Open Access Investments

Brock University Library advances open access to scholarly research produced at Brock – and beyond – by investing in:

  1. Publisher Memberships that offer discounts or fee waivers for researchers publishing in open access journals which levy article processing charges
  2. Platforms and infrastructure facilitating open access nationally and globally
  3. The Brock Digital Repository, which provides free, immediate access to Brock research outputs and allows Brock scholars to track downloads and views of their scholarship
  4. Scholarly Journals at Brock, a journal hosting service to support the publication of open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals

For assistance with any of these open access strategies, please contact Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian Elizabeth Yates ~ eyates@brocku.ca

Investing in Open: Our Approach

The Library is guided by the following overarching considerations when investing in open access resources:

  1. the fundamental definition of open access: free, unrestricted online access to research outputs
  2. the newest recommendations from the Budapest Open Access Initiative, particularly:
    • the need to host OA research on open, community controlled infrastructure (e.g. Directory of Open Access Books, Open Journal Systems, Erudit)
    • the importance of OA models which:
      • benefit all regions of the world
      • are controlled by academic/community organizations
      • avoid concentrating OA literature in commercially dominate journals
      • move away from read-and-publish agreements
  3. The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, particularly its call to invest in open science infrastructures and services:
    • “Non-commercial infrastructures, including computing facilities and digital public infrastructure and services supporting the open science approach. These should facilitate ensuring the long-term preservation, stewardship and community control of research products, including scientific information, data, source code and hardware specifications, co-operation among researchers and the sharing and reuse of research products.”

Tiered approach 

Given that the Library must support its users within a publishing ecosystem still dominated by commercial, profit-driven corporations, we have adopted a tiered approach to investments in open access platforms and products. These tiers recognize that, by virtue of the Library’s participation in collections consortia such as the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, agreements with publishers may not meet the most preferred level of openness. 

Tier 1 criteria: preferred 

This level of criteria guides the Library’s direct investments in open access: 

  • Publications must be fully open access with no end-user fees: 
  • Must meet the SPARC definition of open access: “… the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.” 
  • Publications/platforms should use Creative Commons licensing, ideally with the lowest level of restrictions on reuse e.g. CC-BY 
  • Publications may not be hybrid, i.e. segments of a closed publication are made openly accessible after the author pays a special fee in addition to the institutional subscriber fee 
  • Publishers should commit to best practices for scholarly publishing, such as those provided by DOAJ, COPE, and OASPA. 
  • Publications/platforms must provide usage statistics or other indicators of relevance 
  • Uptake by Brock authors is a preferred qualification 
  • Publishers should provide clear instruction and support for Brock authors claiming discounts/no APCs under the terms of publishing agreements 
  • Non-profit/non-commercial venues are preferred 
  • Advocacy for open  
  • Support for researchers/publishers in less affluent nations 
  • Support for transitioning from closed to open publishing 

Tier 2: mandatory 

This level of criteria applies to investments in which the Library is a third party, such as consortial investments via CRKN and OCUL. 

  • Publishers should commit to best practices for scholarly publishing, such as those provided by DOAJ, COPE, and OASPA. 
  • Publications/platforms must provide usage statistics or other indicators of relevance 
  • Uptake by Brock authors is a preferred qualification 
  • Publishers should provide clear instruction and support for Brock authors claiming discounts/no APCs under the terms of publishing agreements 

 

Publisher Membership Investments

PublisherDiscountAdditional Notes
American Chemical Society$250USD discount on APCsInstructions
Cambridge University PressNo APCs to publish in hybrid and gold OA journalsInstructions
Canadian Science PublishingNo charge to publish in:
  • Biochemistry and Cell Biology
  • Canadian Journal of Physics
  • Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
  • Genome
  • Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering
25% discount on APCs for hybrid journals
Elsevier20% discount on APCsInstructions Included titles
Institute of PhysicsNo APCs for gold or hybrid journalsInstructions
MDPI10% discount on APCs
Microbiology Society JournalsNo APCs
Open Book PublishersNo Book Processing Charges (BPCs), free downloads
PLOS Community Action Publishing (CAP)No APCs
Open Library of the HumanitiesNo APCs
Royal Society of Chemistry15% discount on APCs for hybrid journals
SAGE journalsNo APCs for hybrid journals 40% discount for gold journalsInstructions
Taylor and Francis25% discount on APCs for T&F Open Select hybrid journals
WileyNo APCs for hybrid journals

OA Infrastructure Investments

Brock University Open Access Publishing Fund

The Library Open Access Publishing Fund operated from 2011 to spring 2023, providing direct grants to researchers to help offset the costs of article processing charges (APCs) levied by some open access journals.

By providing 99 grants to 104 researchers across 17 academic departments, the fund successfully fulfilled its educational mandate of raising awareness of the benefits of open access. 

Now, Brock is aligning with other Canadian research institutions by redirecting funds towards more equitable and sustainable forms of open access. This change reflects an evolving open access landscape which includes a growing number of collective approaches to open dissemination as well as newly available read-and-publish agreements with scholarly publishers which provide discounts or APC waivers for Brock authors. 

We encourage Brock authors to consider the broad spectrum of open access strategies available to them, including publishing: 

For support with any of these open access strategies, please contact Research and Scholarly Communication Elizabeth Yates ~ eyates@brocku.ca

Questions?

Contact Elizabeth Yates, Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian, at eyates@brocku.ca