Find out if you can publish gold open access at no cost to you

You may be aware that the Library has deals in place with several publishers which allow OU authors to publish gold open access (where the final journal article is immediately freely available to read or download from the publisher’s website) at reduced or zero cost to the author.

These deals, known as offsetting deals, transformative deals or Read and Publish deals, are exploratory models in the shift from pay-to-read (the journal subscription) to pay-to-publish. The costs of open access are part of an overall OU payment to the publisher covering both subscriptions and open access publishing. The open access charges are part of the agreement.

We are now pleased to announce that the Library has invested in several new offsetting deals with publishers starting from 1^st January 2021, including Cambridge University Press, the Company of Biologists, Future Science Group, Geological Society, PLOS, and the Royal Society.  Existing deals also cover major academic publishers such as Wiley, SAGE and Springer, as well as several smaller and society publishers. See the Library Research Support team’s webpages for full details of all the deals we have in place, along with their eligibility requirements.

These deals all vary – some will give you discounts on the full article processing charge (APC) and some waive it altogether; some deals cover only hybrid journals and others cover fully open access journals too. Most of the deals are only available to OU corresponding authors, and there may be restrictions on the types of paper covered (e.g. research and review articles only). Please ensure you check the details of the relevant publisher deal on the website before placing an order with a publisher and ensure you follow any instructions for authors to make sure eligibility for the deal is identified.

Where a discount applies, the Library is unable to pay the remainder of the APC, so these will need to be funded from a Faculty or other budget. The exception to this is articles from UKRI funded projects, if this applies please check the  requirements and complete the request form and the Library will advise you whether the  APC cost can be covered.

It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the deal webpages, since these agreements can change at short notice and new deals are being negotiated all the time.

Now it’s 13^th year, Open Access Week is an international event which offers the opportunity to engage with the research community about the benefits of open access, and to help inspire wider participation to help make Open Access the norm for research and scholarship.

To mark the second day of Open Access Week, we’ve put together a short video to help you to get to grips with open access publishing – what it is, how to do it, and importantly, how to fund it (where a fee is charged).

We discuss the move away from the traditional subscription model of publishing towards an open access model, the difference between green and gold open access, and where you can look to fund ‘gold’.  Did you know that the OU has a whole host of new deals with publishers that allow you to publish gold at no or reduced cost? Watch the video to find out more, and see our website for full details of these transformative agreements (also known as offsetting deals), along with eligibility requirements.

Access the transcript.

Due to the various institutional subscriptions we have with academic publishers, several offsetting deals are now available to OU researchers who wish to publish Gold Open Access (where the final journal article is immediately freely available to read and download on the publisher website). Offsetting deals are exploratory models in the shift from paying to read (the journal subscription) to paying to publish.

The three largest deals we currently have in place are with Springer, Sage and Wiley. However, there are many other publishers that offer reduced or waived article processing charges (APCs). Have a look at the Library Research Support Team’s webpages for full details, to see if you could benefit.

The deal we have in place with Sage now allows any article in one of their hybrid journals which was accepted for publication on or after 1^st January 2020 to be made Gold Open Access at no cost. This deal applies to the corresponding author on the paper. Some researchers will have already received an email from the publisher asking them if they would like to take advantage of this deal, so keep an eye on your inbox as you need to reply within 5 days. If you publish in one of Sage’s fully open access journals you can receive a 20% discount on the APCs.

The deal we have with Wiley applies to both their hybrid and fully open access journals and covers original research and review articles. To benefit from this deal, you need to be the corresponding author and must indicate your affiliation with the OU’s Wiley Open Access Account in the payment question during manuscript submission. Please note that the Wiley Open Access Account cannot be used to cover page charges. There is a cap on the number of publications that are covered by this deal, so we are operating it on a first come, first served basis.

The deal we have with Springer applies to original papers, review papers, brief communications or continuing education published in a Springer Open Choice journal. Again, you have to be the corresponding author and a researcher affiliated to the OU.

It’s a good idea to keep up to date with these publishing agreements via our web pages, as new deals are being negotiated all the time and they can change at short notice.

Please note that the Open University has a preference for a CC BY license to be applied to any outputs that are published under these negotiated deals, in order to maximise possibilities for re-use.

If you have any questions, please get in touch: library-research-support@open.ac.uk

April 27 2020 – 13:00 to 14:00

This webinar will give an overview of what research integrity is, why it’s important and new challenges faced by publishers to maintain research integrity in a fast-changing industry. The webinar will focus on the importance of collaborative solutions to these challenges and will be of interest to researchers, institutions, editors, publishers, librarians and anyone else involved on the conduct, oversight and dissemination of scholarly research.

