Coalition Publica Supports the Review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications
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Earlier this year, the presidents of Canada's federal research granting agencies announced a review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. Coalition Publica applauds the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in undertaking the review of the Policy, which was put in place in 2015.
The goal of the policy review is to require peer-reviewed journal publications that have been supported by the Tri-Agencies to be available in open access at the time of publication, without an embargo. Immediate and sustainable open access is a priority for Coalition Publica, the partnership between Érudit and the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) to advance research dissemination and digital scholarly publishing in Canada. Coalition Publica provides digital scholarly publishing infrastructure and services that help ensure that research published in Canadian scholar-led journals in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) is available without restriction.
Coalition Publica enthusiastically supports the review of the policy, particularly in light of a changing global landscape for open access publishing.
“In order to keep pace with global initiatives to accelerate the adoption of immediate open access, the review of the existing policy is timely”, notes Kevin Stranack, Director of Operations for PKP.
“The review of the policy will ensure that readers have access to scholarly research immediately upon publication. It also represents a significant change from the current policy that allows for a 12-month embargo, which means that as a community, we must look to new ways of funding scholar-led HSS journals that rely on subscription revenue to run their operations,” says Tanja Niemann, Executive Director of Érudit.
“We strongly believe that access to scholarly research in the HSS should be available to all citizens. We also believe that publishers of HSS research provide a valuable and critical service to the scholarly communication ecosystem and that academy-owned publishing should benefit from viable and sustainable funding,” states Gwen Bird, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, Simon Fraser University and co-Chair of the Coalition Publica Steering Committee.
“As part of this welcomed review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, we encourage the Tri-Agency to consider models that get us closer to robust, sustainable, and innovative open-access such as the gradual implementation of Diamond Open Access,” continues Frédéric Bouchard, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal, and the other co-Chair of the Steering Committee.
Diamond Open Access (OA) is a community-driven and scholar-led model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to readers or authors. Developing a national strategy for the implementation of Diamond OA will effectively address the differing realities of academic communities and would allow Canadian journals to ensure that research is available in open access at the time of publication. Without a strategy that is inherently equitable, promotes bibliodiversity, and provides predictable and sustainable funding for scholar-led journals, there is a risk that Canadian open access journals, particularly in the HSS, will not have sufficient revenue to continue to operate while adhering to a revised Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.
The scholarly journals that participate in Coalition Publica are supported through a variety of means, including through SSHRC funding and institutional support for their operations often via library-based publishing services. Since 2014, Érudit has partnered with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network in the Partnership for Open Access (POA). The POA is a scalable, tested, and community-governed Diamond OA model designed to support journals in HSS, both those already in immediate open access as well as those transitioning to OA, by providing predictable funding from academic library partners. It is a pillar of Coalition Publica’s journal support program, as it provides a framework to continue funding OA journals, but it is still seeking long-term stability.
“Increasing institutional support for collective efforts such as the POA, paired with investments in open infrastructure, will enable Canada to continue as a global leader of research dissemination and knowledge mobilization, while ensuring the long-term success of the not-for-profit scholarly journals,” notes Ms. Niemann.
In terms of open infrastructure, for close to 25 years PKP has provided the principal publishing platform for Diamond OA journals in Canada and beyond with its Open Journal Systems.
“We would be delighted with a Tri-Agency move to zero-embargo,” states John Willinsky, PKP’s Co-Scientific Director, “and look forward to further concerted steps that will strengthen Canada’s contribution to publicly accessible scholarship, not only by supporting the POA model, but by continuing to invest in open source publishing platforms and training programs.”
Coalition Publica, its partners, and communities, look forward to engaging with the Tri-Agency as they review their policy to discuss the ways in which platforms and HSS not-for-profit publishers can support the policy revision, and to articulate the features and support needed for a transformed, academy-led Canadian scholarly publishing ecosystem.
For more information, please contact :
Alejandra Casas Niño de Rivera - Communications Coordinator, Public Knowledge Project - alejandra@publicknowledgeproject.org
Gwendal Henry - Communications Advisor, Érudit - gwendal.henry@erudit.org
About Coalition Publica
Coalition Publica is a partnership created by Érudit and the Public Knowledge Project dedicated to the advancement of research dissemination and digital publishing in the social sciences and humanities in Canada, specifically designed to support the SSH community in the transition towards sustainable open access. Coalition Publica pursues this goal through the development of a non-commercial, open source national infrastructure dedicated to digital scholarly publishing, dissemination, and research—combining PKP’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) software and Érudit’s digital dissemination platform (erudit.org). https://www.coalition-publi.ca/
About Érudit
Érudit is an inter-university consortium that provides research and cultural communities with a wide range of services in digital publishing and dissemination. The Érudit platform—erudit.org—is the leading digital dissemination platform of SSH research in Canada. It hosts over 300 journals and its collections are consulted by the research community and the general public, including the members of over 1,200 institutions worldwide. https://www.erudit.org/
About the Public Knowledge Project
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is a multi-university initiative that develops free and open software for journals, books, and preprints, to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing. PKP’s flagship software, Open Journal Systems (OJS), is a journal management and publishing system that assists with every stage of the refereed publishing process, from submissions through to online publication and indexing. Over 350 Canadian journals and over 30,000 journals worldwide use OJS. https://pkp.sfu.ca/