1 February 2024
Jisc has launched a new future-proofed OA for books tool that gives users a simple overview of research publisher open access policies in a single interface, creating a more efficient and streamlined process.
The new tool, ‘OA for books’ will help authors and research organisations make informed and confident decisions in open access publishing and compliance, and will enable everyone involved in the research publication process – including authors, librarians and repository administrators – to seamlessly check whether a publisher supports compliance with UK Research and Innovation’s open access policy requirements for longform outputs.
All longform research outputs (unless exempt) that acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils must be free to view and download via an online publication platform, publisher’s website, or institutional or subject repository within a maximum of 12 months of publication, if it is to comply with UKRI’s open access policy for monographs, edited collections and book chapters.
There will be a pilot launch at the end of January with a select number of publishers, and more publishers will be added during the following six months.
Product manager, Jelena Stanovnik, said: "We are delighted to add this new feature, which we created in response to the needs of our users. Open research is rapidly changing and evolving, and we are pleased to enhance our existing suite of open research products, which we have built to adapt to those changes. Over the next year we are looking forward to receiving feedback on the pilot launch and refining the tool with more publisher records and improved functionality."