Jisc launches review of open access and transitional agreements

To kick start the slow shift towards fully open access academic publishing,?Jisc?has launched a review.

Commissioned and governed by?Jisc’s strategic groups?with input from?Deltathink, an open access data and analytics company, the aim is to gather evidence, agitate discussion in the higher education sector and make recommendations for action.

Exploring the open access landscape in general and the particular role of transitional agreements (TAs), the review findings will be published early in 2024.

The UK has been a leader in the transition to open access, driven by funder policy and institutional demand for a publishing ecosystem that is affordable, fair and transparent; however, two decades on from the?first talks on open research, overall progress remains slow; the UK higher education institutions Jisc represents in sector negotiations with publishers are frustrated with the status quo.

The review seeks to provide insights into the following inquiries: What proportion of scholarly literature is OA?; What impact have Jisc-negotiated TAs had on the open access of UK research publications?; What effect have TAs had on costs for UK higher education providers?; How far have TAs facilitated author compliance with funder requirements?; and To what extent have TAs enabled greater transparency around publisher OA processes for the academic sector?

In common with the?global research community?Jisc and UK institutions adopted transitional agreements as a mechanism to convert subscription spend to fund read access and OA publishing in paywalled journals. Since landing the first UK TA in 2016, Jisc has agreed 47 TAs.

The requirements for TAs, established through consultation with UK institutions and endorsed by the?UUK content negotiation strategy group, focused on constraining costs, enabling OA publishing in compliance with funder policies and reducing administrative burden for individual researchers and institutions.

Click here?to read the original press release.