OAPEN Open Access Books Tookit launched

An Open Books Toolkit has just been launched. The OAPEN Open Books Toolkit is a free-to-use resource that aims to help authors better understand open access to books, increase confidence in this type of publication, provide reliable and easy-to-find answers to their questions, and guidance in the process of publishing a book in open access.

The Toolkit was created in collaboration with Springer Nature and the University of Glasgow, with support from the universities of Oxford, Glasgow and Utrecht, which hosted workshops during the development phase of the project. The Toolkit's content was written by a diverse and global group of collaborators from the academic community and from scholarly communication organizations.

The initiative aims to help book authors to publish their work in open access, and to allow more institutional support teams to identify the correct information to assist their researchers. The toolkit will be updated regularly by the Editorial Board and is open to suggestions for further development.

Toolkit Organization

The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit covers specific topics related to open access books. It offers a set of more than 30 individual articles covering various topics, such as: what is open access about, common misconceptions about the topic, licensing and copyright, funding, quality assurance, publishing options, discoverability and impact. Each article offers a quick introduction to a particular aspect of publishing open access books. It also serves as a sigposting tool: articles include a list of sources referenced, further reading and links to definitions of key terms.

The toolkit can be navigated in different ways, such as from the eight-stage research lifecycle, from the Frequently Asked Questions, from the search for keywords, and through the Glossary.

For research from the eight-stage research lifecycle, the user can navigate between the topics: planning and funding; conduct research; consider publishing options; write and submit the manuscript; peer review; book contract and license; book is published and disseminated; and research is reused.