Category Archives: oa.consortia

The OLH Open Consortial Offer

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“The Open Library of Humanities welcomes expressions of interest from consortia, societies, networks and scholarly projects interested in joining the OLH as a bloc.

We believe that an open offer is advantageous for three reasons:

It is a collective and affordable expression of support for and commitment to scholarly open access.

It can be deployed as a cost-effective alternative to paying APCs for group publications, redirecting scholarly funds towards the creation of new research at the direct/indirect cost of production.

The mechanism of this offer allows larger partners in a group or consortium to support their peers, with each member paying according to their ability and benefiting according to their needs.

We also believe that it is crucial for collective actors to be aware of their options, and of the benefits of acting together in solidarity. The alternative is the prisoner’s dilemma scenario familiar to universities negotiating with legacy publishers. We know that we are all stronger when discussion is frank and transparent. 

First, how does the offer work? The OLH subsidy is banded based on the nationality of a joining institution. The banding also accounts for the relative size of the institution at a national level: for example, the cost for a large institution in the US is USD $2123 per annum, whereas the fee for a smaller US institution is USD $681 per annum….”

The OLH Open Consortial Offer

Posted on by

“The Open Library of Humanities welcomes expressions of interest from consortia, societies, networks and scholarly projects interested in joining the OLH as a bloc.

We believe that an open offer is advantageous for three reasons:

It is a collective and affordable expression of support for and commitment to scholarly open access.

It can be deployed as a cost-effective alternative to paying APCs for group publications, redirecting scholarly funds towards the creation of new research at the direct/indirect cost of production.

The mechanism of this offer allows larger partners in a group or consortium to support their peers, with each member paying according to their ability and benefiting according to their needs.

We also believe that it is crucial for collective actors to be aware of their options, and of the benefits of acting together in solidarity. The alternative is the prisoner’s dilemma scenario familiar to universities negotiating with legacy publishers. We know that we are all stronger when discussion is frank and transparent. 

First, how does the offer work? The OLH subsidy is banded based on the nationality of a joining institution. The banding also accounts for the relative size of the institution at a national level: for example, the cost for a large institution in the US is USD $2123 per annum, whereas the fee for a smaller US institution is USD $681 per annum….”

Research on Research Institute (RoRI)

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“RoRI is an international consortium of research funders, academics and technologists working to champion transformative and translational research on research.

By analysing research systems and experimenting with new tools, indicators and evaluation frameworks, we aim to advance more strategic, open, diverse and inclusive research….”

Research on Research Institute Launches to Enable More Strategic, Open, Diverse, And Inclusive Research

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“We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) – an international consortium of research funders, academic institutions, and technologists working to champion the latest approaches to research on research.

Co-founded by the Wellcome Trust, the universities of Sheffield and Leiden, and Digital Science, the RoRI consortium will undertake transformative and translational research on research (also known as meta-research, science of science or meta-science). By analysing research systems and experimenting with decision and evaluation data, tools and frameworks, we aim to advance more strategic, open, diverse and inclusive research….”

New Read & Publish agre­e­ment publicly avai­lab­le – Kungliga biblioteket – kb.se

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“46 organisations chose to join the new agreement, which runs for three years, starting January 1st 2019. It covers rights to publish in over 1 800 hybrid journals at no extra cost for the author as well as reading rights from 1997 for over 2 100 journals. Together with the other agreement recently signed for publishing in gold open access journals, this new Read & Publish agreement allows researchers affiliated with the Bibsam Consortium to publish open access in almost the entire Springer Nature journal portfolio….”

The Data Curation Network – A shared staffing model for digital data repositories

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“As professional data curators, research data librarians, academic library administrators, directors of international data repositories, disciplinary subject experts, and scholars we represent academic institutions and non-profit societies that make research data available to the public….

Data curators prepare and enrich research data to make them findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). Sharing our data curation staff across DCN partner institutions enables data repositories to collectively, and more effectively, curate a wider variety of data types (e.g., discipline, file format, etc.) that expands beyond what any single institution might offer alone….”

