JISC

Interactive resources for vice chancellors, senior managers and heads of information services will help them explore open access publishing from today as part of an international week of events involving over 60 countries.

JISC is bringing advice on implementing open access to the attention of universities and research institutions through a series of briefing papers, interviews and web resources released each day this week on a special site. The schedule of topics for the week's resources is:

Monday: Putting open access policy in place
Tuesday: Making an open access policy effective
Wednesday: Funding open access developments
Thursday: Measuring the benefits of open access
Friday: Open access copyright and licensing

Neil Jacobs, programme manager at JISC, said: "Universities face difficult times ahead.  The evidence shows that open access offers a more efficient and effective way for them to share research findings, and thereby make a greater contribution to the UK economy and society.  Open access is part of a wider movement towards more open content on the web.  

“While the future is uncertain, such evidence as we have from other sectors and our own suggests that taking a more ‘open’ path will be more effective and sustainable for UK higher education," he concluded.

Open access publishing can bring a range of benefits for researchers including greater visibility for their work and therefore better value from public funding.  

A recent JISC report authored by Alma Swan called 'Modelling scholarly communication options: costs and benefits for universities' shows that a single large university could contribute around £3 million each year to the research community as a whole simply by sharing knowledge through a more open route.
Meanwhile, a study by Amsterdam University Press has shown that books that are published by means of open access are far easier to trace than those that are not. The research examined 400 book titles and concluded that authors benefit directly from open access to their work because they distribute their ideas more widely, helping to build their reputations.

Find out about what JISC is doing to support decisions about open access publishing

Explore how your institution can benefit from open access with the new resources
Download a word version of the resources