which researchers share their knowledge and disseminate their findings.
The gold standard for academic excellence in many disciplines, the effective dissemination of the monograph has major implications for the UK’s research base and its international standing.
Jisc Collections is embarking on a new project called OAPEN-UK to explore the issues impacting upon the publishing of scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences. Funded by Jisc and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the project is taking a collaborative and real time approach to addressing the challenges, risks and potential opportunities of unfettered online access to scholarly monographs.
Palgrave Macmillan, Taylor & Francis, Berg Publishers, Liverpool University Press and University Wales Press are also project partners. Each has submitted pairs of similar monographs for the project pilot. With one title in each pair randomly assigned to either the experimental group (available through open access) or the control group (available through the publishers’ standard routes to market) the pilot will, over the next three years, gather and compare sales and usage data for each group. The resulting data will provide an invaluable evidence base for the use of monographs under contrasting modes of access.
Further activities – such as annual benchmarking surveys, focus groups, interviews and surveys with research funders, authors, publishers, libraries and researchers - will allow investigation into whether an open access model for scholarly monographs could take hold in the minds of humanities and social sciences scholars, what funding policies and technical processes would need be developed to support an open access model and what the impacts of an open access model would be on key stakeholders.
David House, Chair of Jisc Collections and the OAPEN-UK Steering Group, said: “It’s in all our interests to have a vibrant and innovative humanities and social science research environment. But for this we need to have scholarly communications models that match the rapidly-changing demands of the twenty-first century. This project is taking some bold and imaginative steps to look over the horizon and to explore a new publishing model. We hope OAPEN-UK will be a stepping stone towards informed decision making by a wide range of stakeholders.”
See OAPEN-UK for further information or contact Caren Milloy, Head of Projects.