Highlights from the 2018 University Press Redux Conference: A Sponsor's Perspective

Virtusales was delighted to sponsor the 2018 University Press Redux Conference, which was held at The British Library and completely sold out with an atmosphere that reflected it. Filled with lively discussions on policy, open access, disruptive innovation and the opportunities it presents, the importance of publishers providing genuine added value, and even Brexit and Trump.

In the opening keynote, Timothy Wright, CEO at Edinburgh University Press, presented the challenges for 2018 as: monographs, new models in print and distribution, ebooks, content, the skills gaps, open access, institutional support and the financial challenges facing the industry.

Richard Fisher from Yale University Press said that discoverability remains the number one challenge for most university presses and explained how marketing for individual titles has diminished but is still vital. Michael Jubb of Jubb Consulting reiterated this, stating that 50% of university press sales are sold through global retail channels such as Amazon, making it essential for content to be easily discoverable amidst the proliferation in formats, business models and retailers.

As a software supplier operating globally, we were particularly interested in the parallel session on Global, which looked at university presses outside of Europe, UK and USA. Another compelling topic was Digital, which was covered in the plenary session with Allison Belan from Duke University Press and Charles Watkinson from University of Michigan Press, chaired by Nicole Mitchell from University of Washington Press. The session included stimulating debate on the pros and cons of buying vs building systems and platforms. Allison explained that it is of utmost importance for university presses to understand and own their own content, data and business rules, and Duke’s decision to buy in technology expertise and systems allows the press to focus on what they are good at - creating content.

Author engagement and support was another recurring theme throughout the conference with an emphasis put on the need for publishers to add genuine value throughout the supply chain and for authors, contributors and stakeholders to recognise the value added. This was at the heart of Tuesday’s parallel session on Production where delegates heard from Andy Redman from Oxford University Press, Neil Clarke from CPI UK, Bret Freeman from LifeVroom, and Wednesday’s session on Commissioning with Simon Bell from Emerald Group Publishing, Brian Halley from University of Massachusetts Press and Katherine Reeve from Bath Spa University.

On the policy front, the requirement for all long form works to be available as open access in order to be eligible for the 2027 REF was by far the most impacting point mentioned, with Steven Hill from HEFCE suggesting how it could be achieved using different models such as Freemium, author pays, and mission orientated new university presses.

Closing Keynote: Richard Charkin

Finally, Richard Charkin from Bloomsbury Publishing gave an engaging closing keynote on academic publishing. Technology was mentioned in virtually all presentations, in one form or another, and it seems clear that publishers need its support now more than ever. It is essential for platforms and systems to be flexible enough to manage metadata at content, article and chapter level, bring efficiencies to the production process and supply chain, and liberate publishers so that they can focus on creating, curating and enriching content to engage with their consumers.

At Virtusales we are committed to streamlining publishers’ workflows and bring efficiencies to their business processes with innovative software, exceptional service and a collaborative approach. Our recent white paper looks at the current landscape of academic and educational publishing, some of the disruptions that publishers are facing in today’s arena and ways in which they can capitalise on the changing environment.

Virtusales Publishing Solutions is the creator of the Biblio suite of publishing software and works closely with some of the world's leading academic, scholarly, professional and trade publishers including Harvard University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Manchester University Press, Pearson Education, Penguin Random House, Hachette and Macmillan Publishers.

Find out more about Virtusales and the Biblio suite or request our white paper, please visit our website: www.virtusales.com
Follow us on Twitter: @virtusales 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtusales-publishing-solutions/

For further information on the University Press Redux conference and to access slides and audio from the event please visit: https://www.alpsp.org/UPRedux

Shifting Sands: What's affecting your business?

Robert Kiley from the Wellcome Trust

Much has been said about disruption in the publishing industry, with a focus on the changes that digital developments have brought. But there are many other disruptions facing publishers, not least the shifting political landscape throughout the world.

Rober Kiley from the Wellcome Trust outlined their plans for opening up access to the research outputs. It helps to accelerate discovery and its application for health benefit, but also provides great return on investment.  Challenges include tackling infrastructure and changing culture and incentives. There are issues around having the right skills and capacity to do this.

The publisher requirements have come about to simplify the whole process and ensure they get what they pay for. There are still instances where articles have been funded and published as open access, but still behind paywalls on publisher sites.

Their key requirements for deposit are that the final version of peer reviewed articles should be available in XML and PDF and deposited in PMC. Material changes must be made to PMC and include Crossmark where available. The Licence must be made available via CC-BY and the statement must be included in XML and be human and machine readable. The invoice must include the title of the articles and publishers must have a refund policy. They have been in contact with a number of the larger publishers and see trade bodies such as ALPSP as being key to reaching out to other organizations.

