Navigating a path along the Berlin road to OA | Jisc

" ... In one of the most recent reports the British Academy examines the practical difficulties that arise in OA journal publishing for the humanities and social sciences and asks whether UK OA policies might unintentionally restrict the reach of research and adversely affect the international standing of our institutions and research ... It’s encouraging to see questions like this being asked so that if stumbling blocks really do exist a course can be navigated around them. Frequently, this is necessary. Everyone who is involved with research and publishing in academic research institutions is walking along the road set out in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access more than a decade ago and as we do, it becomes clearer just how much of it is uphill and how many obstacles lie along the way ... We’re working with several stakeholders across a number of related projects to scope out concerns and work on practical solutions where they are needed. Time really is of the essence, because over the past 12 months major research funders have made fresh policy announcements on the subject of OA and raised their expectations of what universities and colleges must do to comply – and when. Institutions face a dual challenge: they must make sure they are compliant with funders’ OA policies while also securing as many of the benefits that OA offers as possible ... Our current suite of inter-connecting projects includes OA good practice, which will support and complement universities’ work on compliance and enable the creation of a range of resources that they can tap into as their own need dictates. There won’t be a ‘one size fits all’ solution, but there will be a rich variety of experience and support to draw upon.  OA good practice includes several institutional pathfinder projects which at the moment will be based at the following lead institutions, supported by a range of associate partner institutions ... The projects will help us search out what’s working well for institutions as they implement OA policies so that these examples can be shared widely across the sector. Each project will explore diverse issues, including ways to manage and monitor compliance with funder and institutional mandates, management of publication charges and ways to bring fairness to the sharing out of finite funds set aside to cover publication charges.  Through working to bring librarians, repository managers, research managers, researchers and others together to open up focused conversations, the projects will ensure that lessons learned once don’t need to be learned afresh by someone else ..."