What are open access books?
Open access books are e-books that are freely accessible to all. The full text of the book is made accessible online to all researchers, students, and the public worldwide under an open licence such as Creative Commons.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for academic staff and PhD students at UCA, to support them with their research, in conjunction with the Library’s Scholarly Communications guides.
Benefits for researchers
Benefits of publishing books on open access include:
increased usage and impact of your work
wider and more diverse audiences
greater author control, as copyright may be retained by the author rather than given to the publisher
One study has reported that: “Open access books and chapters on average receive 10 times more downloads, 2.4 times more citations, 10 times more online mentions and…reach on average 61% more countries.” - Springer.
You need to select ‘Open Access’ and ‘Book / eBook’ under ‘Options.’ This will return results from many different open access book databases and publishers.
You can also search for open access books via the databases below:
Open access book publishers may use a combination of these different business models to fund their publishing.
Examples
Some examples of the models that may be used are in the table below:
Model
Description
Example Publishers
Book processing charges (BPC)
The is where the author pays a fee. This is the most established model used by major publishers. Charges range from £4,000 to £15,000 plus VAT. Please note that UCA does not have a fund to pay these fees.
The publisher gets income from print formats while providing a free version online.
Open Book Publishers, Punctum Books, University of Minnesota Press/Manifold.
Consortiums/memberships
Libraries pledge a fee towards the publisher.
Open Book Publishers, Punctum Books, Knowledge Unlatched.
New University presses
A university subsidises their own open access press.
UCL Press, University of London Press, Scottish Universities Press.
There are some useful lists of open access book publishers below:
Open Book Environment Dashboard - a list of open access book publishers, their prices, and licensing. Created by Librarians at the Universities of Derby and Vermont.
Publishers of OA books - from the Open Access Directory, a wiki maintained by the open access community.
Jisc is also developing its Open Policy Finder to include book publishers; currently only 20 book publishers are included.
Considerations when choosing a publisher
A checklist for identifying an appropriate and reputable publisher is in the video below and on the Think, Check, Submit website:
Open access publications are often made available under a Creative Commons Licence. For more information, see our Creative Commons Licensing guide.
You should also consider the licensing of any third-party images that you are using and whether you have permission to make them available on open access. There is a good practice guide from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) on Managing third-party copyright for research publications for researchers publishing open access monographs and book chapters.
Increasingly, research funders are mandating open access for the research outputs that they fund. These open access requirements vary from funder to funder. In some cases, these requirements relate to books, and funding for open access book publishing might be available from the funding body.
Please see the open access requirements for major research funders below. You can check the open access requirements for other funders on Jisc's Open Policy Finder.
For help on complying with these requirements, contact ucaro@uca.ac.uk. Please note that UCA itself does not cover book processing charges for publishing open access. Only in exceptional circumstances can an application to cover article/book processing charges be made to the UCA Internal Research Fund.
For researchers funded by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and its constituent councils, such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), there are open access requirements that apply to books. From 1 January 2024, the UKRI Open Access Policy requires monographs, book chapters, and edited collections that arise from its funding to be made open access.
If you are funded by UKRI, then you can also apply to UKRI’s dedicated £ 3.5 million open access fund, via your research organisation, to make your long form output available on open access.
For Horizon Europe (2021-2027), peer-reviewed publications relating to the results of the project, including articles and long-form publications such as monographs, must be made open access. Book processing charges (BPCs) might be an eligible cost of the project, please see details at the link below.
The REF 2029 Open Access Policy applies to journal articles or conference papers with an ISSN, and not to books. There is no funding available to support open access publication.
REF have announced that there will be an open access requirement for books and long form outputs for the following assessment exercise, with implementation from 1 January 2029.
Even if you do not publish your book on open access, many publishers will allow you to share a single chapter from your book on the University’s research repository, UCA Research Online (UCARO). This is known as ‘green open access' or ‘self-archiving’, and there is no cost to the author.
Examples of publishers that will allow you to upload a chapter to UCARO include:
Key points: Versions - the publisher may specify which version of the chapter can be made available on UCARO, and often this is the ‘author’s accepted manuscript’ version. Embargoes - you can upload the work straightaway to UCARO. However, the publisher may require you to keep it on embargo within UCARO for a specific period by setting an embargo end date, after which it will be made open access automatically.