Other Wellcome developments include Wellcome Open Research. Researchers will be able to get their research published quickly and it will include all research outputs. It fulfils all their open access requirements and the data is published alongside so the research is reproducible. It is transparent - open, author drive, peer review. Finally, it is easy as the costs are met directly by Wellcome.

Wellcome is also looking at preprints. It reflects the growing interest in this area as they provide researchers with a fast way to disseminate their work, establish priority of their discoveries and obtain feedback. They also offer a more current understanding of an investigator's work. They are working within Wellcome to amend grant application EoG forms so preprints can be cited. They are developing grant reviewers and are working with ASAPbio. They are keen to change the culture by encouraging researchers to publish preprints.

Alex Hardy from Harbottle & Lewis

Alex Hardy is a publishing lawyer at Harbottle & Lewis. She covered the legal status of the results and four key areas of IP law, contract law, data protection and copyright law.

What the referendum DIDN'T ask is when and how we should leave the EU as well as what kind of relationship should the UK and EU continue to have.

Article 50 is the legal mechanism by which to serve notice. But it has never been invoked before so it is unknown territory.

The short term impact involves currency fluctuations as well as changes in the trade relationships outlook. We are proceeding with caution with refocussed lobbying and campaigning. Alternative models are being explored including European Economic Area, European Free Trade Area or a more bespoke arrangement.

For intellectual property rights including copyright, departure from the EU would leave national law and international treaties largely as it is. For EU harmonisation, the UK has been heavily involved and very influential. But there is a risk the UK will lose it's influence. For the EU, there's a risk they will lose UK content. It is possible the UK will leave the EU during the EU Digital Single Market. There is still an opportunity to continue to engage, comment and contribute to discussions.

EU trade marks will continue in the short term, but you may need to move to a UK trade mark. It might be worth registering both in short term to minimise risk if you can afford it.

For contracts, consider reviewing the territorial scope, trade and IPR licences. You should also take into consideration governing law and jurisdiction. EU courts are likely to continue to respect English law contracts. Arbitration is likely to be more popular. You should consider alternative dispute resolution.  You should think about termination rights. Does the EU constitute a force majeure that mean you can review pricing or service terms review? There might be opportunities for renegotiation.

Consumer contracts are heavily shaped by EU law. There may be a post-Brexit review, but if you want to do business with the EU you will need to continue to comply. The EU General Data Protection Regulation is automatically and equally enforceable in all member states to have a single EU law. It provides stronger rights for consumers and stricter obligations for companies. Penalties are harsh with 4% of turnover or 20 million euros. It has been four years in the making and comes into force in May 2018. Brexit is no excuse for not complying for the UK as they will still be in the EU when it comes into force. It also applies to anyone outside EU processing data to offer goods/services to EU citizens. There also needs to be adequacy of law required for data protection. The UK will likely fully adopt the GDPR regardless of Brexit. Act now before it is too late. May 2018 is not far away.

With employment law, free movement of people is a key political issue. There is no clarity on the post-Brexit position. Businesses are starting to audit and assess opportunities for claiming rights to work in the UK and EU. Companies might want to consider diversifying recruitment policy and must be aware of discrimination. Review your policies and make sure you remain compliant with existing UK law. She closed asking how can you survive the shifting sands of Brexit? Her answer is to take stock, be prepared and try to influence.

Andrew Tein from Wiley

Andrew Tein provided an updated on open science in the EU and called for engagement and leadership in this area. The open science policy agenda is driven by economic pressure, technology and innovation as well as the evolution of research practice. In terms of policy practice there is open access and copyright reform and protection. How do we engage and how do we lead the conversation with the rest of the community? How do we develop the rights tools and services? How do we deal with the SciHubs of the world?

There are some fundamental principles. Research stakeholders should advance sustainable open access and open science policies that ensure flexibility aligned with needs of discipline communities avoiding imposing unnecessary burdens on researchers. Brussels is a slow, steady and confusing place. In May 2013 Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) was launched with general principles on OA and Open Data. In May 2015 'A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe' was released which acknowledged the importance of science and research to boost innovation. In May 2016 the Competitiveness Council Conclusions on the Transition Towards an Open Science System were published.

The OSPP process is design to advise the commission on policy development and implementation. It will serve as the primary mechanism for stakeholder engagement. It has five policy action areas: incentives for open science, removing legal barriers, making OA policies mainstream, develop research infrastructure for open science and particularly open data, and to embed open science in society as a socio-economic driver. They have broken this out into eight work streams:

1. Fair open data
2. European Open Science Cloud
3. Altmetrics
4. New business models for scholarly communication
5. Rewards
6. Research integrity
7. Open science skills
8. Citizen science

It is expected there will be three different mechanisms for consultation: digital consultation, working and steering groups and the Commission has clear goals they want everyone to work towards. As ever, there will be a number of opportunities and challenges around these areas.

