At this presentation at the October 23, 2015, NFAIS workshop on "The Impact of Open Access Models: Finding Stable, Sustainable, and Scalable Solutions," Rebecca Kennison outlines the importance of open access in the context of the social sciences and in the humanities. In articulating the differences in research output between HSS and STEM, Kennison offers an approach to funding infrastructure in such diverse disciplines through the Open Access Network, which is designed to be supportive of both traditional short- and long-form output as well as emerging digital forms.

1. K|N Consultants
OA Models for Communities
in the Social Sciences
and in the Humanities
The Impact of Open Access Models:Finding Stable,
Sustainable,and Scalable Solutions
Rebecca Kennison
Principal,K|N Consultants
NFAIS Workshop
The Hub at the Cira Centre
Philadelphia,PA
October 23,2015

2. Questions to Consider
• How does OA in HSS communities differ from STEM?
• How does favored format (such as monograph) impact
OA requirements for these communities?
• How will financial model need to differ?
• Can this be sustained?

4. Promotion &Tenure
African Affairs is published by
Oxford University Press on behalf
of the Royal African Society and is
the top-rated journal in African
studies.

5. Paywalls

6. Gold (“Hybrid”) Open Access
$3,795APC

7. Scholarly Society

8. © 2004 Randy Glasbergen. Used by permission. Source: http://www.glasbergen.com

9. Beyond the APC

10. NotJustJournals …

11. Knowledge Unlatched Model

12. UC Press Luminos Model

13. URL:http://knconsultants.org/toward-a-sustainable-approach-to-open-access-publishing-and-
archiving/

14. Our Assumptions
• Researchers and scholars prefer to publish in venues most
relevant to them and their peers, often those associated
with scholarly societies and university presses.
• Sharing products of research and scholarship is
responsibility of every institution.
• Mission of library is to support dissemination, collection,
organization, and preservation of scholarly output whatever
its form.

15. Our Assumptions
• While not every institution or scholarly society has capacity
to support publishing enterprise, each has ability and
responsibility to support those who do.
• Current models of OA publishing based on cost-per-unit
approaches are not easily adapted to new forms of scholarly
communication, thus not scalable or sustainable.

16. Our Assumptions
• While not every institution or scholarly society has capacity
to support publishing enterprise, each has ability and
responsibility to support those who do.
• Current models of OA publishing based on cost-per-unit
approaches are not easily adapted to new forms of scholarly
communication, thus not scalable or sustainable.

17. Our Proposal
1. Create partnerships among scholarly societies/university
presses, research libraries, and others (e.g., digital archives)
who share common mission to support creation and distribution
of research and scholarship and to enable affordable education.
2. Encourage institutionally supported publishing and
preservation for OA publications of all kinds, not just journal
articles and monographs.
3. Develop sustainable financial model based on annual or multi-
year institutional payments to centrally managed fund
established to support infrastructure.

18. The Model
Partnerships:
Scholarly Societies/
University Presses,
Libraries, Others
Institutional
Payment
Scholarly
Communication
Infrastructure

19. Institutional Payments
All tertiary institutions pay annual fee based on their Carnegie
(or similar) classification and number of FTE faculty and
students.

20. What’s in it for the institution?
• Open access at scale is part of solution to address two
pressing problems:
• Soaring cost of higher education
• Challenges of lifelong learning

21. Lowering Costs of Education
In world where OA is norm:
• Cost of subscription and access management would be
substantially reduced.
• Savings could be perhaps as much as 30% in deceased
indirect industry costs, which (hopefully!) would be passed
along to institutions, and in direct institutional costs, which
(hopefully!) would be passed along to students.

22. Supporting Lifelong Learning
• Institutional contribution could be cost-effective student
and alumni benefit that may in turn benefit alma mater:
• Access to content builds on teaching and learning
mission of college/university, where skills developed to
discover, analyze, and use scholarly content contribute to
critical thinking necessary for successful student
outcomes.
• Graduates do not get lobotomies along with their
diplomas. Lifelong learners tend to enter and remain in
higher-paying careers and have considerable monetary,
cultural, and entrepreneurial impact on society that may
return in positive ways to the college or university.

23. Partnerships
Partnerships among scholarly societies/university presses,
libraries, and others receive stable annual funding to support
operations, convert research output to open access, and
embrace new forms and formats of scholarly communication.

24. Criteria for Partnerships
• Positive impact on scholarly communication ecosystem
• Esp. increasing access while decreasing costs
• Collaboration between at least one academic institutional
unit (e.g., library) and one scholarly society or university
press
• Financial transparency of costs and workflow processes
associated with publishing operation
• Archiving and preservation plan
• Clear memorandum of understanding between/among
partners

25. Infrastructure
Together these mission-driven alliances develop infrastructure
and best practices needed to support open and dynamic
scholarly information ecosystem.

26. Phased Approach
Launch phase raises seed funding through memberships,
sponsorships, and grants to support organization and handful of
pilot projects.
Phase 1 demonstrates proof of concept by converting some HSS
publications to OA and by providing sustainable funding to some
born-digital projects.
Phase 2 expands practical implementation of our model to
demonstrate it can operate at scale.
Phase 3 (full implementation phase) expands funding and
broadens application and review process for proposals to
include all comers, from any discipline and from any publisher.

27. Open Access Network

28. Key Points
• The Open Access Network is complementary, not
competitive, with other OA models.
• We are not planning to host content ourselves, but rather to
facilitate financial support of OA projects, publishers, and
platforms of all kinds, no matter what their OA business model.
• Because we are not publishers ourselves, our approach to OA is
entirely flexible and infinitely scalable.
• Our aim is to fund entire scholarly communications
infrastructure — from creation to preservation — including
all elements that make up scholarly record.
• Our plan is incremental, employing traditional roles in
evolving ways.

29. Takeaways

30. Takeaways
• HSS scholars and researchers have same values, pressures,
motivations as their STEM colleagues.

31. Takeaways
• HSS scholars and researchers have same values, pressures,
motivations as their STEM colleagues.
• HSS does differ from STEM in its publishing practices, both
in format and finances.
• Books more expensive to produce than articles.
• Money from grants considerably less than in STEM, often in form of
subventions.
• No historical practice of paying page or color charges.

32. Takeaways
• HSS scholars and researchers have same values, pressures,
motivations as their STEM colleagues.
• HSS does differ from STEM in its publishing practices, both
in format and finances.
• Books more expensive to produce than articles.
• Money from grants considerably less than in STEM, often in form of
subventions.
• No historical practice of paying page or color charges.
• Increasingly HSS research output not simply articles, books,
and book chapters (e.g., digital humanities projects).
• Cost-per-unit pricing will not work for long.

33. Takeaways
• HSS scholars and researchers have same values, pressures,
motivations as their STEM colleagues.
• HSS does differ from STEM in its publishing practices, both
in format and finances.
• Books more expensive to produce than articles.
• Money from grants considerably less than in STEM, often in form of
subventions.
• No historical practice of paying page or color charges.
• Increasingly HSS research output not simply articles, books,
and book chapters (e.g., digital humanities projects).
• Cost-per-unit pricing will not work for long.
• OA solutions for HSS will also work for STEM, but not other
way around.

34. Knowledge Made Public
@KNConsultants
@OA_Network
oan@knconsultants.org