University of Tennessee Joins COPE

 [Reprinted from the University of Tennessee announcement]

University of Tennessee Signs Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE)

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) has proclaimed support for open-access publishing of journal articles by signing the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE). UT is the eighteenth institution to join a roster of signatories that includes Harvard, Duke, Sloan-Kettering, and other preeminent research institutions.

Open-access publishing is an alternative to the prevailing business model of subscription-based journal publishing. Open-access journals are freely available online to researchers, scholars, and the public worldwide.

COPE was formed in 2009 to encourage equity of the two models of journal publishing.

For universities, open-access publishing offers several advantages over the traditional model. Open access insures that research and scholarly work will be broadly disseminated and discovered. Scholarly work and research results are published online, through journals and institutional digital repositories, and made immediately available to the millions of people around the world who have access to the Internet.

Open-access publishing also allows authors to retain copyrights in own scholarly work rather than ceding copyrights to a commercial publisher.

Commercial publishers play a valuable role in the cycle of scholar communication. However, in recent decades inflation in costs of subscription-based journals has consumed an every larger portion of university libraries’ collections budgets. 

"Open-access publishing offers an attractive and viable alternative to the scenario of ever-increasing journal subscription fees," says Steve Smith, UT's dean of libraries. Publication costs for open-access journals are borne on the front end by sponsoring organizations or through author fees (article processing charges) rather than subscription fees charged to the end user. "We are proud that UT's Open Publishing Support Fund has, since 2008, been subsidizing publication in open-access journals," declares Smith. The Fund, a project of the university libraries and the office of research and engagement, has to date underwritten the publication of 79 open-access articles by 48 faculty and graduate student authors.

The University of Tennessee has long had a policy of supporting and funding open-access publishing. A decade ago, a group of UT life sciences faculty requested that the university provide incentives for faculty to publish in open-access journals. The UT Faculty Senate endorsed the Tempe Principles for Emerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing in 2003 and passed a resolution in May 2006 endorsing administrative incentives to encourage faculty publication in alternative scholarly outlets. 

"Joining COPE confirms the university's commitment to a new culture of scholarly communication," according to Taylor Eighmy, UT's vice chancellor for research and engagement.  "For tenure and promotion decisions, 'peer-reviewed' is 'peer-reviewed,' whether on paper or online. The ultimate goal is to create and disseminate new knowledge. Sharing UT's research and scholarship is central to our mission as a land-grant institution." 

COPE-Compliant Institutions

Several institutions that are not COPE signatories have established funding for the subvention of article-processing charges for open-access publications that is compatible with the compact’s language. In the spirit of acknowledging such funding and the alternative publishing avenues these efforts support, the COPE signatories page now includes a list of these COPE-compliant institutions, with links to their funds. If you know of another institution with a COPE-compliant fund, please contact us.

University of Pittsburgh Joins COPE

[Reprinted from the University of Pittsburgh announcement]

University of Pittsburgh Joins Open Access Compact 

The University of Pittsburgh has joined 16 other leading research institutions as a signatory to the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE). 

Participation in COPE is the university’s latest move in support of Open Access to scholarly research.  Through this program, the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh (ULS) seeks to encourage a new business model to cover the cost of publishing research results in Open Access journals without cost barriers to the global research community.  The program will subsidize fees charged to eligible Pitt authors to publish in most Open Access journals.  Details on the program can be found at http://oscp.library.pitt.edu/author-fees-fund/.

Open Access journals now number over 8,000, and most provide all the guarantees of academic quality controlled through rigorous peer review of content.  At the same time, Open Access journals benefit from wider distribution and discoverability of their content by eliminating the barriers of cost and limited access associated with traditional subscription-based journals. 

The ULS’s longstanding commitment to Open Access encompasses a significant publishing program including 33 peer-reviewed e-journals; six subject-based repositories; D‑Scholarship@Pitt, the Open Access repository for the University’s scholarly output; and training, outreach, and advocacy programs to support Open Access.

”The ULS is strongly committed to open access publishing, both as a publisher and host for open access journals and as a consumer of information.  The traditional subscription-based model for academic publishing characterized by escalating costs and the growing commercialization of knowledge runs counter to academic culture and tradition.  We believe that new knowledge should be shared widely in a manner that is as unfettered as possible.  By joining the growing movement to assist our faculty to publish in true Open Access platforms, we are simply following our commitment to a logical next phase,” said Rush Miller, Hillman University Librarian and Director of the ULS. 

The University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh is the 22nd largest academic library system in North America. Under the administration of the Hillman University Librarian and Director, it includes 15 libraries and holds more than 6.4 million volumes, world specialized collections, and major foreign language materials from around the world.  The ULS offers state-of-the-art facilities and services, including innovative digital library collections and services and a robust Open Access publishing program. For more information about the University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh, visit http://www.library.pitt.edu.

University of Utah is First COPE Signer of 2012

[Reprinted from the University of Utah announcement]

Open-access to Scholarly Publishing More Available Than Ever    

Joining an international group of academic and research institutions, the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library is becoming a signatory to the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE). The goal of the compact is to make it easier for researchers to publish articles through open-access journals, which are available online at no charge to readers.

Open-access journals provide scholarly articles with no subscription fees or restrictions on access. Open access is growing in popularity as a venue for publishing research. Providing the same services available through traditional scholarly journals, such as a peer-review process, filtering, production and distribution, open-access journals allow a wider audience to access scholarly articles than ever before.

To eliminate obstacles to publication, institutions that sign on to COPE are committed to underwriting article-processing charges for articles written by their faculty and accepted for publication to fee-based open access journals.

“Supporting our scholars in publishing with open access titles has the potential to disseminate their scholarship to a larger audience than subscription-­‐based journals. Institutions and individuals that cannot afford subscriptions can access the materials without cost barriers,” says Joyce Ogburn, Dean of the Marriott Library and the University Librarian for the University of Utah. “Through open access publishing, the university’s cutting-­‐edge, high quality research can be shared with a global audience.” 

Helmholtz Association supports COPE

[Reprinted from the Helmholtz Assocation announcement]

Helmholtz Association supports open-access publishing

Open access, the free access to scientific information, is an advanced publication strategy that has been officially promoted by the Helmholtz Association since 2004. To facilitate straightforward funding of scientific publications in open-access journals, the Helmholtz Association is now supporting the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE).

Open access improves the public perception of research results and facilitates working in digital research environments. In 2004, the Helmholtz Association was the first of the large German research organisations to approve recommendations for open-access publishing and is supporting the transformation of scientific publishing towards open access in many ways. Scientists of the Helmholtz Association are increasingly publishing in open-access journals. These journals are often financing free access to their content by publication fees that are covered by the authors' research institutions.

The research centres of the Helmholtz Association have now declared their support of the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE) and their willingness to establish sustainable mechanisms for the payment of reasonable open-access publishing fees. It is of primary concern to the Helmholtz Association that publishing in open-access journals will be as easy for its scientists as in journals with conventional financing. „We would like to press ahead with the change towards a sustainable and innovative system of scholarly communication. Open access is the publication strategy of the future“, says Dr. Rolf Zettl, managing director of the Helmholtz Association.

The international initiative COPE has been started by Harvard University, the MIT and other leading US universities to advance open-access publishing. In October 2011, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has been the first research institution in Germany to sign COPE. The setting-up of a publication fund to finance open-access publishing fees at KIT is an example for the open-access activities of the Helmholtz Centres. With the support of the Helmholtz Open Access Project, the research centres have already entered several open-access contracts with international scientific publishers.