Alternative Publishing Models to Support Open Access
This page aggregates SPARC resources for alternative economic models of scholarly publishing.
Authorship & Accessibility Resource Roundup
Compiled by the Authors Alliance, this is a list of online resources that explain how authors can increase the accessibility of their work in different media formats.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) offers guidelines, discussion documents, and e-learning modules.
Creative Commons licenses facilitate sharing by streamlining the process of granting copyright permission. Details about them are available from the CC Wiki and this FAQ.
Describing Visual Resources Toolkit
"The resources in this toolkit are designed to support authors, editors, publishers, and arts organizations in advancing the description of visual resources for accessibility in arts and humanities publications."
Digital Commons Resource Library
This site provides a variety of resources on scholarly communication topics, including journal publishing, open educational resources, as well as student work.
This part of the DiRT Directory provides brief annotations of online publishing platforms available for scholarly use.
This is a series of podcasts by Kenneth Crews with assistance of Neil Wehneman. "Each podcast is typically about 15 minutes in length, and the series is especially suited for giving members of the academic community a guide to the fundamentals of copyright for teaching, research, and other pursuits."
Guides for OA Journal Publishers
"This is a list of guidelines, primers, recommendations, and best practices for publishers of OA journals."
“HowOpenIsIt?” Open Access Spectrum
"The guide defines core components of Open Access derived from the articulation of basic tenets in the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI)."
Industry Standards Checklist for a Professionally Published Book
The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) has made available this resource "to give book authors and industry professionals an at-a-glance gauge of the professional presentation of any book."
Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics
"10 principles to guide research evaluation"
Library Publishing Bibliography
"The Library Publishing Bibliography provides an evidence base to inform best practices in and demonstrate the impact of library publishing."
Library Publishing Resources List
A part of the Library Publishing Toolkit, this page lists a variety of resources that are searchable and also sorted by category.
As a resource for scholars and evaluators, this toolkit "provides guidance for demonstrating and evaluating claims of research impact."
This report offers a comprehensive analysis of open source publishing systems and suggest sustainability models for them.
Model Publishing Contract for Digital Scholarship
This is "a model author-publisher contract and relevant addenda optimized for the publication of long-form digital scholarship."
"This page provides resources for librarians, academic managers, and faculty to start and manage an electronic thesis program and to build and manage a thesis repository."
Online Resources for Scholarly Journal Publishing
This journal article highlights online resources for a wide range of scholarly publishing topics, such as journal launching; editing and management; marketing and discovery; and business models.
Open Education Information Center
"This initiative strives to provide information on all aspects of open education in one place. Information is organized to address needs of different audience groups."
This initiative aims to "create agreed definitions of how peer review is conducted, and to disclose clearly and efficiently to readers the kind of review a published work has undergone."
This is a growing collection of articles about altmetrics that were published in PLOS journals.
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Version 2)
Compiled by four professional organizations, these criteria and best practices aim to set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones.
Publishers and Service Providers List
This is a list of organizations that are interested in working with the community of library publishers.
Resources for Editors of Journals and Book Series
This list is compiled especially for editors by the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries Scholarly Publishing Services and the UNT Press.
Scholarly Publishing Resources
This comprehensive list of online resources is compiled by the Canadian Association of Learned Journals.
Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines
"The TOP Guidelines provide templates for journal author guidelines that promote transparency and reproducibility practices."
This toolkit aims to promote the principles of accessibility, universal design, and digital inclusion.
This handbook on peer review is published by the Association of American University Presses.
Charleston Briefings consist of short books "concerning innovation in the sphere of libraries, publishing, and technology in scholarly communication." Titles of interest include Library as Publisher and Peer Review.
The Costs of Publishing Monographs: Toward a Transparent Methodology
This report provides data on what it costs university presses to produce monographs, and offers recommendations of general principles regarding open access monograph publishing.
Developing a Business Plan for a Library Publishing Program
"The anatomy of a library publishing business plan is presented and includes the principles of the program, scope of services, and staffing requirements. Other aspects include production policies, financial structures, and measures of success."
