Open Science for Arts, Design and Music/Publishers

OS-ADM

Project

Calendar

Training

Guidelines

Case studies

Publishers

DMP

Reports

Credits

Publishers

The project Open Science for Arts, Design and Music contributes to open access and alternative forms of publications by negotiating with institutional, national and international publishers in the fields of arts, design and music

National Publishers

Swiss publishers collaborating with the academia must comply with the rules dictated by the Swiss National Fund and thus make publicly funded works immediately available for free in Open Access. To meet this requirement, most publishers in Switzerland publish two editions of the same work: a paper and a digital version.

What is included in these two versions may vary depending on the publishers' attitudes towards open access and their willingness to experiment with alternative forms of publications.

1. Enriched digital publication: the digital edition is approached as an opportunity to explore alternative forms of publishing and add extra multimedia content not available in the printed version.
2. Print and digital are the same
3. Impoverished digital publication: the open access digital publication lacks some of the content that is only available in the printed edition. This is the case with digital versions featuring low resolution images or no images at all due to copyright issues.

Publishers play a key role in the successful implementation of the Swiss national Open Access strategy. To ensure their support, the OS-ADM team has selected three national publishers specialising in Arts, Design and Music whose editorial Open Access policy is be explored as case study. The case study analysis consisted in a structured conversation, recorded and released under CC BY 4.0. Publishers were invited to share their perspectives on Open Access and provide examples of their Open Access strategy. The conversations touched the following topics:

• Current Open Access policy
• Successful or challenging case studies of Open Access publications
• CC licences
• Impact of national strategy
• Reasons for releasing books in Open Access
• Collaboration with academia
• Business models
• The present and near future of publishing regarding Open Access
• Open Access literacy
• Open Access visibility and impact
• Different Open Access roads (e.g. green, gold and platinum Open Access)
• Dealing with Open Access and images, video, art, design and music?
• Experiences with alternative forms of digital publications, multimedia publications or experimental formats

Case studies

Edizioni Casagrande

Edizioni Casagrande

Edizioni Casagrande is a Swiss publisher based in Ticino and publishing mainly in Italian.

• Conversation with Edizioni Casagrande (Fabio Casagrande, 23.01.2024), interview by Iolanda Pensa and Chiara Barbieri, Project Open Science for arts design and music, SUPSI, 2024, CC BY 4.0.

Introduction

Born out of a bookshop founded in 1924, today Edizioni Casagrande is the most important publishing house in Italian-speaking Switzerland. In addition to its literary, prose and poetry series, Edizioni Casagrande publishes also non-fiction books with a focus on (local) history, culture, sociology and art. Particular attention is also paid to the cultural and linguistic history of the Alpine regions, with the publication of the journal Archivio Storico Ticinese. Since 2015, following the collaboration with the Museo d'Arte della Svizzera Italiana, the production of art and photography books has been intensified. In Switzerland, promotion and distribution in bookshops is handled directly by the publishing house or the bookshop of the same name. Since 2000, Edizioni Casagrande's books are promoted in Italy by Emme Promozione and distributed by Messaggerie Libri Spa.

Digital publications

Edizioni Casagrande produces digital publications of research in the humanities in cooperation with the Swiss National Science Foundation. These are mainly dissertations, conference proceedings, monographs. So far, Edizioni Casagrande has published around 40 digital books. The formats for the digital publications can be PDFs or ePUB. These are either in open access and available on libreo and Open AccessPEN or for sale on the platform edigita.

Open Access

Edizioni Casagrande's move to open access was dictated by the policies of the SNSF. Initially they approached Open Access with some apprehension since they were accustomed to covering production costs with book sales. While recognising its importance in the academic field, the publisher expresses doubts towards Open Access with regards to copyright and bibliodiversity.
Almost all Open Access publications have also been published in hard copy, thus maintaining a double version (digital and paper) of the same book. The Open Access version of the publications have been released under CC BY-NC-ND licenses and authors' maintain the copyright of their works. The visibility of the Open Access publications is measured with Crossref.
The choice of Open Access is not always dictated only by the need to adhere to the requests of SNSF for publications in the field of academic research. Sometimes, the choice of whether to distribute a book in Open Access or not is the result of a decision made by the publisher together with the authors to promote the dissemination of the work to a wide and diverse audience.
The case of the monograph Navigando fiumi paraguaiani. Mosè Bertoni esploratore e cartografo dell'Alto Paranà is an interesting example that illustrates the rational for choosing or not Open Access. The bilingual (Italian/Spanish) book is a monograph dedicated to the Ticinese emigrant to Paraguay Mosè Bertoni. Sales, according to the editor, would never be of significant profit, thus decisions regarding Open Access were not made on commercial grounds. In an attempt to to reach a readership that would be otherwise difficult to reach with the paper version, namely the South American public, the authors Danilo Baratti and Patrizia Candolfi and the publisher had to decide whether to release the digital version in Open Access or not. They opted for the latter (two PDFs, one in Italian and one in Spanish) in the belief that the availability of digital books on international commercial platforms (e.g. Amazon) makes them easier to find than on Open Access platforms. the decision raises some doubts as to the actual findability of Open Access, especially when it comes to reaching a general public outside academia.

