Open Access and Other License Agreements – Page 4

"Open Access: A Journey from Impossible to Probable, but Still Uncertain"

An overview of the evolution of open access (OA) to scientific publications over the last 20 years is presented. This retrospective look allows us to make two observations that seem to overlap: on the one hand, how close the initial objective seems to be to what initially seemed utopian and, on the other, the unanticipated and solid obstacles that open access has encountered along the way, as well as the unexpected and diverse solutions that are emerging to overcome them. The overall assessment of OA is positive, and it underscores that open access is (or is becoming) possible, that it is good, and that it is necessary. However, this overall positive evolution has come up against two major obstacles that are slowing its progress: the double payments generated by hybrid journals (subscription and article processing charges [APCs]) and the unchecked growth in APCs. In addition, this intensive use of APCs is creating a publishing gap between publishers that charge fees to authors and those that do not, and ultimately, it is causing dissension regarding the (previously shared) strategy toward open access. There are no immediate, one-off solutions to overcome the aforementioned dysfunctions, although three actions that, in the medium term, can remedy them can be mentioned: changing the approach to the evaluation of science, adopting measures to regulate APCs, and promoting alternative publication models. Finally, it should be noted that OA has acted as the vanguard and spearhead of a broader movement: that of open science.

https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.ene.13

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"Licensing Challenges Associated With Text and Data Mining: How Do We Get Our Patrons What They Need?"

Today’s researchers expect to be able to complete text and data mining (TDM) work on many types of textual data. But they are often blocked more by contractual limitations on what data they can use, and how they can use it, than they are by what data may be available to them. This article lays out the different types of TDM processes currently in use, the issues that may block researchers from being able to do the work they would like, and some possible solutions.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.15530

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"A Free Toolkit to Foster Open Access Agreements"

In November 2021, with the support of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) and cOAlition S, four ‘task and finish’ working groups were established. The authors facilitated and supported these groups. Each group was responsible for producing tools that will enable library consortia and small independent publishers to negotiate transformative agreements, which is to say, agreements that will enable the publisher to fully transition to open access. The first task and finish group developed shared principles for transformative agreements. The second developed a data template to enable smaller independent publishers to reach agreements with library consortia and libraries, while the third developed example licence agreements. These groups recognized that the implementation of a transformative agreement crosses a complex ecosystem of technology, processes, policies, automated functions and manual functions that relate to contract management, article submission and peer review, content hosting and dissemination as well as financial management. For this reason, a fourth group produced a workflow framework that describes the process in all its phases. The members of these four groups were volunteers from stakeholder communities including libraries, library consortia, smaller independent publishers and intermediaries. This article explains why these tools are needed and the process behind their creation. The authors have combined these tools into a freely available toolkit, available under a CC BY licence.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.585

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"cOAlition S Confirms the End of Its Financial Support for Open Access Publishing under Transformative Arrangements after 2024"

Plan S was launched in 2018. At that time, cOAlition S recognised that transformative arrangements would provide a useful means to repurpose funds for journal subscriptions to publication fees, thus supporting legacy publishers in transforming paywalled to Open Access publication models. It was, however, also clear that the transformation would have to be completed at a definite point in time, by the end of 2024 at the latest. We maintain this timeline. We believe that the strategy of providing financial support for these arrangements—endorsed by many cOAlition S members—beyond 2024 would significantly increase the risk that these arrangements will become permanent and perpetuate hybrid Open Access, which cOAlition S has always firmly opposed.

bit.ly/3Y2l8He

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TRLN Guide to Negotiating Accessibility in E-Resource Licenses

This resource is meant to serve as a reference tool for library staff involved in licensing and e-resources management as they advocate for strong accessibility assurances in their formal contracts with service and content providers. Each component of TRLN’s preferred accessibility language has been broken down into various components and discussed. The components include: a reference to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a reference to Section 508, a reference to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the provision of a VPAT, the institution’s right to modify content to make it accessible for end users, and the provider’s responsibility to respond to and remedy accessibility-related complaints and issues

http://bit.ly/trln-a11y-eresource-license

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"Adding Equity to Transformative Agreements and Journal Subscriptions — The Read & Let Read Model"

