Article / interview
OPERAS business models survey on open access books
OPERAS is conducting a survey of publishing organisations throughout Europe to identify and better understand existing and potential business models to support the Open Access publication of research monographs. The results of the survey will be used to inform the formulation recommendations about how to create a sustainable open access book publishing ecosystem within Europe. In addition, the survey will produce a snapshot of European open access publishing in humanities and the social sciences, and help us to gain a more comprehensive insight on how OPERAS can support the community and build sustainable paths of transition towards collaborative models for open access books.
OPERAS is the European Research Infrastructure for the development of open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities. In 2018 the OPERAS Business Models Special Interest Group published a white paper on Business Models for Open Access. The report described the current landscape in which there are multiple approaches to open access publishing. It looked at the business models adopted by OPERAS members at the time as well as emerging models in the USA and at a national level in some European countries.
Monographs remain the crucial publishing output in humanities and social sciences (HSS). Therefore, the OPERAS Business Models Special Interest Group is now compiling a second white paper in which we hope to shed light on publishing practices around open access books specifically. A recent report from the COPIM project identified a variety of models used for open access books. Alongside these models, this survey puts a special emphasis on the idea of collaboration. The rise of collaborative approaches, relying on sharing of information, funds, and infrastructures has been noted in the recent years, especially in the UK.
OPERAS would like to understand more about how the HSS publishing community applies or could apply collaborative models for open access books, and what issues it encounters when dealing with them.
The survey should take a maximum of 50 minutes to complete, but may be significantly shorter. Please complete the survey by 25 March 2021. For reference, you can find the whole survey as a PDF document here.
If you have any further questions, please contact Graham.Stone@jisc.ac.uk .
Privacy notice
OPERAS and the OPERAS-P project, value your privacy and process your personal data in compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Any personal data you supply (i.e. information related to you) will be held on a secure server initially at Jisc and then by OPERAS. Furthermore, the following special categories of personal data related to you are also processed: your past experiences with and personal opinion regarding business models for open access books.
Your personal data will be stored on a secured spreadsheet until the 30th of June 2026. Your data is processed on the basis of your consent (Article 6.1(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation) which you give by accepting this Notice.
Exceptionally, where consent is not an appropriate legal basis, your personal data can also be processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in carrying out the project, or further research in the field of Digital Humanities, Digital Humanities meta-research. Then, the processing is based on Article 6.1(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Names of participants will not be used in any project outputs or communication; instead a unique code will be applied to pseudonymise the details when used in any publications and outputs from this project.
Information
See also
Raporty konsorcjum OPERAS dotyczące otwartego dostępu do publikacji naukowych w Europie
Międzynarodowe konsorcjum OPERAS opublikowało raporty (white papers) dotyczące różnych aspektów otwartego dostępu do publikacji naukowych w Europie: rzecznictwa, najlepszych praktyk, standardów, wielojęzyczności, modeli biznesowych, platform i usług oraz narzędzi badawczych. Wszystkie publikacje można bezpłatnie pobrać z repozytorium Zenodo.
OPERAS launches “Beyond Covid-19”: Call for participation
Beyond Covid-19 is an open access reference library of humanities and social sciences research to support the better understanding of the major changes that societies around the world are experiencing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Beyond Covid-19 accumulates reading notes which summarize in an accessible way the content of selected publications and further establish their relevance in the current context. The open access reference library is complemented by a Zotero library where bibliographic references of selected publications are stored. The open access reference library is open to contributions from the entire social sciences and humanities research community and is managed by the OPERAS coordination team and volunteers.
Landscape Study on Citizen Science (CS) Funding in Social Science and Humanities (SSH)
This survey addresses all people engaged or willing to engage in citizen science (CS) or participatory research projects involving disciplines from the social sciences and the humanities (SSH) fields. The survey is part of the research conducted by the European COESO Project (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101006325) on 'Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues' (Horizon 2020 REF: 101006325). COESO gathers 15 partners from 6 different European countries. One of its main objectives is to work with funders to innovate funding schemes for citizen science in SSH.
IBL PAN, OPERAS, TRIPLE
The European Commission will finance the project TRIPLE (Targeting Researchers through Innovative Practices and multiLingual Exploration) under the Horizon 2020 framework with approx. 5,6 million Euros for a duration of 42 months. TRIPLE will be a dedicated service of the OPERAS research infrastructure and will become a strong service in the EOSC marketplace. TRIPLE will help social sciences and humanities (SSH) research in Europe to gain visibility, to be more efficient and effective, to improve its reuse within the SSH and beyond, and to dramatically increase its societal impact. Work is expected to start this fall.