Open Access Publishing

brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com | www.ubiquitypress.com| @ubiquitypress
Open Access Publishing
Brian Hole, Founder and CEO
EIFL Workshops, Palestine, December 2015

Some initial questions
How important is publishing at your university?
What challenges do you face publishing?
Do you have many international collaborations?
Do your students face new challenges?

What is Open Access?

Most simply:
No barriers to access or reuse
Open Access

Open Access
By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public
internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or
link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to
software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or
technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet
itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for
copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of
their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
Budapest Open Access Initiative
OA allows users to “copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and
to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible
purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.”
Bethsida/Berlin statements
✔ ✗ ✗

Publishing (Gold open access)
• Publisher makes content freely available
• Content has been through peer review,
anti-plagiarism checks, etc.
• Publisher may require an article
processing charge (APC)
Publishing vs. Archiving
Archiving (Green open access)
• Institution makes a pre-publication
version of content freely available in
own repository, with no charge
• Content is released early and
immediately

Why is it important?

The Social Contract
of Science
• Validation
• Dissemination
• Further development
Scientific Malpractice
• Data
• Results
• Software
• Hardware, wetware…
#@%$#@
% #@%$#
Source: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2015

Source: Washington Post, May 7 2013 / Imgur: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/07/map-more-
than-half-of-humanity-lives-within-this-circle/

Source: Nature News, 20 April 2011, DOI: 10.1038/472276a

What can Open Access include?

New: 3,651 books but growing
http://www.doabooks.org

10,807 journals
https://doaj.org
http://www.thinkchecksubmit.org

What are the costs?

Average APC overall is $9061
Wellcome Trust average APC paid in 2012: $2,365 (medical)
Elsevier: average $3,000
Cell Reports: $5,000
Springer: $3,000
Hindawi: average $600
Ubiquity Press: $400
Many privately run journals have no APC at all
Examples:
Björk, B-C, & Solomon, D (2012). A study of open access journals using article processing
charges. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(8), 1485-
1495.Doi: http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.22673
Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Transparency and trust (APC = £300 / $400)

APCs are requested following publication
Ubiquity Press
“If you do not have funds available to pay the APC (e.g.
because your institution/funder will not cover the fee)
then we may be able to offer a discount or full waiver.
Please ensure that you contact the editor as early as
possible should you need to discuss waiver options or
the APC in general. Editorial decisions are made
independently from the ability to pay the APC.”
APC Waivers

PLOS
“PLOS believes that lack of funds should not be a
barrier to Open Access publication. Since its inception,
PLOS has provided direct fee assistance. The
Publication Fee Assistance program is intended for
authors who demonstrate financial need.”
“PLOS expects authors to exhaust all alternative
funding sources before applying for PFA.”
APC Waivers

BioMed Central
“BioMed Central provides an automatic waiver to
authors based in any of the following countries, which
were classified by the World Bank as Low-income
economies or Lower-middle-income economies as of
September 2015, and which have a 2014 gross
domestic product of less than 200 billion US dollars
(reference - World Bank 1st September 2015).”
List includes “West Bank and Gaza”
APC Waivers

Elsevier
“If an author would like their article to be published
under a gold open access model, but cannot afford the
APC, then individual waiver requests are considered
on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of
genuine need. Priority for this waiver program will be
given to applications by authors from countries eligible
for the Research4Life program.”
List does not include Palestine
APC Waivers

No APC
Journal does own copyediting, typesetting etc.
$780-$624per year per journal
$312-$156 per year per journal (developing world)
Currently 300+ journals
Ubiquity Press hosting
Alternative models
No APC
All fees covered by library memberships
Open Library of the Humanities

For any questions, please contact
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com

Research in today’s digital environment
Brian Hole, Founder and CEO
EIFL Workshops, Palestine, December 2015

Some initial questions
Do you provide training in research data
management?
Do your students have opportunities to network
internationally?

Cover the basics of ‘Research Data Science’, core skills that
researchers in all fields need
Good support for student travel as well as heavily subsidized
accommodation and subsistence
August 2016 school, 120 places, at ICTP in Italy
Applications are now open
http://www.codata.org/news/91/62/Applications-are-now-
open-for-the-CODATA-RDA-School-of-Research-Data-Science
CODATA-RDA Research Data Science Summer Schools
Training

OpenCon: “Empowering the next generation to advance
open access, open education and open data”
Next conference November 2016
Travel funding available for students
http://www.opencon2015.org/
International Data Week
Next conference in US, October 2016
Travel funding available, keen on regional
representation
http://www.internationaldataweek.org/
Conferences

Future Earth http://www.futureearth.org/
IRDR http://www.irdrinternational.org/
Urban Health and Wellbeing http://www.icsu.org/what-
we-do/interdisciplinary-bodies/health-and-wellbeing-in-
the-changing-urban-environment/?icsudocid=objectives
Opportunities for collaboration
ICSU research programmes
Student-led initiatives
Right to Research Coalition
Students promoting Open Access

Open Access Publishing

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