Not only should libraries pay for access to that number of articles in the next year, they should multiply it by two. This will mean that likely about half the prepaid article uses will go unclaimed by a libraries’ community during the coverage year. To justify the "double" payment, these unclaimed uses shall be made available for any online reader during the following year. . . . I call this plan Read & Let Read (R&LR).

bit.ly/3iGSgoz

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"Institute of Physics Publishing Strikes Unlimited Publishing Deal with Big Ten Academic Alliance"

Strengthening the commitment to opening research, IOP Publishing (IOPP) has agreed to a three-year unlimited open publishing agreement with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) consortium in the United States (US). Beginning January 2023, the agreement enables affiliated researchers to publish unlimited Open Access (OA) papers at no cost to them. . . . During the agreement, authors affiliated with Big Ten Academic Alliance institutions will be able to make their research openly accessible to the global community immediately after publication while retaining their copyright.

https://cutt.ly/u19NN2u

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Paywall: "Ratios for Evaluating Full-Text Journal Article Access: A Quantitative Study"

This article proposes a methodology for systematically assessing the cost of journal subscriptions. The authors of the paper. . . established ratios comparing the list costs of journal articles as advertised by publishers against the cost per article of journal articles available in aggregated collections in library databases. . . The researchers propose that the ratios can be used by libraries wishing to apply a standard methodology for assessing journal packages containing full-text articles.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2022.2139331

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"Texas Universities Reach Historic Deal with Elsevier: TLCUA Saves Texas Universities Millions Collectively"

All TLCUA members will receive a discount on journal subscriptions—some as high as 30%—while still maintaining significant amounts of access to journals and combined, will realize a savings of over $4.75M annually. Beyond initial cost savings, Elsevier agreed to a maximum annual increase of 2% over the course of the license agreement, with some years as low as 0%, which is significantly lower than industry standard. . . . TLCUA and Elsevier have agreed to partner on a pilot project to revert ownership of journal articles back to original authors—and not just those at TLCUA-member institutions. Currently, authors transfer copyright of their work in exchange for that work being published. This pilot will provide for rights to go back to authors after a period of time that will be collaboratively determined with Elsevier. . . . Further, all TLCUA-member authors who choose to publish their work under an open access license will have access to discounted author publication charges (APCs). TLCUA also negotiated a license template that removed non-disclosure terms, restrictions on sharing usage data, and 44-year-old limitations on interlibrary loans (i.e., CONTU Guidelines) to expand library collaboration and improve how libraries can share information on journal usage.

https://cutt.ly/G1Yu8IU

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India: "Ministry [of Education] Sets ‘One Nation, One Subscription ’ Deal Deadline"

"One Nation, One Subscription" (ONOS) is a scheme of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. The letter from the ministry’s Department of Higher Education said the government will negotiate with journal publishers for "all people in India" to have access to journal articles under a single centrally negotiated payment to be made by the government.

https://cutt.ly/A1bnyQK

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"Recommendations for Transformative Journal Agreements with Providers of Publishing Services Published"

These formulated criteria will serve as a common, action-guiding framework for actors from all science organizations—that is, higher education institutions as well as non-university research institutions—for negotiations with providers of publishing services. . . .The criteria are organized into the following aspects: journal transformation, pricing; transparency, workflow, preprints, metadata and interfaces, statistics, tracking, and waivers.

https://cutt.ly/z1zjc9H

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Oregon State University: "Elsevier Negotiations Suspended — Library Plans and Alternative Ways to Access Articles"

You have probably just read the Provost’s announcement that we are suspending our negotiations with Elsevier for the remainder of this year. We did not make this decision lightly. Our Elsevier contract represents more than one-fifth of our entire collections budget at OSU, and we know that this decision will be disruptive. . . .Our primary strategy will be article-level fulfillment. We will build on our already outstanding Interlibrary Loan service (ILL), and add some additional tools that should improve those workflows and provide a more seamless user experience. . . . In the summer of 2023 we will develop a timeline and goals for access to Elsevier content in 2024. At that point, we will be looking to secure access to a curated list of titles, informed by the assessment I described above, and by the ongoing conversations we have been having with our OSU community about open and sustainable scholarly communication.