Swiss Open Acceess policy

Edizioni Casagrande's publishing strategy complies with the Open Access policy advocated in Switzerland concerning publications resulting from publicly funded research. The publisher is contrary to an extension of Open Access policies outside academic research. They are particularly opposed to a bill for 2025/2028, according to which Swiss publishers will have to release all their publications in Open Access to the national library. Along with other Swiss publishers, Edizioni Casagrande argues in defence of bibliodiversity and the copyrights of the authors and the publishing houses themselves. Objection to Open Access concerns publications that are not publicly financed but supported by sales.

Open Access and paper versions

The Open Access books published by Edizioni Casagrande are also available in print, giving the reader the choice of downloading the publication for free or buying the printed version. Funding for the print version are found outside SNSF, which only finances the digital version in Open Access.
The publisher's early experiences of Open Access revealed a superiority of the print version over the digital version in Open Access. According to the statistics of print sales and digital visibility, the former sold more than the latter was downloaded for free online, even thought on the publisher's website it is clearly stated that the publication is available for free of charge. The publisher explains this situation by attributing it to a preference of the average reader to read on paper rather than on the screen, especially when dealing with text heavy publications as it is the case with Edizioni Casagrande's books.

Multimedia content

Edizioni Casagrande publishes multimedia content that enriches its printed books. Nelly Valsangiacomo's book Dietro al microfono. Intellettuali italiani alla Radio svizzera (1930-1980) is an example of a paper publication enriched by multimedia content available online. Thanks to an agreement with RSI (Radio Svizzera Italiana), readers can listen to the voices of the interviewees on a dedicated webpage on the RSI website: www.rsi.ch/dietroalmicrofono. Or at least they could since the webpage is no longer available, thus raising the issue of the long-term sustainability of this type of content.
To overcome problems related to digital longevity, the publisher suggests using a new type of permanent identifier, namely the ISBN-A. The ISBN-A is an additional service of the ISBN code applicable to any published product. It is a persistent link that is activated on the Internet via the DOI system technology. The ISBN-A allows multimedia content to be placed on an external platform (e.g. on extendedbook) and be permanently linked to the book's ISBN code.

Images and third parties' material

The handling of copyrighted material (e.g. images) is not an easy issue for publishers. Already present in print media, the difficulty increases when dealing with multimedia formats and Open Access. Edizioni Casagrande attributes its difficulty in using open cc licences to the presence of images as by law they cannot sublicense the copyright of third-party material.

Future business models

The publisher's reflections on new business models concern aspects related to language and printing technologies. According to the Edizioni Casagrande, language has a considerable impact on editorial choices related to the digital. Indeed, the digital market changes depending on the language: in the case of the Italian language it stops at 5-7%, while in English the percentage of the digital book rises to 17-19%. New digital printing techniques have considerably lowered the production costs of paper books. Print on demand has further lowered production, storage and distribution costs. This change influences editorial choices, giving the possibility of producing a more refined first edition, followed by a second print-on-demand edition of lower quality at a lower selling price. Regarding Open Access, the publisher expects an evolution in the multimedia sector with the use of enriched books.

MētisPresses

MētisPresses

MētisPresses is an independent publishing house based in Geneva. Founded in 2003, it specialised in academic books in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

• Conversation with MētisPresses (Léa Roché, 24.01.2024), interview by Iolanda Pensa and Chiara Barbieri, Project Open Science for arts design and music, SUPSI, 2024, CC BY 4.0.

Description

MētisPresses was funded in 2003 and its catalogue includes in particular books on art history, literary criticism, architecture and urbanism. It addresses both an informed and non-specialist audience, that is students, academics but also the general public. With a team of 5, MētisPresses is a small publisher that does all editorial work internally, e-books included. They publish between 13 and 15 book, and 5 to 7 e-books a year.

Open Access

SNSF Open Access policy

The SNSF decision to ask publisher to release digital content immediately in Open Access for free was meat with some concern by MētisPresses. After internal discussions the publisher decided to adopt the Gold Road to Open Access. Together with the digital Open Access version, books are also printed on paper. Thus when working with the SNSF, MētisPresses produces two objects: the printed book and the Open Access e-book. The latter complements the former by featuring the same content and enriched documents.