Speaker Jigisha Patel, Research Integrity Consultant

 Sign up and contact info: https://www.uksg.org/event/free-uksg-webinar-research-integrity-2020-new-challenges-new-decade

1-4pm Wednesday 6^th November (with lunch from 1-1:30pm)

Library Presentation Room

Join us for lunch followed by a brief foray into open research practices and approaches! If you are interested in making your research more visible, increasing impact, enabling collaboration, making the research process more transparent or sharing your work so others can reuse it… then this is the workshop for you. We’ll be looking at what ‘being more open’ in research means, discussing examples and considering what some of the benefits and challenges are.

This workshop will:

• Look at different stages of the research process and what being ‘open’ means within these contexts;
• Provide practical advice and suggestions;
• Discuss the challenges and benefits of being more open research;
• Give you an exciting range of next steps to continue your open research journey

The workshop will end with a presentation on responsible research and innovation and how this fits with open research.

Lunch and refreshments are kindly being sponsored by the EU-funded project Fostering Improved Training Tools for Responsible Research and Innovation (FIT4RR). Lunch will be from 1-1:30pm and the workshop will begin at 1:30pm.

RDF Categories (PGRS/Researchers) UKPSF/ Applaud (Academic Staff)

Research Development Framework (RDF) references: Domain D1, 2 & 3

About the facilitators

This workshop will be facilitated by Beck Pitt from the Open Education Research (OER) Hub team, Nicola Dowson from the Library Research Support team and Nancy Pontika from the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) who is part of the EU-funded project Fostering Improved Training Tools for Responsible Research and Innovation (FIT4RR)

Booking Procedure

To register, please sign up directly through My Learning Centre (scroll down to ‘Event dates’) https://thelearningcentre.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=3614.  Please indicate in the notes field if you require lunch and have any special dietary requirements.

Contact Details

If you need more information please contact the Library Research Support Team by emailing: library-research-support@open.ac.uk.

Joining instructions

You can attend this training in person or online.

For online attendance, simply go to https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/connecthosted/view.php?id=18666  a few minutes before the start of the session and click “Join Room”.

Cancellation Procedure

If you are unable to attend, please cancel directly through My Learning Centre, giving at least 2 full working days notice

Research, Enterprise and Scholarship (RES) are running a programme of six short lunchtime workshops covering a range of topics relating to the commercialisation of University research. Each workshop will run for one hour, and the presenters will be on hand for 30 minutes at the end for anyone wishing to discuss individual projects. All sessions will start at 12:00.

The dates and topics being covered are shown in the programme below. To book your place on any or all the sessions email tony.sayer@open.ac.uk.

A light lunch will be provided, so why not come along for a bite to eat, learn how the University exploits its research outputs and take the opportunity to discuss a specific project.

Don’t worry if you are unable to attend any of the sessions, as they are planning to run the series again over April to June 2020.

20/11/19
Research IP Policy and IP Rights
• Key features of the University’s Research IP Policy
• All forms of IP Rights
• Methods of protecting IP
• The patenting process
• Patent registration vs early publication
• Costs of IP protection
• Due diligence

03/12/19
Entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy and open innovation
• Understanding the innovation ecosystem
• Elements of Knowledge Exploitation
• Overview of the knowledge transfer process

14/01/20
IP in the arts and creative industries
• Understanding copyright and software IP
• Routes to market for copyright and software commercialisation
• Commercialising know-how and design rights
• Software licensing and licences (inc. free and open source)
• Licensing rights and obligations

29/01/20
Working with Enterprise to maximise results
• Invention disclosure and IP evaluation
• Market assessment and opportunity valuation
• Exploitation planning

11/02/20
Marketing strategy
• Planning a marketing strategy for individual projects
• Developing marketing profiles that ‘speak to the customer’
• Targeting partners
• Platforms for promotion

25/02/20
Business Model Canvas
• Critical awareness of business models and how to create them
• Business Model Canvas and other business mapping methodologies
• Mapping customer needs, ‘pain points’ and gains

Join us on October 23^rd for a day of Open Access training and discussions, in celebration of International Open Access Week.

Perhaps you want to learn a bit more about Open Access Publishing, or the REF Open Access Policy. Chris Biggs from the Library Support Team will be on hand to give an overview of the Open Access landscape in his training session Getting to grips with Open Access Publishing from 10.30 – 12.00. You can sign up to join this training session via My Learning Centre.

Stick around for our lunchtime seminar (12.30 – 1.30pm) to hear Dr Muriel Swijghuisen Reigersberg from Research, Enterprise and Scholarship (RES) present on the topic of open knowledge distribution and how this may (or may not) provide opportunities to enhance the capacity of the Global South and other areas to participate in the production, sharing and consumption of new knowledge.  As a backdrop to this discussion, she will refer to her involvement with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) as well as her own research writing and publishing practices within the field of ethnomusicology.

This will be followed by a presentation from David Jenkins of the Research Support Team of results from a project he has been coordinating, investigating the possibility of The OU signing up to an external responsible metrics statement, such as the San Francisco declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

Sign up to attend this lunchtime seminar in person or online via EventBrite.

We look forward to seeing you there!