OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit

Why and how was the toolkit developed? 

The idea for the toolkit emerged from a workshop organised by Springer Nature and the University of Glasgow at the Researcher to Reader Conference. The concept was then developed further through a series of workshops for researchers and authors hosted at the universities of Oxford, Glasgow, and Utrecht. 

We asked workshop attendees about their perceptions of open access for books, their own challenges and experiences, and what kind of resources would be most useful to tackle these issues. Research Consulting helped shape the concept for the toolkit based on feedback from the workshops. 

The toolkit was then collaboratively written by a global group of diverse stakeholders – from researchers, publishers and research support to funders and organisations like Jisc and OASPA. We are proud to be a founding member and have been involved in the process from concept to creation until the launch on OAPEN’s platform. We continue to advise on further development as members of the Editorial Advisory Board.

*OAPEN is a not-for-profit organisation that works with publishers worldwide to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books through the OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Books.