Enriched E-Books

MētisPresses is been publishing e-books since 2018. This digital turn was the direct consequence of the SNSF policy that requested publisher receiving publication funding to provide digital versions. At the beginning od this new editorial practice, they were allowed an embargo period of 2 years after which all e-books were to be released in Open Access.

The workflow begins with the printed version of the book. Once this is designed, attention is turned towards the e-book. Using the same layout as the printed version, the e-book is enriched with interactive content. Editing a book takes around a year, followed by 3 months of layout and a month and a half for the digital conversion. Once the book is printed and released on the marked, it is also published online at the same time

MētisPresses's e-books are not simple digital translations of printed versions (not simple PDFs). The are meant to offer both the author and the reader something more. The printed version always includes information about the e-book. There is clear dialogue system between the two versions that guide the reader. A special symbol (small lens) on the printed book indicates every time the reader can access extra special content on the free digital publication available online on the publisher website.

The book Transformation Silencieuse: Étude architecturale du bâti alpin provide a good example of MētisPresses approach to enriched books. In this case, the e-book offers the reader and interactive map where one select one of the 75 case studies and access extra research data (e.g. additional images and plans) that are not included in the printed version of the book.

With MētisPresses, authors have the chance to enrich the e-book with research data that can not be included in the printed book. The research data themselves, i.e. the interactive content included in the e-book, are selected, organised and designed to facilitate their access and reuse. This process asks researchers/authors to change their approach to publishing their research output and think about it in a different, more complex, way. From a publisher perspective it is necessary to deal with authors who have a clear idea of the kind of research data they have and how they want to share them given the possibilities of digital publications.

EPUB 3

The first e-books published by MētisPresses were designed using Aquafadas. Since 2020 they changed programme as the former was too expensive and did not satisfy the publisher's expectations when dealing with enriched e-books. After research and trials, they adopted InDesign as the programme enables a plugin for digital publishing resulting in EPUB 3. The choice of EPUB 3 instead of EPUB 2 is due to the need to keep the same layout for the printed and e-book version.

If requested (for example by the institutions) MētisPresses also uses enlarged PDF formats that, by contrast to EPUB, can be included by librarians in the institutional catalogue. However, enlarged PDFs are considered technically less efficient than EPUB 3 as they offer fewer options and cannot manage multiple layers of information as well as EPUB 3 formats. Thus the choice about the format - i.e. whether to choose enlarged PDFs or EPUB 3 formats – depends on the kind of content that enriches the digital publication.

The publisher is aware of the problematics and limitations of EPUB 3 formats. The main issue with EPUB 3, especially if considered in the context of Open Access, is that it is not a open source format readable on any computer. MētisPresses recommends the open source software Thorium Reader as it does not affect the layout of the digital publication, thus it interferes neither with the content not the design and experience of the object.

Visibility

The choice of EPUB 3 formats, while providing both authors and readers with the opportunity to share, access and reuse extra interactive content, makes the publication less visible and thus less findable on institutional repositories and Open Access directories such as oapen since those often do not sustain the complexity of EPUB formats.

This technical issues raises a contradiction in the SNSF Open Access policy. The SNSF, in fact, on the one hand accepts and funds enriched books, but one the other it also asks for a (poorer) PDF version of the digital publication to be archived in its system.

Furthermore, MētisPresses ensures storage on the website, but puts the authors directly in charge of distributing the digital book (both EPUB 3 and PDF versions) within institutional platforms. The reason for delegating the author is mere workload distribution since the publisher does not have enough resources to deal with the distribution of the e-book in-house. Collaborating with universities libraries to improve distribution could be a a solution to ensure better visibility to the Open Access publications.

Multimedia and alternative forms of publications

MētisPresses' adoption EPUB 3 as their format for digital publications depends also on their decision to provide readers with an experience that is close to reading a printed book. The possibility of using open formats such as html websites as an alternative is usually avoided. By contrast to EPUB 3, websites need coding, that is a different skill set and different approach to the publishing practice.

The book Sur les bancs du paysage: Enjeux didactiques, démarches et outils is an example of MētisPresses' experimental approach to digital publications. In this case the printed and digital version of the publication do not correspond. The latter is still designed with InDesign but it shares similarities with a website at the level of interactive and visual experience.

What is missing and could make a difference in the digital and Open Access turn of academic publishing is, according to MētisPresses, an open software mean to be used by publishers instead of coders (i.e. appropriate for their knowledge and skill set) that can allow them to design Open Access digital publication without the compatibility issues that they are at the moment encountering with, for example, EPUB 3 formats.

