Open Access Publications and Initiatives

(Ghosh & Das, 2007). Peter Suber1 defines “Open Access literature is digital, online, free of
charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”

Once upon a time, the world began a journey toward making education more open and
accessible to everyone.

The First Steps

In the 1950s, people started experimenting with the idea of online education. It was the
earliest attempt to use technology to bring learning to more people. But it wasn’t until the
1990s, when the Internet became popular, that communication and interaction made online
learning practical and powerful.

The Birth of Open Content

In 1998, a man named David Wiley introduced the idea of open content, inspired by the
concept of open source. This meant creating and sharing educational materials freely for
anyone to use.

Big Milestones for Open Access

By the early 2000s, the idea of open access took off with some key events:

1. 2002 - The Budapest Open Access Initiative defined open access and set the stage
for the movement.
2. 2003 - Two more important declarations followed:
o The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing
o The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge.

These documents explained what open access was and how it could help make knowledge
free for everyone.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

In 2002, at a UNESCO meeting, the term "Open Educational Resources" (OER) was
officially adopted. This meant educational materials could be shared online for free,
giving students everywhere a chance to learn without cost.

Expanding the Vision

By 2007, organizations like the International Council for Open and Distance Education
(ICDE) began highlighting the powerful combination of open education and distance
learning, especially for developing countries that needed affordable education.

In 2008, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration urged governments and publishers to
make materials created with public funds freely available online.
A Digital Revolution in Education

In 2011, at a conference in Europe, the concept of blending traditional open universities with
digital tools was introduced. This showed how combining old and new methods could bring
education to even more people.

Finally, in 2012, UNESCO hosted the OER World Congress in Paris. The Paris OER
Declaration pushed for global collaboration to expand open education.

The Journey Continues

The Budapest Initiative, the Bethesda Statement, the Berlin Declaration, and the Cape
Town Declaration are considered the cornerstones of the open access movement. In 2012,
during the 10th anniversary of the Budapest Initiative, its goals were reaffirmed, along with
new recommendations for expanding open access over the next decade.

And so, the story of open education continues, bringing knowledge to more people around the
world every day.

OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL

• Gratis open access refers to online access free of charge (Free to read), and
• Libre open access refers to online access free of charge plus some additional re-use
rights (open access publication – free to read and re-use)

Two Main Types of Open Access

1. Gratis Open Access:

o This means research papers or articles are free to read online, but there are no
extra permissions given to reuse the content.
o Example: You can read an article for free, but you might not be allowed to
copy, share, or use it in other ways without the author's permission.
2. Libre Open Access:
o This goes a step further than Gratis. Not only are the articles free to read, but
they also allow additional rights for reuse, like sharing, copying, or modifying
 the content, as long as you follow the license terms (e.g., giving credit to the
author).
o Example: An article published under a Creative Commons license lets you use
the content for a presentation or project without asking for permission.

Open Access Color System

Different types of open access are often explained using colors:

1. Gold Open Access:

o In this model, the final version of an article is immediately available for free
on the journal's website.
o The articles often come with a Creative Commons (CC) license, which
allows sharing and reuse.
o Who pays? The publishing costs are usually covered by authors (or their
institutions/funders) through Article Processing Charges (APCs) instead of
charging readers.
o Example: Journals like PLOS (Public Library of Science).
2. Green Open Access:
o This allows authors to share a pre-published version (like a draft or
manuscript) of their article in open-access repositories or institutional archives
for free.
o The final version (with journal formatting) might not be freely available, but
the key content is accessible.
o Who pays? No APCs are required for the green model.
 oExample: Authors upload their article drafts to repositories like arXiv or
PubMed Central.
3. Hybrid Open Access:
o This is a mix of both worlds. In a traditional subscription-based journal,
authors can choose to make their individual article open access by paying a
fee.
o The rest of the journal remains behind a paywall, but that specific article is
free for everyone.
o Example: Some articles in Elsevier journals.

Key Points About Gold Open Access

 Immediate Access: All articles are freely available as soon as they are published.
 Reuse Rights: Articles are often shared under Creative Commons licenses, meaning
they can be reused, modified, or shared (with credit to the authors).
 Costs: The publishing costs are usually paid upfront by authors, institutions, or
funders through Article Processing Charges (APCs).

