via OABN: A Plan S for books: Voices from the community
What should a Plan S for books look like? This is a question we’ve been thinking about at the Open Access Books Network (OABN) — and we want to hear from as many members of the OA books community as possible as we seek to answer it.
At the OABN, we believe it is important that a range of perspectives should feed into a Plan S for books, reflecting the varied nature of the academic book community: its different approaches, range of business models, multiple ways of working and diverse contributions to the dissemination of long-form scholarly work.
How can we achieve this?
To contribute to this goal, we are planning a series of free-to-attend virtual workshops over March, April and May. These discussion-based events are open to all and will bring together as many members of the OA books community as possible, via the Open Access Books Network, to analyse different areas of policy for Open Access books. These discussions will feed into a policy document that will be created by SPARC Europe, and presented to cOAlition S as they consider a Plan S for books.
- Session 1: March 30th 2-4pm GMT/3-5PM CET: Introduction to the Series & Scope Sprint (lead: Agata Morka) (sign up here)
- Session 2: April 13th 2-4pm GMT/3-5PM CET: Quality assurance and transparency (lead: Jeroen Sondervan) (sign up here)
- Session 3: April 27th 2-4pm GMT/3-5PM CET: Green OA for books (lead: Niels Stern) (sign up here)
- Session 4: May 11th 2-4pm GMT/3-5PM CET: Discoverability and metadata (lead: Rupert Gatti) (sign up here)
- Session 5: May 25th 2-4pm GMT/3-5PM CET: Rights retention and licensing (lead: Vanessa Proudman) (sign up here)
Each event has a different theme — from rights retention and licensing, to Green OA, discovery and metadata, and quality assurance and transparency. Based on a successful workshop that took place in November 2020 the events will combine discussion with a ‘doc sprints’ approach in which different views are recorded on an open document, which will also be circulated after the event for comments from anyone who could not attend the event itself.
This feedback will then be synthesised into a single document in a process led by SPARC Europe, and submitted to cOAlition S for their consideration when developing a policy that focuses on OA books. The open documents generated at the doc sprints will also be openly available for consultation.