Digital turn and the publishing industry

According to MētisPresses Open Access and, more in general, digital publishing has been challenging the very definition of a publisher's job leading it towards the field of computer sciences and information technologies. This trespassing of professional boundaries is however not supported with the needed training and skill sets. One of the challenges of the digital and Open Access turn for publishers is the constant need to keep up with innovations and advances. According to MētisPresses, technology watch is an essential aspect of the contemporary publishing industry. Most of it is self-initiated and self-training is the result of a trial and error process. Every new project pushes the team of MētisPresses to find new tools and solutions. Most recently they have started using Ajar Productions as this pug in allowed they to add scrolling frames to their E-Books.

Sharing knowledge

To compensate the general lack of knowledge in the publishing sector around digital publishing and Open Access and thus contribute to information and experience exchange, MētisPresses is in the process of discussing with the association Livre Suisse possibilities of knowledge sharing. They argue for the need of specialist training and are keen on contributing with their own experience and have, in return, the opportunity to learn from others. To this end, they also suggest a close collaboration between university institutions and publishers.

Triest Verlag

Triest Verlag

Triest Verlag für Architektur, Design und Typografie is a Swiss specialist book publisher based in Zurich and founded in 2015 by Kerstin Forster and Andrea Wiegelmann with the focus on architecture, design and typography.

• Conversation with Triest Verlag (Andrea Wiegelmann, 25.01.2024), interview by Iolanda Pensa and Chiara Barbieri, Project Open Science for arts design and music, SUPSI, 2024, CC BY 4.0.

Description

Triest Verlag publishes 6 to 8 book per year, with a print run of 1500 on average. The publisher's return is about 50% of the net price. In some cases, they are deeply involved in the making of a book and take on the role of co-editors and co-authors. This type of editorial projects, in which the publishers is directly engaged also at the state of research and production of content, can take up to six years in the making. Other projects, instead, come out of cooperations with universities. In these cases, the publishers is not involved in the research or creation of content.

Triest Verlag is known for its beautifully designed and crafted books. For each project they work with freelance graphic designers. They opt for local or short-distance (Switzerland or Germany) printers in order to enable graphic designers to work closely and in person with the printing house. The decision is also made out of ecological reasons so as to reduce C02 emission and comes with higher printing costs.

Open Access

The downsides of Open Access

Triest Verlag's attitude towards Open Access is rather reluctant. They see the digital world in conflict with their own approach towards books and publishing as they struggle to find a satisfactory and feasible solution to the digital translation of their printed books.

Open Access's lack of materiality

The publisher's main issue against Open Access is its lack of physicality and two-dimensional quality. Each publication is the result of a close collaboration with the graphic designers. Each aspect – layout, font, paper – is thus carefully chosen in order to provide the reader with the best physical experience of the printed book. All the efforts put into the printed object with regards to reader's physical experience of the book are vain once the publication is digitalised.

Open Access and copyright

Copyright management difficulties are another aspect that does not convince Triest Verlag of the feasibility of Open Access. Right owners can deny authorisation for the publication in Open Access of images that are instead included in the printed version of the book. Images in digital version are then pixellated. As such, not only the physical and the digital versions do not correspond, but the latter also becomes pointless since the meaning and the added value of the publication depends on the close dialogue between text and images.

Copyright management for the Open Access versions is also problematically expensive. Right owners would allow Triest Verlag to publish the images also in Open Access only if the publisher were to pay a fee per download and this is unfeasible for the publisher since they do not cover the costs through sales. Copyright clearance in Open Access is also more expensive that the printed version because since the size of the images is not fixed, publishers are charged the prise for full page. In the case of the printed book, instead, the publisher finds that copyright management is easier because details such as image size or print run are known in advance.

A further issue related to copyright and Open Access that Triest Verlag struggles with is the concern about unwanted and unauthorised re-use of third-parties content once released in Open Access and downloaded.

(Un)sustainability of Open Access

Overall, Triest Verlag sees Open Access as hardly feasible within its current business model as this does not support the waiver of the publisher's return on investment through sales that is implied by Open Access. The publisher is sceptical about the actual cost-effectiveness of Open Access for users since the digital format requires technology and equipment with a non-trivial cost. They also point out an ethical problem related to the ecological impact of digital. Finally, they are also conscious and express their concerns about the longevity of digital formats.

Open Access, Artificial Intelligence and data mining

Triest Verlag is also concerned about data mining and the use of content by AI. In particular, the publisher objected to possible commercial use of material without compensating the authors for this.

Open Access as 'impoverished' version

Despite its critical stance, Triest Verlag is currently in the process of publishing its first book in Open Access: archithese reader: Critical Positions in Search of Postmodernity, 1971–1976. Open Access was requested by the editors in order to comply with the SNSF requests. The book is a survey on the Swiss architectural magazine Archithese that include also the facsimile reprint and English translation of about twenty-five articles.