What are researchers’ views on Open Access publishing? How do we ensure research has impact and that the public engage with it? How are such developments affecting learned societies?

Here, in a guest post, Elaine Devine from Taylor & Francis, asks these key questions for scholarly communications, and teases us with some answers from forthcoming Taylor & Francis surveys.

"In my role as Communications Manager for Author Relations at Taylor & Francis, I'm often asked what researchers really think and what impact their articles have within their discipline and in the wider world. We also publish on behalf of many learned societies, who have a huge stake in the success of their community's research, and we conduct a range of studies ourselves to track and monitor these trends.

Recent surveys conducted by Taylor & Francis show:

• Almost half of Taylor & Francis authors plan to choose green Open Access, and a third plan to choose gold, for future publications. (2014 Open Access Survey) 
• 80% of respondents feel researchers think societies are relevant (2014 Society Survey)
• Rigorous peer review is still seen as the most important service to authors in 2014 (2014 Open Access Survey)
• Society conferences and annual meetings remain most valuable to members (2014 Society Survey).

Supported by the Academy of Social Sciences and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, Taylor & Francis is hosting seminars on ‘Open Access and Society: Impact and Engagement’ to discuss and debate these findings, and much more besides.

With speakers from publishing, learned societies, academia, funders and policy makers, the seminars offer an opportunity to hear views from all sides. From the European Commision to HEFCE, Society for Research into Higher Education to the National Library of Sweden, CrossRef to Deutsche Forschungsdemeinschaft, you’ll be able to hear them discuss the challenges and opportunities they currently face and, crucially, how to deliver research impact and public engagement in an Open Access context.

Free to attend, the seminars are in London on 19 May and Brussels on 17 June. If you are interested in Open Access these promise an engaging and exciting day. Read the full agenda, register to attend by clicking on the links above, or follow us on Twitter at #oaandsociety.

We look forward to seeing you there."

Elaine Devine is Communications Manager (Author Relations) at Taylor & Francis, who partner with researchers, scholarly societies, universities and libraries worldwide to bring knowledge to life. Their published content spans all areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, Behavioural Sciences, Science, and Technology and Medicine.

Negotiating with governments: in search of pragmatic public access policy

Fred Dylla

Fred Dylla from the American Institute of Physics introduced the final session on day 2 of the ALPSP International Conference: Negotiating with governments. It provided an invaluable overview of policy around Europe and in the US.

Steven Hall, Managing Director of IOP Publishing, outlined the recent history of open access policy in the UK. Hall continues to be involved in the Finch group and was on the original committee, so has unrivalled insight into the process. The recommendations from Finch were endorsed by publishers, BIS and RCUK were included in the quid pro quo of 12 months embargo in order to make gold open access viable. There has since been criticism of RCUK by research institutions and the House of Lords over their implementation.

Meanwhile, implementation by HEFCE is running apace. Their public consultation on open access policy in relation to submissions post-2014 REF closes on 30 October 2013. Key proposals include outputs (journal articles and conference proceedings) should be accessible through a UK higher education institution repository, immediately upon either acceptance on publication, though the repository may provide access in a way that respects agreed embargo periods.

With the implementation by universities, policies are still evolving and guidance to authors is changing. There is no consistent policy across Russell Group universities. The majority explicitly favour green over gold, e.g. Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford. Most of these are allowing 12 or 24 month embargoes, but some are stipulating green with a 6 or 12 month embargo. Some institutions are neutral, in different degrees, between gold and green, leaving the choice to authors, e.g. Exeter, UCL. The latter is also supplementing the RCUK block grant with additional funding. A very small minority are favouring gold over green e.g. Reading.

Generally, there is a pragmatic and practical approach from universities that publishers can work with. But when you consider why universities are going for green, it is primarily because of concerns over cost. There is growing demand for offsetting of APC costs against subscription and licence fees and a lack of data on numbers of RCUK-funded articles to inform budgeting. Policies and processes are still in development including how block grants should be allocated to researchers, processes for managing payments and compliance monitoring, payment of publication charges for collaborative publications.

SHERPA/FACT is a funder and author compliance tool from University of Nottingham's SHERPA service. It is funded by RCUK and Wellcome with links to SHERPA RoMEO for information on embargo policies. Its aim is to be a one-stop-shop for researchers wishing to find out about funding and open access policies.

What have we learned so far? Universities and researchers are nervous about this. We need close consultation and cooperation with all stakeholders - this is critical. Clear, consistent, unambiguous and actionable guidance for researchers is required from funders, universities and publishers. More work is required on forms of licence for gold and green. Policy needs to reflect the journey, not the destination.

