[BOAI] OAPEN News, March 2009

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Open Access Publishing in 
European Networks (OAPEN).  --Peter Suber.]


OAPEN NEWSLETTER

NUMBER 1 - MARCH 2009

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your interest in OAPEN, Open Access 
Publishing in European Networks, a European 
Commission (EC) co-funded project. It is my 
pleasure to launch the first official newsletter 
and to give an introduction on the project's 
activities. Through this medium the 
<outbind://8/#OAPEN_PARTNERS>OAPEN partners would 
like to establish a regular communication channel 
about OAPEN. It will provide a short overview on 
the project's activities since the start 
(<outbind://8/#PROJECT_NEWS>Project news), 
describes the way in which we are engaging 
stakeholders in the scholarly communication 
process (<outbind://8/#MAKING_CONNECTIONS>Making 
connections) and provides an outlook on future 
activities (<outbind://8/#GOING_FORWARD>Going Forward).

If you are attending the London Book Fair (April 
20-22) and would like to talk about the project, 
please contact me. And please don't hesitate to give me your feedback.

Eelco Ferwerda (Project Manager)

Amsterdam University Press

<mailto:e.ferwerda at aup.nl>e.ferwerda at aup.nl


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OAPEN PROJECT NEWS

Project in brief

The scholarly book in the digital age faces 
challenges such as economic constraints, changing 
attitudes of readers using the internet and new 
possibilities offered by electronic media. 
Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) as 
book-oriented sciences therefore are especially 
effected. This refers to their respective 
publishers, often organised as not-for-profit 
presses or small and medium size enterprises. At 
the same time the mentioned scholarly fields and 
publishers could benefit especially from Open 
Access publishing with its potential to reach new 
audiences and limit publishing costs.

OAPEN is a Targeted Project co-funded by the EC 
within its eContentplus Programme.

OAPEN aims to develop and implement an Open 
Access publication model for academic books in 
HSS. Our goal is to achieve a sustainable 
European approach to improve the quantity, 
visibility and usability of high quality academic 
research and foster the creation of new content 
by developing future-oriented publishing 
solutions, including an open access library for 
peer reviewed books in HSS. The 30-months project started in September 2008.

Learn more about OAPEN by visiting the website: 
<http://www.oapen.org/>www.oapen.org

Activities

In September 2008 the project started with a 
number of kick off meetings for the first work 
packages, held in Göttingen, Germany. Our first 
activities included the development of the 
overall architecture and standards for the 
e-publishing platform, setting up the research 
into user needs and existing Open Access models, 
and the promotion of OAPEN among stakeholders in scholarly communication.

Architecture and Standards

OAPEN's infrastructure encompasses a publication 
platform for e-books and an online library, which 
will be open to academic publishers, libraries and researchers.

The overall design of the production process in 
OAPEN will be based on a common architecture and 
international open standards to ensure easier 
cooperation between the partners and to make 
seamless integration of new partners possible. 
The vision for the architecture was described in 
an Architecture Standards Report. For further 
information on the technical aspects of the 
project please contact <mailto:r.snijder at aup.nl>r.snijder at aup.nl

Research into user needs

The research into user needs and existing Open 
Access models will be an important foundation for 
OAPEN's OA publication model. The research 
includes a number of round table discussions with 
stakeholders. The first two have already been 
conducted: one at the <http://www.ape2009.eu/>APE 
conference in Berlin (January), another at the 
<http://www.apm2009.eu/>APM conference in Florence (March).

Currently, a number of face to face interviews 
are being held in six different countries. These 
interviews are with the main stakeholders for the 
project: representatives from academic presses, 
research libraries, research councils and individual scholars.

In addition, an online survey is being prepared, 
which will be sent to a large number of scholars 
in several European countries, and will also be 
presented on <http://www.oapen.org/>OAPEN's website.