Copyright of texts and images was a challenging aspect of this publication. Copyright issues got even more complicated with the digital Open Access version. In some cases, the right holder allowed only the reprint of the extrapolated text but not the reproduction of the original article in the Open Access version of the book. Some rights holders were willing to allow Open Access but only upon payment for each download of the book. The publisher considers this option to be unfeasible because it cannot return the costs since the publication is available online free of charge. Overall, this experience gave Triest Verlag further evidence that copyright management with regards to Open Access is very time-consuming and therefore a difficult workload to manage that they consider not sustainable within the publisher's current business model.

For Triest Verlag, at the moment, the compromise solution is turning the Open Access digital version of their books into an impoverished version of the actual printed publications which are instead more complex and thus enriched. In the case of Archithese, the Open Access version has the same layout as the printed book but, due to the above mentioned issues with the copyright clearance of images, the images are pixellated. Thus the Open Access version only enables readers to access the text. However, the impoverished digital version is not always a viable option because in some cases the lack of images renders the text useless due to the lack of visual information complementing the verbal content.

Open Access and the Academia

Triest Verlag collaborates on a regular bases with the academia. The “Visual Archives” series, for example, is co-edited together with ECAL / Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (HES-SO). Books from this series focus on unexplored legacies of designers, companies and brands. They feature documents and visual material from archives that are accompanied and contextualised by critical essays. As a result of the SNSF Open Access policy, from 2024 the series, as well as all publications that are resulting from publicly funded research project, must be published in a digital Open Access format. Triest Verlag sees its collaboration with Academia as viable as long as the SNSF will accept 'impoverishes' digital versions, that is versions where some of the material included in the printed book (e.g. images) will not the visible, as compliant with its Open Access strategy. However, the eventual request for the printed and digital versions to be identical without any extra funding supporting the publishers might regrettably be a dealbreaker for Triest Verlag.

Publishers and the SNSF

Since 2017 Triest Verlag has been a member of SWIPS – Swiss Independent Publishers. Open Access is a topic of debate within the organisation as this is a challenge that all small publishers have to face and find a solution for. SWIPS is active in defending the cause of small independent publishers to the SNSF, explaining the challenges they face in complying with the funding body's Open Access requirements.

Institutional Publications

In the context of the research project, institutional publications refer to publications produced by a department or research team that is part of an academic institution. The University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) is used as a case study to look into different types of institutional publications and explore the challenges they might face when opening their content.

Institutional publications published by SUPSI follow under the following three categories:

1. student-led magazine
2. online and free journal
3. open access publication

Case studies

All four case studies are institutional publications published at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI).

Artichoke

Artichoke

Description of the Publication

Artichoke is a student-led magazine produced by the Bachelor in Visual Communication of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Department for Environment Constructions and Design (DACD).

Every year, the students of the 3^rd year of the Bachelor in Visual Communication work together to produce a new issue of Artichoke. They take care of the editorial project throughout all its phases: from layout design to interviews, from editing to photography, from illustration to typography. The magazine is distributed free of charge within a small network. It is used by SUPSI as promotional material to advertise the Bachelor in Visual Communication.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

Artichoke is published only in print without any digital version. Its content (text and images) is released under all rights reserved. The editors of Artichoke express an interest and willingness to publish at least a selection of content – texts and images – in open access. At the same time, they indicate a number of difficulties that may prevent the implementation of open access due mainly to the type of materials featured, the experimental nature of the final product and a general lack of knowledge on the topic on the part of both the editorial team and the students.

Challenges and recommendations

• an experimental playground for students: the aim of artichoke is to give students the opportunity to test what they have learnt during their bachelor's degree in a protected environment that allows them a level of experimentation and freedom only possible within the school. In this case, the increased visibility of open access can thus turn from benefit to liability both for the students, who might feel the pressure of a larger audience, and for the department, who might feel less willing to give students carte blanche.
  • following the principle 'as open as possible, as closed as needed', we acknowledged the need for closeness hence advised to open only a selection of items following a risk assessment that would take into consideration issues of copyright and data protection.
• personal and sensitive data, copyrighted material: Artichoke editors indicate the inclusion of third-party copyrighted material and personal or sensitive data as an issue for which they require legal assistance
  • we provided a consent form, written in collaboration with CCdigitallaw with the recommendation of using it concurrently to the interviewing process
• students' awareness: the lack of general knowledge about copyright and open access issues on the part of students is slowing down the opening of journal content for risk management issues
  • we suggest to organise a special training tailored for the students' needs.
• the limited experience of the editorial team with OA and CC licences
  • we assisted the editorial team is selecting the CC license (CC By-SA 4.0), indicating the preferred attribution and creating a new community on Zenodo and uploading the open content.