https://cutt.ly/sMZWsgs

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University of Washington: "Elsevier Negotiation Update 11/2/2022"

At $2.6M per year and an annual 2.5% increase, the Elsevier journal package is the most expensive annual expenditure for the University of Washington (UW) Libraries. For context, the total UW Libraries collections budget for the Seattle campus is approximately $16 million, and we spend about $13 million on ongoing subscriptions. Immediate access to 2,500 Elsevier journal titles published in the current year represent about 15% of the Libraries annual collections budget. . . .The Elsevier journal package reinforces the scholarly publishing model based on paywalls and rationing of access, inequitable opportunities for publishing, and excessive pricing and annual price increases that undermines a scholarly ecosystem where the open sharing of knowledge is critical to accelerating change for the public good. . . .As a result, the Libraries will be unable to maintain immediate access for all titles in our current list of 2,500 Elsevier journal titles on ScienceDirect. There is no choice but to begin identifying which journals need to be available for immediate access to meet patient care needs as well as long term use for research, teaching, and learning. The Libraries will continue to provide faculty, students and staff access to published articles through alternative access options such as PubMed Central, Google Scholar, and interlibrary loan — most requested articles are delivered within a few hours or business days.

https://cutt.ly/bMZQwIf

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"Readers Have Borrowed over 3 Billion Digital Books through Overdrive"

From the very first library checkout of an ebook through OverDrive back in 2003, we have had one vision: to create a world enlightened by reading. . . . It took us four years to reach the first 1 million checkouts in 2007 and another five to reach 100 million in 2012. In 2018, our all-time checkouts reached one billion. And now, twenty years after that very first ebook checkout, thanks to readers, librarians, and booklovers like you, we have reached three billion checkouts.

https://cutt.ly/5MTS5N8

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"Elsevier and Council of Australian University Librarians Sign Agreement to Support Transition to Open Access Publishing Alongside Continued Research Access for Australia and New Zealand Researchers"

The three-year agreement addresses CAUL’s goals for a rapid and sustainable transition to open access publishing and represents the largest transformative agreement for both countries.

Under the agreement, which takes effect from January 2023, ANZ researchers at CAUL-affiliated academic institutions that participate in the agreement can make their research articles immediately available via open access publishing in Elsevier’s journals.

https://cutt.ly/BMQRgeL

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"The Rise of Open Access Journals in Radiation Oncology: Influence on Resident Research, 2015 – 2019"

The residents in this study published 2,637 first-author, PubMed-searchable manuscripts, 555 (21.0%) of which appeared in 138 OA journals. The number of publications in OA journals per resident increased from 0.47 for the class of 2015 to 0.79 for the class of 2019. Publications in OA journals garnered fewer citations than those in non-OA journals (8.9 versus 14.9, p < 0.01). 90.6% of OA journals levy an APC for original research reports (median $1,896), which is positively correlated with their 2019 impact factor (r = 0.63, p < 0.01). Aggregate APCs totaled $900,319.21 and appeared to increase over the study period.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adro.2022.101121

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Investments in Open: Association of Research Libraries US University Member Expenditures on Services, Collections, Staff, and Infrastructure in Support of Open Scholarship

In total, 46 of the 102 institutions provided full or partial results. Summary results are divided into the following categories: read-and-publish or transitional agreements, article processing charges (APC) or OA funds, non-APC-based OA publishing models, institutional repository services, OA journal hosting and publishing services, and open monographs.

The survey found that the total aggregate spending on open access for all 46 responding libraries was $32 million USD, with an average expenditure per institution of $785,940. This represents an average of 2.26% of the total library budget spent on open, ranging from 0.19% to 11.02% across respondent libraries. As a portion of the total amount of expenses spent on OA infrastructure, the majority of funds are invested in read-and-publish agreements (~$20 million) followed by institutional repository infrastructure with investments of 17% of total OA expenses (~$5 million) across the 46 institutions.

https://cutt.ly/nMuAMbT

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"Lessons Learned from Reevaluating Big Deals with Unsub"

