We all know that there are a great number of resources, guidelines, and toolkits for open access monographs out there … Some are now out of date or no longer regularly maintained; others have been developed in the last few years to reflect new developments and practices, and there are also new ones in development as part of other open access projects. But how do we know what actually exists, which ones we should be using, and which ones are reliable, will be maintained and updated by trusted sources AND be sustainable?
One of the deliverables of the Open Book Futures project is to establish a ‘knowledge base’ (or equivalent) to provide comprehensive resources on alternative funding models and modes of publishing, acquiring and archiving open access books, alongside new training and guidance on archiving and preservation best practice. The deliverable states that we will (a) develop resources for stakeholders, (b) consolidate existing resources, (c) promote business models best practice, and (d) showcase project work on metadata, experimental publishing and archiving. By providing a comprehensive tool suite of resources we will accelerate outreach to libraries, publishers, academics and the wider public, to advocate for, advise on and encourage open access publishing and initiatives.
But as we’ve stated above, we know that this area is super-crowded and confusing for the community - the last thing we want to do is add to this! So what are we going to do to meet our deliverable / funder requirements and provide a valuable asset to support publishers, and the wider community, in the development of the OA books landscape and underpin a sustainable future for OA books publishing?
We want our offering to be unique and add value efficiently. In order to do this, we realised that there were broadly three areas we needed to think about as early as possible in the process of planning our ‘knowledge base’:
the issue or challenges we want to address,
the resources and assets we might be able to draw on, along with any risks that we could identify, and
initial plans and timescales.
Our scoping report is the first step in this process. Drawing on the myriad of resources we know exist (produced within and outside the OBF project), it presents an overview of existing assets and guidance for OA book publishing, a gap analysis, and our initial recommendations for the OBF working group to consider, all of which will be used to scope the direction and final format of the ‘knowledge base’ (henceforth referred to as an ‘InfoHub’, although the final name is still to be determined).
Methodology
Photo by Galina Nelyubova on Unsplash
We began by defining some very broad parameters for resources that we were interested in; that they were made specifically in support of OA, that they related to long-form publication, and that they provided guidance and information that was broadly applicable, rather than, e.g. being the guidelines for an individual publisher.
We then listed resources we were already aware of and using, before horizon scanning to search for additional resources, tool suites, and information hubs. Once we had a lengthy list, we created a spreadsheet to list and compare resources along different parameters such as intended audience, resource type, likely long-term sustainability etc.; we also undertook a SWOT analysis.
We know there are limitations to our methodology. Firstly, that of time - as we had a limited time frame due to project deadlines, and other duties, we recognise that there may be gaps in the areas of knowledge or practice that our study does not address or fully cover, and that could be explored further by other researchers. We would also like to emphasise that OBF is primarily a UK-based project, and we are working from a highly UK and Anglophone-focussed perspective. While we have endeavoured to make sure that we include relevant resources from around the world, we are aware that we are likely to have missed many, particularly those that are not in English (although we took steps to mitigate this by seeking guidance from colleagues and frequent collaborators elsewhere such as OAPEN, OABN, SciELO, and Project Muse). We hope that this will be mitigated somewhat by some of the resources we are planning to point to, which may be able to provide readers with more localised guidance.
Having collated and assessed the resources we found, we conducted a gap analysis on them to identify areas where further resource creation would be helpful. As the gaps we identified were outside of our expertise, we reached out to other individuals and organisations, such as PALOMERA and Lyrasis, and invited further comment and feedback.
Photo by Juliana Romao
So what were the conclusions of our gap analysis?
Our preliminary conclusions are two-fold. Firstly, we believe that, given the wealth of high-quality resources already available, some of which are already outputs of this project (or earlier iterations), one valuable activity is in collating these, and categorising them, providing a central sign-posting location for external resources. Our aim is to complement rather than re-develop. Secondly, one of the lacunae which was well within the competencies of the participating project members was a resource on transitioning publishers from closed to open access, and we therefore propose that that will be one of other main purposes of this InfoHub. The basis of this will be the report published in 2022: Opening the Future: How to Implement an Equitable Revenue Model for Open Access Monographs.
Open Access is now a fixture in the book publishing space; we need to make sure that as it grows further (which it will!), it is well-resourced and that reliable resources for all stakeholders groups are available and well sign-posted. We have concluded that some further elaboration on some topics (by us) was necessary within our own remit. By providing a comprehensive tool suite of resources / signpost to existing resources we will accelerate outreach to libraries, publishers, academics and the wider public, to advocate for, advise on and encourage open access publishing and initiatives.
We have published our scoping report in order to be transparent and open. By sharing our progress and discoveries so far with the community, we want to expand and develop the conversation around OA books, further advance a step-change in the ambition, scope and impact of community-led OA book publishing, and connect with more like-minded initiatives and people and infrastructures across the world.
Even at this early stage of the InfoHub development, some of the resources we analysed may be helpful to you. We also hope that our comprehensive lists of acronyms will help shed light on some of the many OA mysteries, and it has been suggested that this could be even a standalone component of our InfoHub!
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