Eric Merkel-Sobotta from Springer Science+Business Media reflected on whether Brussels think publishers add value? Don't forget that the EU is also a research funder. Horizon 2020 begins in 2014 and provides €70 billion over 6 years. They have implemented it primarily for economic growth, to build better and more efficient science that builds on previous results and avoids duplication and to improve transparency (involving citizens/society). Horizon 2020 makes open accesss the general principle for research funded by the EU (mixed green and gold open access). Gold APCs are eligible for reimbursement and the green embargo is for 6 months. 

Merkel-Sobata believes the UK has the most far reaching policy, that used a constructive process, with probably the best results for all stakeholders. In Germany, there was good progress during an 18 month dialogue on open access, but after grand-standing by both sides, it collapsed. Spain encourages open access repositories for research, however there is a lot of lobbying going on. In France, there is nothing concrete so far, but a government working group is discussing the options.

There will be more news to come from the EU. Currently, the three responsible Commissioners can't agree on potential objectives around Copyright reform. There are complex text and data mining working groups, but not all stakeholders are involved and the key work group for publishers may be disbanded, which could disrupt the process further. There is a sense that other industries and interest groups have far greater lobbying power in Brussels. The scholarly publishing community needs to raise its profile and influence in Europe and they must continue to engage with all stakeholders constructively.

Fred Dylla closed the session with an overview of US open access policy. In 2009 US House sponsored Scholarly Publishing Roundtable. March 2012 saw the publication of the OSTP report Interagency Public Access Coordination. The FundRef pilot program was announced by CrossRef in May of the same year and in June the Finch report was published in the UK. In February of this year the OSTP Memo was released - a short, but very nuanced report - increasing access to the results of federally funded research. It suggested 12 months as a guideline with a get-out clause that agencies can exercise flexibility to address challenges and public interests. It also stated the benefit and value of a successful publishing industry.

Overall, agency plans must provide for free public access to a full-text version of publications resulting from publicly funded research (after an embargo), contain a strategy for leveraging existing resources, fostering public-private partnerships, provide for archiving and long-term stewardship and identify resources within existing agency budgets for implementation.

Dylla outlined current projects and initiatives. PubMedCentral (PMC) database has for a decade been the public repository for articles resulting from NIH sponsored research. NIH will expand PMC to encompass the articles from research paid for by other federal agencies. This requires an investment of federal funds to expand PMC. Many publishers object to how PMC is operated because it duplicates functions of publishers.

The recently launched CHORUS Project's key objectives include:

• public access (publishers provide and host, using FundRef for front-end identification and CrossRef linking to the version of record or author's accepted manuscript)
• compliance: publishers ensure using FundRef, agencies, authors and research institutions can easily confirm
• archival preservation: multi-level solution, publishers archives with trusted third party back-ups (Portico, CLOCKSS)
• bibliographic search and discovery - FundRef, commercial search engines, library tools, and API support for agency-specific portals
• to be low cost or no cost for agency participation except for staff time on the CHORUS committees.

The American Association of Universities,  Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and Association of Research Libraries has developed an offer called SHARE. There are 3 things in common with CHORUS. Both agree they need persistent identifiers, the development of metrics and preservation.

What happens next? CHORUS is about to launch a pilot and there is hope that agencies will take it up. Some agencies will partner with PMC, but will need funds. All plans have to be reviewed and approved by OSTP/OMB and returned to agencies for full development and implementation in 2014-15. 

ALPSP Plenary Interview: Semantico's Terry Hulbert talks to Fred Dylla

We are delighted that Semantico are gold sponsors at the ALPSP International Conference and Awards 2013. In the run-up to the conference, their Business Development Director Terry Hulbert spoke to one of our key plenary speakers, Fred Dylla, about trends and insights in the policy arena. This is an extract of the interview. You can read the full article on the Semantico blog.

Fred Dylla

"We do not need a revolution to achieve open access, and in fact, we are already evolving toward a model of publishing where the public enjoys reasonable free access to federally funded research while journals continue to play a central role in science by publishing peer-reviewed research and maintaining the highest standards.

A similar evolution in publishing has already occurred over the last generation. Just 20 years ago, the business model of all academic publishers centered on print journals, and virtually none had any sort of online presence. Today the publishing industry has largely evolved into business models centered on the web. This didn’t happen overnight. There were many experiments and forays into digital archiving that came up short. But today researchers everywhere enjoy easy access to archives that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

I think that public access policies will similarly evolve in the next five–10 years, and scientific publishers will be evolving alongside. There are plenty of examples in nature of creatures that co-evolve—like Darwin’s flowers and finches on those isolated Pacific islands. Co-evolution is the healthiest way forward for public access and scientific publishing. Kill off the finches, and the flowers may whither on the vine."

The ALPSP International Conference and Awards starts on Wednesday 11 September at The Belfry, near Birmingham. Follow the action via the Twitter hashtag #alpsp13 and bookmark this blog for updates.