The value of big deals is increasingly unclear. This article briefly discusses factors others have considered in evaluating big deals and covers the four factors that should be considered moving forward: open access, interlibrary loan, post-termination access, and a-la-carte costs. Unsub, a tool for reevaluating big deals created by the nonprofit OurResearch, is introduced. Lessons learned are shared from two years of helping libraries reevaluate big deals to provide insight into the complexities and tradeoffs involved in evaluating big deals across many libraries.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2022.2132090

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"AAAS Survey: Many Researchers Face Difficulties Paying Open Access Fees"

The ability of researchers to obtain funding for APCs varied based on institution size, the survey found. Researchers at institutions with a student body between 3,000 and 9,999 students were three times as likely to find it very difficult to obtain funds for APCs as their counterparts at larger institutions with more than 10,000 students, adjusting for gender, race, and length of time conducting research. The survey also found gender disparities in funding for APCs: women were three times as likely to use grant funds to pay for APCs than their male counterparts, adjusting for race, length of time conducting research, and institution size.

https://cutt.ly/lNkyZCf

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"Five Ways to Optimize Open Access Uptake after a Signed Read and Publish Contract: Lessons Learned from the Dutch UKB Consortium"

Consortia and publishers invest a lot of time and expertise in the negotiation process. A well-drafted read and publish contract is, however, not enough to guarantee an optimal open access publishing service. The Dutch UKB consortium uses several tools and practices to actively monitor and manage open access uptake during an agreement. Library help desks are provided with a knowledge base covering most frequently asked questions from authors. A journal list gives an integral overview of the more than 11,000 journals that are part of 16 consortium deals. Because researchers wanted to know about open access publishing possibilities from a journal perspective, a journal browser was developed. Workflow improvement and retrospective open access are regular topics in mid-term meetings with publishers, resulting in increased open access uptake. A purpose-built datahub provides the consortium and libraries with publication data that helps monitoring and managing output on both article and deal level. Finally, licence choice including funder compliance is taken into account, resulting in an increasing percentage of CC BY versus the more restricted CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND options.

http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.595

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"Open Access Market Sizing Update 2022"

The 32% increase over 2020 is significantly larger than the growth in the underlying scholarly journals market, which is typically low to mid-single digit. It is larger than expected for the OA market. . . . Around 45% of all scholarly articles were published as paid-for open access in 2021, accounting for just under 15% of the total journal publishing market value.

https://cutt.ly/BBXNu7O

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"The APC-Effect: Stratification in Open Access Publishing"

We analysed 1.5 million scientific articles from journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals to assess average APCs and their determinants for a comprehensive set of journal publications, across scientific disciplines, world regions and through time. Levels of APCs were strongly stratified by scientific fields and the institutions’ countries, corroborating previous findings on publishing cultures and the impact of mandates of research funders. After controlling for country and scientific field with a multilevel mixture model, however, we found small to moderate effects of levels of institutional resourcing on the level of APCs.

https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/w5szk

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"Frankfurt Spotlight: Library E-books Have Leveled Up "

During the height of the pandemic, a number of publishers relaxed terms and prices for library e-books, helping libraries meet digital demand. But as pandemic restrictions have eased and libraries, schools, and business have gotten back to some version of normal, budgets are now strained while digital prices are rising again, and librarians say they don’t know how they will meet the increased digital demand.

https://cutt.ly/kBFFN89

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"Science‘s No-Fee Public-Access Policy Will Take Effect in 2023"

Since then [9/9/2022], Bill Moran, publisher of the Science journals at the AAAS, has told Nature that Science’s policy will come into effect from January 2023 and applies to all five subscription journals in the Science family. . . . He also said that the terms under which authors will be able to share their manuscripts have yet to be finalized, because a custom reuse licence for non-commercial use is still being developed. Open-access scholars say that this leaves questions about how liberally researchers will be able to share their work.

https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03128-2

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"Publishers, Internet Archive Ready for Summary Judgment Hearing in Book Scanning Case "

“That is what this case is about,” IA lawyers conclude. “Whether the selection of books available from libraries digitally will be chosen by librarians, or instead determined by publishers’ unilateral and unreviewable licensing choices. This Court is being asked to decide whether copyright law gives publishers the power to dictate which books in a library’s collection can and cannot be loaned digitally.”

https://cutt.ly/wBbwUxg

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