Implementation

• standard consent form
• student training: organisation of a workshop for the Visual Communication students to familiarise them with open access and copyright
• Zenodo: creation of a community on Zenodo for the OA content of Artichoke: Artichoke magazine at SUPSI
• Open Artichoke: release in OA with a CC BY-SA 4.0 license of 4 articles and a selection of images
  • Carole Waller + Rafael Kouto, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13936187
  • Verzasca Fotofestival - Una chiaccherata con Alfio Tommasini, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13936149
  • Fondazione Atelier Genucchi - Michele Martinoni, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13936096
  • Oltre la metropoli. Ridefinire il successo artistico negli spazi creativi decentralizzati, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13935824

Lessons Learned

Artichoke is a interesting case study that showed the challenges of Open Access in the fields of arts, design and music, related, in particular, to third parties material and sensitive data. More important, it provided a compelling case for situations when opening is not always possible nor desirable. Being a students' journal, it is a platform for experimentation whose 'closeness' can actually benefit the students' needs.

</noinclude>

Iride

Iride

Description of the Publication

Iride is the journal of the Department of Business, Health and Social Economics (DEASS) at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). It represents the multidisciplinary nature of the department and offers reflections from its three areas of expertise - economics, health and social work - as well as from the areas in which it is active (research, basic and continuing education). The journal has been published biannually since September 2016.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

The collaboration with Iride got off to a good start since all issues of the journal were already immediately available online for free on the webpage and e-periodica. The editorial team needed only some technical support in implementing open access. The case study was conducted within a collaboration between the projects GOAL and Open Science for arts, design and music.

Challenges and recommendations

• Open Access requirements: the editorial team needed support in implementing Open Access: how to proceed, what was needed, how to write an open access policy.
  • we provided assistance listing the key requirements for a journal: the selection of a CC open licence, the inclusion of a DOI and 'how to cite' recommendation per each article, the agreement of an Open access policy and its publication online
  • we provided models and examples

Implementation

• Diamond Open Access: with the selection of open licence CC BY-SA 4.0 and a no-embargo policy, Iride is a Diamond Open Access publication
• Open Access policy, expected publication online in November 2024

Lessons Learned

The magazine was already available online free of charge and without embargo. It was therefore only a matter of assisting the editorial team in choosing a free licence and drafting an Open Access policy. As a case study, Iride demonstrates both a willingness to share and a need of support with the implementation of open access requirements that have been easily be solved with a little assistance.

Didattica della matematica. Dalla ricerca alle pratiche d'aula

Didattica della matematica. Dalla ricerca alle pratiche d’aula

Description of the Publication

Didattica della matematica. Dalla ricerca alle pratiche d’aula (DdM) is a biannual, Open Access, Italian-language journal. The journal is aimed at researchers in mathematics didactics and teachers working in schools. It is produced by the Mathematics Didactics Competence Centre (DDM) of the Department of Education and Learning (DFA) at SUPSI. Articles undergo a double-blind peer review.

No publication fees are charged to authors since the costs of the publication are funded by the department in collaboration with the Department of Education, Culture and Sport (DECS), Repubblica e Cantone Ticino. Current and past issues are available on the journal website. The journal is listed in DOAJ. The Creative Commons licence used is CC BY 4.0. Authors retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

The institutional journal is Open Access and already listed in DOAJ.

Challenges and recommendations

Didattica della matematica. Dalla ricerca alle pratiche d’aula did not present any challenge.

Implementation

In this instance, there has been no need for assistance since the journal was already in open access. On the contrary, the journal has been used by the OS-ADM team as a good example of open access institutional publication.

Lessons Learned

Didattica della matematica. Dalla ricerca alle pratiche d’aula showed how Open Access is already implemented within SUPSI institutional publications.

International Journals

The project Open Science for arts design and music contacted a series of international journals and supported them in implementing open access.

Case studies

Catarsi-Teatri delle Diversità

Catarsi-Teatri delle Diversità

Catarsi-Teatri delle Diversità is an Italian academic publication focusing on the social value of theatre and the performing arts in the field of social hardship, disability and imprisonment.

Description of the Publication

Catarsi-Teatri delle Divertità was founded in 1996 by Emilio Pozzi and Vito Minoia. Since then, it has been published irregularly almost every six months. The latest issue (n. 83/84) was published in April 2019. The magazine can be purchased online on the publisher's website: Edizioni Catarsi. For its production, it can also count on public (both on a national and regional level) funding.

Catarsi-Teatri delle Divertità has an informal connection to the University of Urbino through the affiliation and the director, Vito Minoia. The magazine is recognised at an international level. In is part of the IATJ, International Archive of Theatre Journals, which was born from the collaboration between the Consulta Universitaria del Teatro and the International Federation for Theatre Research. It has been collaborating with the editorial committee of the AITU-IUTA (International University Theatre Association) since 2014, and with the Publication Committee of the International Theatre Institute - UNESCO since 2017.