Guest Post: Evaluating Open Access in a Consortial Context – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“OhioLINK has 188 member libraries from 89 higher education institutions plus the State Library of Ohio: 16 public universities, 51 independent university and college libraries, 23 two-year college libraries, 16 regional campus libraries, 8 law school libraries, and 5 medical school libraries. Membership includes three R1 institutions, five ARL libraries, and the Cleveland Clinic. Given the makeup of the institutional membership, sometimes OhioLINK can serve as a microcosm of the U.S. higher educational library market as a whole. (For an OhioLINK-specific analysis of institutional type and library alignment within the context of the University Futures, Library Futures OCLC Research/Ithaka S+R research report, see Constance Malpas’ presentation “University Futures, Library Futures: institutional and library directions in OhioLINK.”)

These are OhioLINK publishing and usage figures for one major STEM publisher in 2018. OhioLINK institutions published approximately 1,000 articles in the 900+ titles for which OhioLINK had a subscription. “Publish” activity from OhioLINK researchers accounted for about 0.4% of the total articles for which members had subscription access. “Read” activity was 1,900,000+ full text downloads. One institution accounted for 34% of all published articles in these titles; another group of three institutions accounted for a further 36% for a total of 70% output from the top four publishing institutions; 22 institutions made up the rest of the publishing activity out of a consortium of 90 institutions. The top four publishing institutions published between 10% and 12% of their articles in any kind of OA form (not by consortial agreement or subsidy, but acting individually either at the institutional or author level.) In total, OhioLINK-affiliated authors paid APCs for approximately 100 OA articles: 80% fully OA journals, 20% OA in hybrid journals….

We would expect any Read and Publish deals from publishers to conform to our particular publishing profile, rather than to a California Digital Library profile or a Projekt Deal profile. For some consortia, such as those composed of mostly private colleges, there is even less publishing activity. There is no standard deal that will fit all consortia; some consortia may not be offered certain OA deals at all, or the OA deals on offer will not be financially viable without significant outside sources of funding. Our collective question is: Given that much of the revenue coming from our members is, and always will be, from “Read” = subscription funding, what are the implications for the future financial burden of “Publish” consortia as more institutions become free riders? How will “Read” institutions/consortia participate in OA funding initiatives?:

OhioLINK Breaks New Ground Creating Central Fund for Open Access Publications with Wiley | Wiley News Room – Press Releases, News, Events & Media

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“OhioLINK, a library consortium serving 118 libraries and 89 Ohio colleges and universities, announced today the signing of a Wiley Open Access Account agreement. A Wiley Open Access Account will enable OhioLINK-affiliated researchers to use a central fund for Article Publication Charges (APC). The partnership reflects both parties’ growing commitment to open research and advancing scholarly communications. OhioLINK is the first North American library consortium to centrally fund the creation and dissemination of open access research….”

Will Transformative Agreements Unravel Library Consortia? – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“Over the past few months we’ve seen increased attention to consortial efforts to reach transformative agreements with publishers. Some recent successes include DEAL/Germany with Wiley, University of California with Cambridge University Press, Springer Nature with Jisc/UK, and Elsevier with UNIT/Norway. It is clear that many library consortia are prioritizing open access publishing in their publisher contracts, which they have stated clearly must be cost neutral or at least cost controlling overall.

Underneath the importance of cost control in the aggregate lies an extremely important question — how is the cost of a transformative agreement distributed within a library consortium among its members? I observe today that cost share distribution within consortia is a substantial risk to the ability of transformative agreements to take hold for the long term and may threaten the cohesion of consortia as well….”

Arizona State Working with Community Colleges in Interactive OER Pilot — Campus Technology

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“Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College is working with three of the largest community college systems in the country to adopt the use of interactive open educational resources. The Consortium for Open Active Pathways, as it’s called, will use technology to increase the availability of college-level educational materials, particularly in healthcare studies, a big component of community college education. The work is being funded by a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The other institutions involved are Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Florida’s Miami Dade College and Indiana’s Ivy Tech Community College….”