Transforming Scholarly Communication: A Blog

Sustainable Models for Society Publications: Recording of our April 25 faculty forum

You can watch an archived webcast of our April 25 faculty forum here:

https://umconnect.umn.edu/p63403805/

University of North Texas Faculty Senate approves open access policy

On March 9, 2011, the UNT Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly to support the UNT Policy on Open Access to Scholarly Works.Work on the policy began in 2010 with the establishment of an Open Access Policy Committee. The Committee developed drafts of the policy document, revised with input from faculty members, Faculty Senators, external reviewers, and others. Faculty Senate approval is a major milestone in the process of adopting and approving this policy as an official UNT policy.

http://openaccess.unt.edu/news/10-03-2011/unt-faculty-senate-approves-open-access-policy

Some key aspects of the policy:

• Each UNT Community Member deposits in the UNT Libraries scholarly works repository a final version of his/her scholarly works to which he or she made intellectual contributions. The determination of what comprises a final version is made by the community member.
• The policy does not require transfer of copyright to UNT nor does it prescribe or encourage any particular venue for scholarly publication.
• A UNT Community Member can request a waiver from granting UNT a license for dissemination and preservation of a peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication journal article. The specific procedure for requesting a waiver will be developed as part of the implementation of the policy, but the intent is to minimize the effort by the UNT Community Member to initiate the request. Most likely it will be done electronically through the submission system, which will be specified as part of the implementation.

SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing) to begin implementation

"The SCOAP3 proposal is a valuable opportunity to create a viable alternative to the status quo in scholarly publishing for one entire discipline. It aims to reach consensus among all stakeholders on a new model for publishing in high-energy physics, and establish market equilibrium. The proposal is currently supported by ~100 U.S. libraries, either directly or through consortia, and by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, on behalf of all Canadian libraries, as well as libraries, consortia and funding agencies in 18 other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Australasia."
http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/papers/SCOAP3_09april.shtml

From SCOAP3's April 12 news entry:

On April 6th 2011 representatives from institutions in the global SCOAP3 partnership convened to assess the progress of this Open Access initiative.

Large publishers in the field, APS, Elsevier, IOPp, SISSA and Springer, shared their opinions on the SCOAP3 model and their intention to participate in a SCOAP3 tender aiming to convert to Open Access the high-quality peer-reviewed literature in the field, conditional on reassurances concerning the long-term sustainability of SCOAP3. SCOAP3 partners reaffirmed the importance of a mutual understanding with the publishing industry on price reduction of large subscription packages for partner libraries in countries that are part of the initiative. All presentations, transcripts and videos are available on the SCOAP3 web site.

Register for the faculty forum: Sustainable Models for Society Publications

An event especially for--but not exclusive to--faculty active in professional societies and publishing

The University of Minnesota Libraries present

Sustainable Models for Society Publications:
Faculty Talking to Faculty
Monday, April 25th • 2:00-4:00 p.m.
120 Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota
Refreshments will be served

A. Townsend PetersonSpecial Guest Speaker, A. Townsend Peterson
University Distinguished Professor
Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
The University of Kansas, Lawrence

Three faculty members from the University of Minnesota from across disciplines will participate in the forum. The panelists will give short presentations on their current societies and publishing models as well as serve as respondents to the special guest speaker's presentation.

The three faculty panelists include:

• Douglas Arnold, Professor of Mathematics, and President of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Jean Wyman, Head of the School of Nursing, and Vice President of the American College of Nurse Midwives; President of the Midwest Nursing Research Association, the Western Journal of Nursing Research.
• Becky Yust, Head of the Department of Design Housing and Apparel, and Editor of Housing and Society, the journal of the Housing Education and Research Association

A recent trend with professional societies is to outsource publication functions to commercial publishers. A few challenges result from this trend -- Libraries with static budgets cannot afford the price increases that accompany the shift to commercial publishers, while societies may see increased revenue they are losing readership.

1. What options might societies, libraries, and commercial publishers consider to create a win-win situation for the dissemination of scholarly research and for the financial stability of professional associations?


2. How might libraries and societies keep access to the publications readily available?

Professional associations site publications as benefits of membership. Restricting access to society publications to members-only inhibits the option of the scholarly journals becoming part of the open access model for scholarly communications.

1. Are there other ways associations might manage their benefits packages that does not compromise readership?


2. Should societies keep their publications exclusive to members only?

Reserve your seat now!
(registration requested by Monday, April 18)