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Publish Books Open Access: Publisher checklist

This is the new guide on publishing open access books

This page lists the services that publishers provide to make your output fully Open Access and easily and freely discoverable.

Many publishers carry these out as standard practice but it is always best to check this before you commit to a publisher and to check that they are in place when your book/chapter is published. Please contact us if you need help with this.

Discoverability

The publisher is responsible for the following:

  • Depositing an Open Access version of the output in a digital archive such as OAPEN for long term preservation
  • Registering and activating a DOI or other unique identifier for a single book and ideally for each individual chapter. This is very important in ensuring that the Open Access version has a reliable link and that it will always be discoverable and accessible even if it is moved to a different platform. It also enables external tools to track altmetrics and citations
  • Registering the output in DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books)
  • Providing access to the Open Access version from the publisher's host website so that users have the choice of using the Open Access version or paying to access or purchase other versions such as the hard copy version
  • Providing you with usage statistics, such as downloads and citations so that you can evidence the reach of your work 

Licensing

The publisher is responsible for the following:

  • The Open Access version of the book or chapter should state which Creative Commons licence it has been published under
  • It should also state who the copyright owner is. Normally, this should be the author

Funder acknowledgement

The publisher should include the wording provided by the author:

  • If the research book, monograph, book chapter or edited collection results from a research grant, it should include an acknowledgement of the project funder. Where the funder has also funded the Open Access costs, there is no need to state this explicitly.

For example:

‘This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxxx]’.

Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by a semicolon, with “and” before the final funder. For example:

‘This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number zzzz]; and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number XXXX]’.

  • If the research book, monograph, book chapter or edited collection does not result from a research grant but you have been provided with funds to cover the Open Access fee paid to the publisher, then this should be acknowledged. For example:

'Open Access has been funded by the University of Reading'