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<font size=3>[Forwarding from Open Access Publishing in European Networks
(OAPEN). --Peter Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
<b>OAPEN NEWSLETTER <br><br>
</b>NUMBER 1 - MARCH 2009<br><br>
Dear Reader,<br><br>
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
<a href="outbind://8/#OAPEN_PARTNERS"><u>OAPEN partners</a></u> would
like to establish a regular communication channel about OAPEN. It will
provide a short overview on the project's activities since the start
(<a href="outbind://8/#PROJECT_NEWS"><u>Project news</a></u>), describes
the way in which we are engaging stakeholders in the scholarly
communication process
(<a href="outbind://8/#MAKING_CONNECTIONS"><u>Making connections</a></u>)
and provides an outlook on future activities
(<a href="outbind://8/#GOING_FORWARD"><u>Going Forward</a></u>).
<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Eelco Ferwerda (Project Manager)<br><br>
Amsterdam University Press<br><br>
<a href="mailto:e.ferwerda@aup.nl">e.ferwerda@aup.nl</a> <br><br>
<hr>
<b> </b> <br>
<b><a name="PROJECT_NEWS"></a>OAPEN PROJECT NEWS<br><br>
Project in brief<br><br>
</b>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. <br><br>
OAPEN is a Targeted Project co-funded by the EC within its
<i>e</i>Content<i>plus</i> Programme. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Learn more about OAPEN by visiting the website:
<a href="http://www.oapen.org/">www.oapen.org</a><br><br>
<b>Activities <br><br>
</b>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. <br><br>
<b>Architecture and Standards<br><br>
</b>OAPEN's infrastructure encompasses a publication platform for e-books
and an online library, which will be open to academic publishers,
libraries and researchers. <br><br>
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
<a href="mailto:r.snijder@aup.nl">r.snijder@aup.nl</a><br><br>
<b>Research into user needs<br><br>
</b>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
<a href="http://www.ape2009.eu/">APE conference</a> in Berlin (January),
another at the <a href="http://www.apm2009.eu/">APM conference</a> in
Florence (March).<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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 <a href="http://www.oapen.org/">OAPEN's website</a>.
<br><br>
<b>Raising awareness <br><br>
</b>Different members of the consortium have presented OAPEN at
conferences, among them
<a href="http://www.sdu.dk/om_sdu/institutter_centre/ilkm/arrangementer/konference/sharpkonf_kbh.aspx?sc_lang=en">
'Published Word, Public Pages'</a> (September 2008, Copenhagen),
<a href="http://www.ucsia.org/main.aspx?c=*UCSIA2&n=67846">
'Rethinking the university after Bologna'</a> (December 2008, Antwerp),
the 'Open Books' panel at <a href="http://www.ape2009.eu/">Academic
Publishing in Europe</a> (APE, January 2009, Berlin) and most recently as
part of a session on the role of University Presses, 'Strength in
Numbers', at <a href="http://www.apm2009.eu/"><i>Academic Publishing in
the Mediterranean Region</a></i> (APM, March 2009, Florence).<br><br>
OAPEN was also present at the
<a href="http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/en/fbf/">Frankfurt Book
Fair</a> to talk with publishers and will be present at the
<a href="http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=VCalendarIndex/CalendarID=2/t=m">
London Book Fair</a> in April.<br><br>
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
<a href="http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-09.htm">
highlights</a> of Open Access developments in 2008 by Peter Suber.
<br><br>
<b>First meeting of the Scientific Board <br><br>
</b>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
<a href="http://www.oapen.org/partners.asp#scientific">Scientific
Board</a> 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
(<a href="http://ricepress.rice.edu/">Rice University Press</a>) or Siggi
Jöttkandt (<a href="http://openhumanitiespress.org/">Open Humanities
Press</a>), but also representatives from funders and university
associations like Sarah Porter
(<a href="http://www.jisc.ac.uk/">JISC</a>) and Sijbolt Noorda
(<a href="http://www.eua.be/">EUA</a>). <br><br>
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. <br><br>
For further information on scientific information please contact
<a href="mailto:bschmidt@sub.uni-goettingen.de">
bschmidt@sub.uni-goettingen.de</a><br><br>
<hr>
<b><a name="MAKING_CONNECTIONS"></a>MAKING CONNECTIONS<br><br>
Connecting with other European projects<br>
</b>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.