OA Publishing

For Open Access publishing you have to find a suitable Open Access journal
then your discipline, in that case, you can search the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) which has 11,000 high-quality OA, peer-reviewed journals. You can
search DOAJ content using facets on the left-hand side of the website and next to the
search box: search by ISSN, subject, license, publisher, full-text language, date added,
DOI, author, title, keywords, and country. This is the home page of Directory of Open
Access Journal. here you can see lots of journals are enlisted here with APC and without
APC. you can search for a suitable journal in your discipline from this place also.
DOAJ has as of September 2022 this service indexed 18,121 journals consisting
7839220 articles representing 130 countries all over the world in 80 languages. The
most important part is that 12547 journals are indexed which are not charging any APC
or any charges from anyone.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a great resource for finding high-
quality, peer-reviewed Open Access journals. Here’s how it works:

1. DOAJ Overview:
o DOAJ is a platform that lists Open Access journals from around the world.
o As of September 2022, it includes 18,121 journals and 7,839,220 articles in
80 languages from 130 countries.

2. Search Features:
o You can search for journals or articles using the search box or filters ("facets")
on the left-hand side of the website.
o You can filter by:
  ISSN (unique journal identifier)
 Subject/Discipline
 License (e.g., Creative Commons licenses)
 Publisher
 Full-text language
 DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
 Author or Title
 Keywords
 Country
 Date Added (recently indexed journals)

3. APC (Article Processing Charges):

o Journals in the DOAJ are listed with details about whether they charge fees for
publishing.
o Many journals (12,547 as of 2022) do not charge any APC or fees, making
them entirely free for authors.

Steps to Use DOAJ:

1. Visit the DOAJ website (just search for "DOAJ" online).

2. On the homepage, you’ll see a list of journals and articles.
3. Use the search bar or the filters on the left-hand side to narrow your search by
subject, language, license, etc.
4. Look for journals that align with your field of study.
5. Check if the journal charges an APC or is free to publish in.

Why Is DOAJ Useful?

 Wide Selection: Over 18,000 journals across multiple disciplines.

 Language Diversity: Journals in 80 languages, so researchers worldwide can find
suitable options.
 No Hidden Fees: Many journals don’t charge authors, making publishing accessible
even for those without funding.

What is OSCOSS?

 OSCOSS stands for Opening Scholarly Communication in the Social Sciences.

 It is an initiative designed to make scholarly communication more transparent, open,
and collaborative at every stage of the publishing process.
 This project specifically caters to the needs of social science research.
Key Goals of OSCOSS

1. Open Communication Throughout the Publishing Process:

o Ensure that communication between authors, reviewers, publishers, and
readers is more open and accessible.
o Increase transparency during all steps, from writing to reviewing to
publication.

2. Integration of Data and Tools:

o OSCOSS aims to integrate existing tools and services for data management
and publication management.
o This makes it easier for researchers to manage their data and collaborate on
writing and reviewing articles.

3. Web-Based Collaborative Writing Environment:

o Develop a web-based platform that allows seamless collaboration among all
stakeholders in the publication process.
o This environment helps authors, reviewers, and publishers work together more
effectively.

Funding and Support

 OSCOSS is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), also known as

the German Research Foundation.
 The DFG supports innovative projects that advance scientific research and
communication.

What Makes OSCOSS Unique?

 Unlike traditional publishing models, OSCOSS focuses on integrating tools and

creating a collaborative platform for researchers in the social sciences.
 It supports open science principles, which emphasize sharing data, findings, and
processes freely with the academic community and beyond.

Who Benefits from OSCOSS?

1. Authors: Easier management of their data and smoother collaboration with co-
authors and reviewers.
2. Reviewers: Access to integrated tools that streamline the review process.
3. Publishers: A platform that simplifies the publication workflow.
4. Readers: Increased transparency and better access to the research process and
findings.
The open library of humanities (OLH) is a non-profit OA publisher for the humanities
dedicated to publishing open access scholarships with no author-facing article
processing charges (APCs). They are funded by an international consortium of libraries
that are supporting OLH’s mission to make fairer and more accessible scholarly
publishing for the digital future.

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a non-profit organization dedicated to

publishing open access research in the humanities without charging authors any fees. Funded
by a global network of libraries, OLH ensures that scholars can share their work freely,
making high-quality research accessible to everyone. By removing financial barriers for
authors and embracing a collaborative funding model, OLH promotes fairer, more inclusive,
and digitally accessible scholarly publishing for the future.

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a platform that provides access to
academic books that are freely available online. As of September 2022, it indexed 10,650
academic books from 254 publishers, making it a valuable resource for researchers,
educators, and students to access high-quality scholarly content without any cost.

The Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR) is a specialized repository designed
for researchers in the social sciences. It serves as an institutional or discipline-specific
platform where scholars can freely access and share research papers, making it a valuable
resource for advancing open access in the field of social sciences.

Zenodo is an open-access repository launched in May 2013 by CERN (a partner of

OpenAIRE and a leader in open science initiatives). It was created to support researchers in
sharing and preserving their work, regardless of discipline or funding. Leveraging CERN’s
expertise in Big Data management and Digital Library tools, Zenodo extends these
powerful capabilities to all researchers, particularly those in smaller projects or disciplines
often referred to as the "long-tail of research." This makes it a vital platform for sharing open
data, open access publications, and other research outputs.

There are several important sources for accessing and contributing to Open Access materials:

 Directory of Open Access Repositories (Open DOAR): A comprehensive directory

of repositories worldwide.
 Connecting Repositories: Facilitates linking and collaboration between repositories.
 Open Access Thesis and Dissertation (OATD): A platform to access theses and
dissertations freely.
 BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine): A search engine for academic
resources, including Open Access repositories.
 Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR): A registry that tracks the
development and growth of repositories globally.
 Online Library and Publication Platform (OAPEN): A library specializing in
freely accessible academic books, particularly in the humanities and social sciences.

These platforms offer vast resources for accessing scholarly materials and encourage
contributions to the academic world through the Open Access model.
JOURNAL FINDER/ JOURNAL SUGGESTION TOOLS

What is Journal Finder

Journal Finder/ Journal Suggestion tools are digital research assistance
to identify
accurate journals in the scholarly world.

Journal finder tools

Jane (Journal/ Author Name Estimator)
Jane facilitates researchers to find relevant articles to cite in the
research paper; in this process researchers have to enter the title and/or
abstract of the paper in the box, and click on 'Find journals', 'Find
authors' or 'Find Articles. Jane will then compare the research paper to
millions of documents indexed in PubMed or DOAJ or Medline to find
the best matching journals. Jane also facilitates keyword searching.

Elsevier Find Journals

Elsevier® Journal Finder helps to find journals that could be best suited
for publishing scientific articles. Elsevier Journal Finder uses smart
search technology and field-of- research-specific vocabularies to match
suitable articles to Elsevier journals. Researchers have to simply insert
the title and abstract of their manuscript and select the appropriate field
of research for the best results.

Springer- Nature Journal Suggester

This journal matching technology discovers relevant journals based on
the
subject/topic of the manuscript Over 2,500 journals from all Springer and
BMC
journals to find the most suitable journal for the submitted manuscript.
Here authors
can easily compare relevant journals to find the best place for
publication.

Enago’s Open Access Journal Finder (OAJF)

Enago’s Open Access Journal Finder (OAJF) safeguards researchers from
predatory
publishers by letting scholars able to find pre-vetted, quality open access
journals for
free. This exclusive journal finder resolves the familiar concerns
regarding journal
legitimacy, predatory journals, and article processing fees by using a
validated journal index issued by the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ). Enago’s exclusive search algorithm lets you shortlist
journals that are highly suitable to your work and research purpose,
resulting in maximizing your publication chances.
Researcher Journal Finder
Recently, the researcher app developed a journal finder tools that cover
suggest
journals across all publishers. This Journal Finder provides the related
information to decide the best place for publishing research work by
entering the title, abstract,
keywords, or any part of the research work. The Finder will suggest the
most suitable
journals. This sophisticated mechanism is powered by the latest language
processing
technology. The beauty of the journal finders is that they are not only
retrieving the
appropriate/best-suited journals, it also relevant information on citation
count,
percentage of the citation, and counts of scholarly output on relevant
topics, etc., Some journals even provide the information on whether a
journal is charging Article
Processing Charge (APC) or not if they are charging then what the
amount is.

Scopus Journal Finder

Scopus has a rich database. Scopus is an abstract and citation database
of peer-
reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference
proceedings.
Scopus provides a comprehensive overview of worldwide research output
in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts
and humanities.

Web of Science Master List

The Web of Science Master list contains a list of approximately 24,000
journals
indexed by the Web of Science platform. A manuscript matcher tool is
also available.

SHERPA/ROMEO ONLINE RESOURCES TO CHECK PUBLISHERS’

COPYRIGHT AND SELF-ARCHIVING POLICIES

SHERPA is Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access.

The term RoMEO originally referred to an earlier project within SHERPA focused on
publishers' copyright policies and stands for Rights Metadata for Open Archiving.