Catarsi-Teatri delle Divertità features articles in Italian, English, Spanish and French. It is richly illustrated with black and white photographs. Articles are optionally peer reviewed using the single-blind review system.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

The editorial team wants to relaunch the journal whose last issue dates back to April 2019. On this occasion, they decided to turn the journal, up to now only paper-based, into an online open access publication. They already have the content (texts and iconographic apparatus) to fill two issues. They ask for support to implement open access, recognising a lack of familiarity with the topic and possible difficulties in handling copyrighted images and sensitive data.

Challenges and recommendations

• unfamiliarity with open access and need for practical support in implementation:
  • we provided assistance in choosing CC licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), we drafted the magazine's open access policy and suggested with a list of steps towards implementation of OA (i.e. inclusion of DOI and recommended attribution)
• sensitivity of contents: the magazine specialises in theatrical experiences in situations of social hardship - in particular with theatre in prisons - and with people with disabilities. It has an ethical and moral responsibility to protect sensitive content which is therefore in direct contrast with the needs of open access.
  • we recommend paying extra attention to the protection of personal and sensitive data both at the level of textual contents and iconographic apparatus, and suggest to adopt different levels of openness (i.e. different or CC licences) depending of the sensitivity of the content.

Implementation

• Open Access policy: we provided a draft for the magazine Open Access policy
• letter to authors to request permission to release the content in OA: we provided a standard letter to be sent to authors asking their permission to release their articles with the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence
• publication of the first issue in open access: the publication in open access of Catarsi-Teatri delle Divertità is expected in early 2025, the editorial team is in contact with the OS-ADM team

Lessons Learned

The case study proved to be very fruitful. From the very beginning, the editorial team was open to dialogue and receptive to our input. The willingness to move from a print journal to an open access digital journal demonstrated the general trend towards open content in academia. The timely exchange on copyright and sensitive material issues confirmed the need to use clearance forms from the outset.

AIS Design Journal: Storia e Ricerche

AIS/Design Journal: Storia e Ricerche

Description of the Publication

AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche is the free, peer-reviewed, multilingual (Italian/English) online journal of the Italian Association of Design Historians (AIS/Design). The journal, founded in 2012, publishes research in all areas of design history. It is published every six months and adopts the double-blind peer review process. Articles feature many illustrations under copyright.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

We approached the editorial team and offered our support to implement open access and begin the application process to DOAJ. The journal is available online and can be red and downloaded for free with no need to registration or membership. Articles are not released under any CC licence. Thus, although the journal is described as 'open access' on the website, it does not comply with the requirements of open access. Moreover, the single articles do not include a DOI nor a recommended citation.

Challenges and recommendations

• CC licences and open access: the editorial team expressed their willingness to open the journal but also their awareness of possible internal resistance within the association to the adoption of open licences, thus without NC and ND
  • we explained differences between CC licences and clarified the requirements of open access
  • we recommended the adoption of the CC BY-SA 4.0 for texts (unless otherwise stated)
• Copyrighted material: the journal features many images under copyright that makes the release of content in open access challenging
  • we suggested to adopt the 'as open as possible, and closed as necessary' policy, hence re-use open content when possible, keep the images under copyright and use CC BY-SA 4.0, unless differently stated

• DOAJ:
  • we explained the value of being included in DOAJ and clarified the requirement

• Open access policy: the journal does not feature an open access policy on its website (as required to be included in DOAJ)
  • we provided a draft of open access policy to be discussed internally by the editorial team and eventually uploaded online once approved

• DOI (as required to be included in DOAJ) and recommended citation:
  • we provided a template for the recommended citation to be included in each article
  • we listed a number DOI providers

Implementation

After an initial contact and a beginning of collaboration, the work on opening up the content came to a halt due to a change in the editorial team of the magazine that will take effect from 2025. However, the journal still took a step forward towards openness and there are good chances that the new editorial board will pick up where the current one left off.

• CC licences: the two issues of AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche published in 2024 – Storie di Semiotica e Design, v. 11 n. 20 (2024); wip – have been resealed with the CC licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Although not compliant with open access, the licence is a starting point towards opening the content.

Lessons Learned

Since the magazine was already available online for free, it was an excellent candidate for the opening of content. The initial absence of CC licences, even though the journal was advertised as open, suggested the need to clarify the open access requirements and the still common confusion between 'downloadable for free' and 'open'. The conversation with the editors also revealed a need for arguments to convince authors (and in this case also the members of the association) to agree to the use of open licences. For fear of a loss of control over possible re-use of materials, the most common licence is CC BY NC ND.