<a href="http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/">Georg-August
Universität Göttingen</a> and <a href="http://www.uva.nl/">University of
Amsterdam</a> are both involved in
<a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/">DRIVER II</a>, the project to
further develop and expand the pan-European infrastructure for digital
repositories.
<a href="http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/">Georg-August
Universität Göttingen</a> is also a member of
<a href="http://www.peerproject.eu/">PEER</a>, the collaborative project
investigating the effects of so-called Green Open Access.
<a href="http://www.aup.nl/">Amsterdam University Press</a> will take
part in <a href="http://dev.europeana.eu/where_next.php">Europeana
Connect</a>, the project to build services around Europeana, the European
digital library, museum and archive.<br><br>
<b>Engaging stakeholders<br>
</b>In order to create a sustainable approach to OA monograph publishing
OAPEN will fully engage stakeholders in scholarly communication in the
publication process. The
<a href="http://oapen.org/partners.asp#external"><u>External Stakeholder
Group (ESG)</a></u> 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.
<br><br>
<b>Building a Network<br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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 <a href="http://www.brill.nl/">Brill</a> and
<a href="http://www.akademie-verlag.de/av/de?hasjs=1238057351&submittedByForm=1&_lang=de&gsid=1.c.325876.de&id=325876">
Akademie Verlag</a> and recently established OA publishers such as
<a href="http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/">Open Humanities Press</a>
and <a href="http://www.openbookpublishers.com/">Open Book
Publishers</a>. <br><br>
<b>Stakeholders wanting to
<a href="http://oapen.org/join.asp"><u>join</a></u> OAPEN's network can
visit our website, contact one of the members of the
<a href="http://oapen.org/partners.asp#consortium"><u>consortium
</a></u>or get in touch with Eelco Ferwerda at Amsterdam University
Press.<br><br>
</b><hr>
<b><a name="GOING_FORWARD"></a>GOING FORWARD<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
<b>Open Access publication model for</b> <b>monographs <br><br>
</b>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. <br><br>
<b>OAPEN's Infrastructure<br><br>
</b>OAPEN's infrastructure encompasses a publication platform for e-books
and an online library. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>Upcoming events<br><br>
</b>
<a href="http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=VCalendarIndex/CalendarID=2/t=m">
London Book Fair</a>, April 20-21, London<br><br>
<a href="http://www.econtent2009.com/">E-books and E-content 2009</a>,
<a href="http://www.econtent2009.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.econtent2009.com/</a>, May 12, London<br><br>
OAPEN's <a href="http://oapen.org/partners.asp#external"><u>External
Stakeholder Group</a></u>, June 12, Amsterdam<br><br>
<b>Visit us at the London Book Fair<br><br>
OAPEN will be present at the London Book Fair to talk to interested
publishers and other stakeholders. Please contact Eelco Ferwerda,
<a href="mailto:e.ferwerda@aup.nl">e.ferwerda@aup.nl</a>, to make an
appointment.<br><br>
<a name="OAPEN_PARTNERS"></a>OAPEN Consortium Partners<br><br>
</b><a href="http://www.aup.nl/">Amsterdam University Press</a><br>
<a href="http://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/">Georg-August
Universität Göttingen</a><br>
<a href="http://www.mtp.hum.ku.dk/">Museum Tusculanum Press</a><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#800080">
<a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/">Manchester
University Press<br>
</a></font><font size=3><a href="http://presses.univ-lyon2.fr/">Presses
Universitaires de Lyon</a><br>
<a href="http://epress.unifi.it/">Firenze University Press</a><br>
<a href="http://www.uva.nl/">University of Amsterdam</a><br>
<a href="http://www.leiden.edu/">Leiden University</a> <br><br>
<br>
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