SHERPA/RoMEO is a database of publishers’ policies and listing services

run
by SHERPA Services (based at the University of Nottingham, UK) that
aims to
show the copyright guidelines and open access to self-archiving policies
of scientific journals.

SHERPA services
SHERPA facilitates four types of services as follows:
Sherpa Fact
Sherpa Fact checks if compliance with funder open access policies can
be
achieved with a particular journal.
Sherpa Romeo
Sherpa Romeo gives a summary of publishers' open access archiving
conditions for individual journals.

Sherpa Juliet
Sherpa Juliet enables researchers and librarians to see funders’
conditions for
open access publication.

Software Tools to Identify Predatory Publications

Developed By SPPU

Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly known as the University of Pune, is a
public state university located in Pune, Maharashtra, India. Established in 1949, it is
recognized as one of India's premier universities, often referred to as the 'Oxford of the
East'.

SPPU offers a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs across
various disciplines, including Science, Commerce, Arts, Languages, and Management
Studies. The university houses 46 academic departments and has approximately 307
recognized research institutes and 612 affiliated colleges.

In recent years, SPPU has developed software tools to help identify predatory
publications, aiming to assist researchers and academics in discerning reputable journals
from potentially exploitative ones. These tools are part of the university's commitment to
maintaining high academic standards and supporting the integrity of scholarly
communication.

“ Openwashing, having an appearance of open-source and open-licensing for marketing

purposes, while continuing proprietary practices.” - Audrey Watters (tweets)

The concept of open washing actually fits the model of a predatory

journal. The
predatory journal is a malpractice of open access philosophy. These
journals are below the average quality and charge money at the time of
submission as article processing fees. Publishes research articles without
going through the peer-review process.
And publish any kind of research paper.

The label ‘predatory journal’ was conceived by Jeffrey Beall (who

systematically
analysed a growing number of exploitative academic journals charging
author fees
without proper quality-check (via peer review) of the submitted and
published papers).”
https://beallslist.net/

Anyone can found a currebt list of predatory journals from the

following links as follows:
https://beallslist.net/standalone-journals/ or http://blacklist.research.ac.ir
but these lists are not covering all the predatory journals.

What are the check points of a predatory journal

Website should look professional,
Provide the full contact information, including address, of the
publisher,
A list of the editorial board members along with their affiliations.
If the website includes a clear description of the peer review
process
and information about the fees. Additionally, may have some of the
previous issues of the journal to see if the quality of articles published
is good.
Is the journal is recognised by the COPE, DOAJ, OASPA?

Savitri Bhai Phule Pune University

(SPPU) constituted a committee on March, 2015 which was again re-
expanded on April, 2015 to look after the issue of the predatory journals.
a study entitled “A critical analysis of the ugc approved list of
journals” done by the six researchers under the leadership in
association with the human resource development ministry under the
leadership of Bhushan Patwardhan, they analysed 1336 academic
periodicals randomly selected from our list of 5699 journals in the so-
called university source component. Researchers found 88.9% of the non-
indexed journals from the ‘university source’ category of the UGC list did
not satisfy the minimal requirements.

As a result UGC CARE was introduced in India, that maintains a list of

qualitative
journals. “Quality Mandate” of the UGC, emphasizing the importance of
promoting
high-quality research and the creation of new knowledge by faculty
members, the
Commission in its 536th meeting held on November 14, 2018, dissolved
the Standing Committee for “UGC-approved list of Journals” and
approved the constitution of the Consortium for Academic and
Research Ethics (CARE) for the preparation of a new list of credible
quality journals for disciplines such as, Social Science, Humanities
Languages, Arts, Culture, and Indian Knowledge System.
University Grants Commission has created the consortium of Research Ethics (CARE)
Nov, 2018

CREATIVE COMMONS LISCENSING

Best Practices for Copyright compliance

 Use self-created contents
 Use materials released under CC license (open license)
 Use materials which are available in the public domain (after expiry of copyright
protection)
 Use copyrighted materials which are not available under CC license subject to
certain conditions-
1. Take permission from the copyright holder
2. Provide the link (online resources)
3. Copyright free- 50 years from author's death (Indian Copyright Act 1957
as amended in 1992, S.22/23).
Open Access
Open Content
Open Course Ware (OCW)
Open Source Software
Open Educational Resources
Open Licenses

5 RS OF OER
REUSE
REVISE
REMIX
RETAIN
REDISTRIBUTE

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CCO - No rights reserved (free to use)
©-- All rights reserved