Raising awareness

Different members of the consortium have 
presented OAPEN at conferences, among them 
<http://www.sdu.dk/om_sdu/institutter_centre/ilkm/arrangementer/konference/sharpkonf_kbh.aspx?sc_lang=en>'Published 
Word, Public Pages' (September 2008, Copenhagen), 
<http://www.ucsia.org/main.aspx?c=*UCSIA2&n=67846>'Rethinking 
the university after Bologna' (December 2008, 
Antwerp), the 'Open Books' panel at 
<http://www.ape2009.eu/>Academic Publishing in 
Europe (APE, January 2009, Berlin) and most 
recently as part of a session on the role of 
University Presses, 'Strength in Numbers', at 
<http://www.apm2009.eu/>Academic Publishing in 
the Mediterranean Region (APM, March 2009, Florence).

OAPEN was also present at the 
<http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/en/fbf/>Frankfurt 
Book Fair to talk with publishers and will be 
present at the 
<http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=VCalendarIndex/CalendarID=2/t=m>London 
Book Fair in April.

We are pleased that OAPEN was regularly mentioned 
in the many articles on OA publishing and 
e-Monographs (a selection will be listed on 
oapen.org), and proud to be mentioned as one of 
the 
<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-09.htm>highlights 
of Open Access developments in 2008 by Peter Suber.

First meeting of the Scientific Board

The OAPEN project has installed two external 
bodies (External stakeholder Group and Scientific 
Board) to ensure that the needs of scholars, 
publishers, funders and universities are met by 
the project's findings and developments. The 
<http://www.oapen.org/partners.asp#scientific>Scientific 
Board of OAPEN consists of several international 
renowned scholars known for their expertise in 
publishing. Among them are scholars promoting 
Open Access such as Jean Claude Guédon 
(University of Montreal) or Gerhard Lauer 
(University of Göttingen), publishers and editors 
making electronic publishing come true like 
Charles Henry (<http://ricepress.rice.edu/>Rice 
University Press) or Siggi Jöttkandt 
(<http://openhumanitiespress.org/>Open Humanities 
Press), but also representatives from funders and 
university associations like Sarah Porter 
(<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/>JISC) and Sijbolt Noorda (<http://www.eua.be/>EUA).

The first meeting constituted the Scientific 
Board as an active part of OAPEN. The board 
members will serve as a consulting and inspiring 
body for OAPEN during the funding period and 
hopefully beyond. Conclusions from the first 
board meeting were for instance to account for 
widespread conservative publishing attitudes 
among HSS scholars and at the same time the need 
to promote new modes of publishing such as more 
fluid media forms. The board members emphasised 
the importance of publisher-organised quality 
control and Open Access experiments for the 
mentioned fields and encouraged the project 
partners to conduct OAPEN as planned.

For further information on scientific information 
please contact 
<mailto:bschmidt at sub.uni-goettingen.de>bschmidt at sub.uni-goettingen.de


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MAKING CONNECTIONS

Connecting with other European projects
OAPEN will integrate with existing and future 
European projects in the area of scholarly 
communication and digital content. OAPEN's 
partners are already represented in a number of 
projects. 
<http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/>Georg-August 
Universität Göttingen and 
<http://www.uva.nl/>University of Amsterdam are 
both involved in 
<http://www.driver-repository.eu/>DRIVER II, the 
project to further develop and expand the 
pan-European infrastructure for digital 
repositories. 
<http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/>Georg-August 
Universität Göttingen is also a member of 
<http://www.peerproject.eu/>PEER, the 
collaborative project investigating the effects 
of so-called Green Open Access. 
<http://www.aup.nl/>Amsterdam University Press 
will take part in 
<http://dev.europeana.eu/where_next.php>Europeana 
Connect, the project to build services around 
Europeana, the European digital library, museum and archive.

Engaging stakeholders
In order to create a sustainable approach to OA 
monograph publishing OAPEN will fully engage 
stakeholders in scholarly communication in the 
publication process. The 
<http://oapen.org/partners.asp#external>External 
Stakeholder Group (ESG) has been created as a 
platform for discussion of the principles behind 
the Open Access publication model for books in 
HSS. The first meeting of the ESG will be held on June 12 in Amsterdam.

