OA agreements advance OA publishing in Asia and Oceania

Author: Jovial Toh

When your institution is part of an open access (OA) agreement, your researchers are eligible to publish OA with fees covered, which means increased exposure and usage for their work. This supports the researchers and their careers, as well as the institute, as they enjoy more prestige and recognition. Discover how OA agreements in Asia and Oceania have increased OA publishing, and what participating in such an agreement might mean for your library.

Open access (OA) agreements make publishing OA accessible to researchers, and when your institution is part of an OA agreement, you can support your researchers to publish OA. For your researchers, publishing OA maximises the attention and reach of their work, with gold OA articles (made available immediately upon publication) receiving 1.6 times more citations, 6.0 times more downloads, and 4.9 times more Altmetric attention than non-OA articles.

Transformative agreements: Enabling researchers to publish OA

How can you support your researchers to publish OA and get the benefits of increased reach and impact for their work? When your institution is part of an OA agreement, you can easily and effectively promote and advance OA publishing.

Transformative agreements (TAs) combine the costs of publishing OA and the costs of accessing subscription content in hybrid journals. They remove the burden of article processing charges (APCs) from researchers in participating institutions for publishing OA, and also grant them access to subscription content. With a TA in place, your library can create the optimal conditions for your researchers to do their best work and get the most impact for it.

At the end of 2023, Springer Nature’s TAs support researchers from over 3,500 institutions globally in publishing OA, and have a significant impact on the transition to a global and equitable OA landscape. Authors in participating institutions can easily choose gold OA and enjoy its benefits, regardless of their discipline. In humanities and social sciences (HSS), which are traditionally less well-funded, publishing OA can be challenging, but TAs are changing this. Over 90% of HSS OA content in Springer Nature’s hybrid journals is now published via a TA!

Advancing OA throughout the Asia Pacific with OA agreements

The first Springer Nature OA agreement in Asia was launched in 2020 with the India Manipal Academy of Higher Education. In the years since, more OA agreements in Asia and Oceania followed, supporting the transition to OA in these regions:

These agreements enable researchers in Asia and Oceania to publish OA. In fact, they have had a substantial impact on OA publishing, which means that more researchers than otherwise are able to publish OA. 

Considerable impact of TAs on OA publishing in Asia Pacific

The uptake of OA publishing in Asian and Oceanic countries that are part of a Springer TA has been considerable. These TAs have enabled researchers from all disciplines to publish OA: From HSS, from mathematics, physical, and applied sciences, and from medicine and life sciences. The first TA in Australia, for examples, began in 2022, and the total share of gold OA articles in hybrid journals soared from 8% in 2021 to 68% in 2022 and a whopping 75% in 2023.

The data from Australia shows that TAs have been key to enabling OA publishing in Asia and Oceania. This substantial growth in OA uptake is also evident in Japan, Cyprus, and Qatar, which means that institutions and researchers across Asia and Oceania are enjoying the benefits of OA.

Publishing OA under a TA – what does it look like?

For librarians, working with a TA is simple and straightforward. With a practical and direct workflow, it is easy to enable your researchers to publish OA. The Springer Nature workflow has automated identification that reduces administration, a convenient approval dashboard for rapid publication, and a reporting system that reliably shares status reports.

(If you’re interested in what working with an OA agreement looks like for a librarian, you can check out the new blog series OA Agreement Stories, which features librarians who share insights and tips from their experience. Read the blogs with Jeff Carroll, Rutgers University, and Mark Robinson, University of Notre Dame.)

On the authors’ side, the process is just as streamlined. Following acceptance for publication, the article is identified as eligible for publishing OA with fees covered. The authors then agree to an OA creative commons license, and the article can be published online and made freely available for anyone in the world to read, share, and re-use.

When your institution is part of an OA agreement, it’s that simple to support your researchers in publishing OA. These agreements enable libraries to promote and advance OA within their institution, making them invaluable players in the transition to OA and in making research available to all.

Interested in getting the benefits of an OA agreement for your library, researchers, and institution? Contact your account development manager to discuss an OA agreement for your institution/consortium.

Related content:

• Open access and the mission of the academic library

• Open access agreements: Empowering librarians to be OA champions

• OA agreement stories: University of Miami

• Transitioning to open access: Reflections from three US organizations

• How perceptions of open access in China are changing

• To publish OA, what institutional support do Chinese researchers need most?

• Librarians in the age of open access: An evolving role

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