As a response to the myriad challenges faced by the scholarly community at large, Repository and Open Access Librarian, Holly Limbert, University of Derby and Library Associate Professor Dan DeSanto, University of Vermont created the Open Book Environment (OBE) Dashboard. The dashboard is intended to help reduce researcher burden and to bring about more transparency around open book publishing practices. It also aims to fill a gap by providing information on a range of different publishers categorized by how transparent the information is on Open Access (OA) books on their websites relating to pricing for BPCs, clarity on editorial quality, retrospective OA options, fee waivers and more. The dashboard is designed to be a living resource and inventory which will grow. Amendments and additions can be suggested by submitting a request via this form.
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a free online database providing access to 80,000 scholarly Open Access (OA) Book titles. DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed OA books and helps users to find trusted OA book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.
The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit is a free-to-access resource that aims to help academic book authors to better understand OA book publishing, and to promote and increase trust in OA books. The toolkit offers a coherent set of more than 30 individual articles addressing various topics related to OA books.
The University of Sheffield have compiled a collection of video case studies of researchers discussing their experiences of publishing an Open Access monograph. You can access these here.
Part of the Sherpa suite of tools managed and maintained by Jisc, Open Access for Books was released in January 2024. Under development, the database brings together information on Open Access (OA) book policies including details on BPCs and licensing information. The tool is intended to be a trusted resource for authors looking to make information decisions on choosing a book publisher.
The new feature has been launched with 20 publishers, with more to be added in the Spring 2024 following further refinement based on user feedback.
It is possible to make your long form output Open Access (OA) whilst still including material where the rights reside with a third party. Where the OA licence on your long form work is not compatible with any permissions for reuse of the third party work, it is acceptable to exclude the third party work from the licence, whilst still including it in the final work.
Guidance on third party permissions for OA Monographs is provided in the OAPEN Open Access Books toolkit.
UKRI also provide in depth guidance on the inclusion of third party copyright in open access research publications, including template communications and answers to questions that rights holders may have.