DWLresearch

T here is a great answered question in British open access policy: what will happen to books? It has long been signalled that OA policy for the next REF, and for research funded by UKRI, will require books to be made open access. Perhaps the real question is how will books be made open access?  The current proposal by UKRI is as follows: Monographs, book chapters and edited collections that acknowledge UKRI funding to be made OA.  The version of record, or author manuscript, should be made available via an online platform...  ... using a maximum 12 month embargo and CC BY or CC BY-ND licence.  This policy would apply to works published on, or after,  1 January 2024 . UKRI are still to decide on some issues including: definitions, exceptions (there are quite a few listed), author copyright.  This policy will also inform  future REF  open access policy. We provided more details on these proposals and the accompanying consultation ear...

Yesterday, UKRI finally published their  Open Access Review Consultation document:  https://www.ukri.org/files/funding/oa/open-access-review-consultation/ Amongst other issues, the review contains important proposals on open access policy for books. I have been following this policy area for the University Library over the last 18 months. Here is my summary of yesterday's announcement: Proposals Monographs, book chapters and edited collections that acknowledge UKRI funding to be made OA.  The version of record, or author manuscript, should be made available via an online platform...  ... using a maximum 12 month embargo and CC BY or CC BY-ND licence.  This policy would apply to works published on, or after, 1 January 2024 . UKRI are still to decide on some issues including: definitions, exceptions (there are quite a few listed), author copyright.  This policy will also inform future REF open access policy. In my view, ...

This is my personal reflection, and not an official position  of the University Library Could you use library book budgets to fund open access monographs? This was a question raised some people at the recent Critical Issues in Open Access event at Goldsmith University. Steven Hill from Research England responded to one of these comments by saying the classic policy answer would be to have a matched funding scheme for a set period. This suggested that policy makers have thought about this model, even if this isn’t the route they would go down in the end. Ideas for re-purposing library budgets for open access have been floating round for some time, primarily from people who want to move away from article-processing charges (APCs). The consortia led-model for open access journals is built on a version of this idea e.g. as used by Open Library of Humanities . The model, recently proposed by Martin Eve , to transition learned society journals to open access also works this way...