Building a Network
OAPEN aims to increase European collaboration 
through its network and encourages stakeholders 
in Scholarly communication, such as academic 
publishers, libraries, research councils and 
their representatives, to become network 
partners. Partners will be informed about the 
project and its results, involved in the 
development of models and standards, and invited 
to take part in discussions. At a later stage, 
partners will be able to use OAPEN's online 
publication platform to create and maintain 
e-books, and they will be invited to provide peer 
reviewed books for inclusion in OAPEN's Open 
Access library. Our goal is to create the largest 
collection of current Open Access publications in 
Humanities and Social Sciences by including 
titles from many scholarly publishers across Europe.

Since the start of the project, the network has 
grown steadily and includes academic institutions 
and publishers from various countries. We are 
pleased with the interest from both distinguished 
commercial publishers such as 
<http://www.brill.nl/>Brill and 
<http://www.akademie-verlag.de/av/de?hasjs=1238057351&submittedByForm=1&_lang=de&gsid=1.c.325876.de&id=325876>Akademie 
Verlag and recently established OA publishers 
such as <http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/>Open 
Humanities Press and <http://www.openbookpublishers.com/>Open Book Publishers.

Stakeholders wanting to 
<http://oapen.org/join.asp>join OAPEN's network 
can visit our website, contact one of the members 
of the 
<http://oapen.org/partners.asp#consortium>consortium 
or get in touch with Eelco Ferwerda at Amsterdam University Press.


----------
GOING FORWARD

The OAPEN project is now fully underway, with the 
commencement of Work Packages concerning the Open 
Access publication model, the e-publication services and the online library.

Open Access publication model for monographs

A central part of the project is the development 
of an OA publication model. The model needs to be 
sustainable and adoptable by Academic publishers 
across Europe. It includes the development of 
common funding models for the publication of 
e-books, and therefore involves stakeholders in 
the Scholarly communication process. The OA 
publication model will result in a workflow for 
the production of e-books, a set of services 
connected to the electronic publication of books, 
a business model to sustain the publication 
process, and a framework for licensing content.

OAPEN's Infrastructure

OAPEN's infrastructure encompasses a publication 
platform for e-books and an online library.

The publication platform will be used to create 
and maintain e-books and will include tools for 
the standardized production of e-books. OAPEN 
will offer various services connected to the 
platform, such as marketing services (data export 
and alerting mechanisms), a print-on-demand 
service and services for digitization and conversion into XML.

The online library will be based on the existing 
European repository infrastructure and include a 
central repository, a harvester for metadata of 
publications deposited in external repositories, 
aggregation services and full text multi lingual search features.

Upcoming events

<http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=VCalendarIndex/CalendarID=2/t=m>London 
Book Fair, April 20-21, London

<http://www.econtent2009.com/>E-books and 
E-content 2009, http://www.econtent2009.com/, May 12, London

OAPEN's 
<http://oapen.org/partners.asp#external>External 
Stakeholder Group, June 12, Amsterdam

Visit us at the London Book Fair

OAPEN will be present at the London Book Fair to 
talk to interested publishers and other 
stakeholders. Please contact Eelco Ferwerda, 
<mailto:e.ferwerda at aup.nl>e.ferwerda at aup.nl, to make an appointment.

OAPEN Consortium Partners

<http://www.aup.nl/>Amsterdam University Press
<http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/>Georg-August Universität Göttingen
<http://www.mtp.hum.ku.dk/>Museum Tusculanum Press
<http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/>Manchester University Press
<http://presses.univ-lyon2.fr/>Presses Universitaires de Lyon
<http://epress.unifi.it/>Firenze University Press
<http://www.uva.nl/>University of Amsterdam
<http://www.leiden.edu/>Leiden University


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