ISIA Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche di Urbino

ISIA Journal of Design

Description of the Publication

ISIA Journal of Design is a new editorial initiative by the design school ISIA. Following the reception of public funding for the dissemination of research results, ISIA-Firenze has decided to use these funds to finance the launch of a new academic journal in collaboration with the ISIA of Rome, Faenza, Urbino and Pescara.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

The editorial team is planning the first issue of the journal. They are asking us for assistance in understanding the feasibility of opening up all content (including images) and advice on how to manage, from a commercial point of view, a dual version, digital in open access and print for sale.

Challenges and recommendations

• unfamiliarity with open access and need for practical support in implementation:
  • we provided the editorial team with assistance in choosing CC licence (suggested licence: CC BY-SA 4.0), we drafted the magazine's open access policy and suggested with a list of steps towards implementation of OA (i.e. inclusion of DOI and recommended attribution)
• managing the dual (open access and for sale) version of the magazine:
  • we debated whether to make a distinction between the print and digital versions: the digital version could be issued biannually while the print version would be issued annually and would include a selection of digital materials; it is also recommended to focus on the design of the print version in order to encourage and justify its purchase

• DOAJ:
  • we explained the value of being included in DOAJ and clarified the requirement

Implementation

• CC licence: ISIA Journal of Design is a diamond open access magazine licenced under CC BY-SA unless otherwise stated
• Website https://www.isiajournalofdesign.com/
  • Open Access policy: the open access policy provided by the OS-ADM team is published on the website
  • in accordance to the requirement of DOAJ, the website include a Code of ethics of the journal
• dual versions:
  • the digital version will be made available on the platform Open Journal Systems, while the paper version is published by Mimesis Edizioni.

Lessons Learned

The case study has showed the importance of dealing with open access from the very conception of a new magazine. Being involved from the early stages of the publication process allowed us to clarify immediately the requirements of open access and thus avoid misunderstanding. This was especially relevant when negotiating with the publisher.

It also confirmed that there is a growing awareness of open access and that new academic publications, especially when they have received public fundings, must comply with it.

Bembo Officina Editoriale

Bembo Officina Editoriale

Description of the Publication

Bembo OE is the Publishing Workshop of the Doctoral School of the Iuav University of Venice. It publishes in Open Access titles of research and critical reflection on the themes of the scientific and cultural fields of the School, with the aim of encouraging the circulation and discussion of the research of doctoral students and doctoral students.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

We approached the editorial team and offered our support to push further their open access policy. According to the OA policy published on the publisher's website: "Bembo OE chooses the Open Access mode of publication, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration (2003) and the European and international goals for sharing knowledge and research as a public good". However, the chosen licence is a CC BY NC SA, hence not fully compliant with open access. The publications are also missing the DOI and recommended citation, in particular for individual contributions in edited texts.

Challenges and recommendations

• CC licences: we clarified the requirements of OA with a focus on CC licences thus explained a need to choose another licence different from the current CC BY NC SA, the editorial team was very knowledgeable and willing to commit but explained that they were encountering some internal diffidence from the faculty members which were not comfortable with a non NC licence, thus we were asked for help in explaining the benefits and requirements of OA as well as some best practices for the negotiation with authors.

Implementation

• Guidelines: to meet the request for help in convincing authors of the benefits of open access, we provided guidelines and various materials in the form of slides and webinars

Lessons Learned

The publishing house proved to be sensitive to and very knowledgeable about OA issues and we therefore found fertile ground for an open and fruitful dialogue. The most interesting aspect of the case study, already found in others, was the confirmation of a difficulty in convincing the authors of the benefits of OA. The initial premise that it was necessary to negotiate with publishers was therefore disproved. Furthermore, the case study again demonstrated a common problem related to misinformation on open access requirements, with particular reference to licence compatibility.

ICOM Publications and Documentations Department

ICOM Publications and Documentations Department

ICOM – International Council of Museums is a membership international association and a non-governmental organisation which establishes professional and ethical standards for museum activities. The association serves as a platform both digitally on its website and on paper with its numerous publications.

Description of the Publication

ICOM publishes a vast array of materials: peer-review journals, books, online editorials (ICOM voices), codes of conduct, press releases, proceedings, study series, annual reports. Some of ICOM publications are already available for free online (ICOM online library, institutional documents, standards and guidelines) but they are either under copyright or without a clear indication of the open licence.

Implementation of Open Access

Starting point

We contacted twice the Publications and Documentations Department of ICOM asking more information about their open access policy. We offered our consultancy towards an implementation of open access within ICOM publications.

Challenges and recommendations

• compliance with Open Access: since ICOM publications do not comply with the definition of open access, they are not an eligible platform for researchers who need/want to publish in open access