The Essentials of Academic-Led Journal Publishing
This guide introduces readers to resources and examples of academic-led open access journals. (Registration required for access)
An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing
"The Framework introduces library publishers to important ethical considerations in a variety of areas and provides concrete recommendations and resources for ethical scholarly publishing."
The Evolution of Impact Indicators: From Bibliometrics to Altmetrics
"This ebook explores the evolution of impact from the standpoint of scholars and journals, and how altmetrics fit into the picture..." (Registration required for access)
"This report presents a framework to help organize and drive discussions about the evolving scholarly record. The framework provides a high-level view of the categories of material the scholarly record potentially encompasses, as well as the key stakeholder roles associated with the creation, management, and use of the scholarly record."
"The Cookbook includes everything necessary to implement a preconfigured Google Analytics dashboard that continuously monitors SEO performance metrics relevant to digital repositories."
Getting the Word Out: Academic Libraries as Scholarly Publishers
“Getting the Word Out examines the growing trend in library publishing through 11 chapters authored by some of the most talented thinkers in the field…”
Guidance Documents for Lifecycle Management of ETDs
These documents promote best practices and increase academic libraries' capacity to preserve electronic theses and dissertations.
How-To Guide for Library Publishers: Directory of Open Access Journals Application
This step-by-step guide provides context, guidance, and information regarding applications for indexing by the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Journal Management Best Practices: Tales from the Trenches
This guide aims to help journal editors handle issues such as refining the peer review process, speeding up the manuscript decision, and using analytics to eliminate bottlenecks in peer review. (Registration required for access)
"The Library Publishing Directory provides an annual snapshot of the publishing activities of academic and research libraries, including information about the number and types of publications they produce, the services they offer authors, how they are staffed and funded, and their future plans..."
Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Research Report
'This report briefly presents the findings and recommendations of the "Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success" project which investigated the extent to which publishing has now become a core activity of North American academic libraries and suggested ways in which further capacity could be built...'
The Library Publishing Toolkit
“The Library Publishing Toolkit looks at the broad and varied landscape of library publishing through discussions, case studies, and shared resources…”
Metadata for Open Access Monographs
This guide recommends an open access book metadata model that will "support effective distribution and discovery, and enable authors and their institutions to track and report on titles published where an author fee has been charged."
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has made available reports on recommended practices for scholarly communication, among other things.
The Once and Future Publishing Library
"The report explores the revitalization of library publishing and its possible future, and examines elements that influence the success and sustainability of library publishing initiatives."
Online Resources for Scholarly Journal Publishing
"This paper describes an environmental scan of online resources for editors and publishers of scholarly journals that was conducted from March to June 2017."
Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science
"This book shares the stories, motives, insights, and practical tips from global leaders in the open movement."
Open Access Monographs and Book Chapters: A Practical Guide for Publishers
"Open access for monographs and book chapters is a relatively new area of publishing, and there are many ways of approaching it. This document provides some guidance for publishers to consider when developing policies and processes for open access books."
Open Access Publishing Cooperative Study: Final Report
This report presents the outcomes of a project that aimed to "examine whether scholarly publishing models, involving cooperation between the relevant stakeholder, might provide a means of moving subscription journals to a sustainable form of open access publishing."
Issue briefs from the Open Scholarship Initiative "represent perspectives and lessons of experience from all stakeholder groups in scholarly communication."
Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers
"Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers attempts to demystify intellectual property, and especially copyright law, for academic authors and independent scholars..."
Press and Library Collaboration Survey
"The purpose of this survey of university press-library relationships in North America, originally conducted in May 2012, was to map similarities and differences in operational and financial structures as well as practical differences."
Scholarly Communications Experts Directory
"The Scholarly Communications Experts Directory is a detailed record that makes it easy to find an expert no matter what your needs..."
Towards a Roadmap for Open Access Monographs
Based on the outcomes of a workshop, this report covers best practices and recommendations for various stakeholders in an attempt to outline a European roadmap for open access monographs.
Transparency in Standards and Practices of Peer Review
This report summarizes a study of peer review practices across a range of scholarly publishers and outlines "a system that would make more transparent both the substance and process of peer review implemented by scholarly publishers on the works they publish."