Department of Chemistry   University of Oxford

Open Access Publishing issues

Journal Publishing, Open Access publishing, Scholarly Communication and Archiving

NEWS

Introduction

There has been much debate about the crisis in academic publishing, particularly the spiralling costs of academic journals while library budgets are shrinking, and the impact of electronic publishing. Many research funders now require that the research they fund becomes publicly available as soon as possible after initial publication. This is a complex area involving publishers' copyright restrictions, open-access journals, publication fees for individual open-access articles, self-archiving in institutional or discipline-specific repositories, etc. See below for Background information on Open Access publishing and Scholarly Communication issues.

University of Oxford

Oxford University Research Archive (ORA)

ORA is a growing repository of research publications (journal articles, conference papers, theses) and other research output produced by members of the University of Oxford. It is used to gather together, store, access, manage and preserve the digital items it contains. The full text of many of these items is freely available to be used in accordance with copyright and end-user permissions. Members of the University of Oxford may deposit items in Oxford University Research Archive. See also:

RSL's Open Access page

Position statements from some major UK Research Funders:

Publishers' Initiatives and Policies:

Some Chemistry Open Access Journals

Other UK Initiatives:

  • University of Cambridge Chemistry Library page on Open-access publishing What? - Why? - How?
  • Universities UK supports calls for open access to research, Universites UK Press release May 2007
  • University College: to implement open access policy to all research; see also FT article (June 2009)
  • University of Southampton announced a University-wide Open Access mandate (April 2008). Southampton established its e-Prints repository in 2002.
  • University of Stirling issued an institutional mandate which requires self-archiving of all theses and journal articles in STORRE (Stirling Online Research Repository) (April 2008)
  • University of Glasgow has announced a new Publications Policy which will require authors to deposit the full text of peer reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings in the University's institutional repository Enlighten where publisher agreements permit this.
  • Scottish Declaration on Open Access: 16 universities committed to institutional repositories (or a jointly-developed central repository) and some considering mandating academics to self-archive.
  • Nottingham University has set up a central open access publishing fund for any author to apply for when publishing in open access journals.
  • Royal Holloway embraces open access policy for all research
  • SHERPA: investigates issues in the future of scholarly communication, and is developing open-access institutional repositories in universities to facilitate the rapid and efficient worldwide dissemination of research. SHERPA produces:
    • RoMEO - Summary of publishers' policies open access rights for authors
    • JULIET - Research funders' archiving mandates, policies and guidelines
    • SHERPA Search - simple full-text search of UK repositories
  • Centre for Research Communications (CRC)
  • JISC/SURF license to publish: Copyright toolbox, developed to assist authors and publishers to achieve a balance between granting maximum access to a journal article and financial compensation for the publication by the publisher of this article.
  • Parliamentary Inquiry: The House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee's Scientific Publications Inquiry investigated access to journals within the scientific community, with particular reference to price and availability. The Report 'Scientific Publications: Free for all?' was published July 2004.
    • The message from the Report was that changes are needed in the way scientific research is published and accessed. The MPs rejected the publishers' view that the present publishing model is working well and that the market should be left to change itself. The Report made many specific recommendations which can have a beneficial effect upon all who write and read journal articles.
    • Government response to the report (Jan 2005)

Initiatives in other countries:

International Initiatives and Resources:

  • Top-tier, open access journal for biomedical and life sciences announced by leading research organisations Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust. The three organisations aim to establish a new journal that will attract the very best research publications. A team of highly regarded, experienced and actively practising scientists will ensure fair, swift and transparent editorial decisions followed by rapid online publication. The first issue of the journal, whose name has yet to be decided, is expected to be published in the summer of 2012. See also comments on Nature newsblog and in RSC's Chemistry World.
  • ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Material Archiving Policies) shows which departments, institutions and research funders worldwide have mandatory archiving policies.
  • OpenDOAR - worldwide Directory of Open Access Repositories
  • SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. Produces a monthly Open Access Newsletter offering news and analysis of the open access movement. See also Sparc Europe Resources.
  • OASIS (Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook) - a 'one stop shop' for all Open Access matters; aims to provide an authoritative ‘sourcebook’ on Open Access, covering the concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving it.

Background information on Open Access publishing and Scholarly Communication issues:

Implications for Chemistry:

Other Commentary:

Long-term Archiving:

  • UK Research Reserve - a secure solution to storing and preserving lower use print research journals. A collaborative national research collection holds print copies of important research journals, and is managed and stored through a partnership between the British Library and Higher Education. At least 3 copies of journals that fall into a 'low use' category are maintained within the UK. This strategy enables academic libraries to resolve storage challenges whilst guaranteeing long term access via British Library Document Supply services and reading rooms.
  • Portico: a not-for-profit electronic archiving service which assures long-term preservation and ongoing access to electronic content. Participating publishers (incl. ACS, Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and Taylor & Francis) entrust Portico to provide a permanent archive of their journal content, thus enabling libraries to migrate more quickly to electronic resources without risking future accessibility.
  • CLOCKSS: a joint venture between the world’s leading scholarly publishers and research libraries whose mission is to build a sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive with which to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly publications for the benefit of the greater global research community. CLOCKSS was created in response to the growing concern thatdigital content purchased by libraries may not always be available, due to discontinuation of an electronic journal or because of a catastrophic event. Participating publishers include Nature, RSC, Wiley and AIP.
  • The Keepers Registry: an e-journals preservation registry service providing freely available means to discover which e-journals are being preserved by the leading archival organisations, highlighting those e-journals for which no arrangement is on record.
  • JISC report: Comparative Study of e-Journal Archiving Solutions (Jan 08)

Back to Chemical Information Resources Page

Updated 31/1/12. If you have any comments please contact: lindsay.battle@chem.ox.ac.uk
Search for

© Copyright 1995-2008 University of Oxford