Scholarly Publishing: Expertise at the UT Libraries

Rachel RadomScholarly Communication & Publishing Librarian

Spring 2016

What are we talking about?• “Scholarly Communication”

• Traditional formats, new formats

• Copyright, author rights, publishing practices, article sharing, funders’ public access policies, impact metrics, and…

Librarian expertise means…?

• One example: Advising on Public Access Policies

• DOD, DOE, NIH, NSF, USDA, Gates Foundation, Sloan Foundation – the list grows

How is publishing changing?• Funders’ Public Access Policies

• FASTR in Congress (S.779, H.R.1477)

• Open Access (OA) Policies• Institutional: Harvard, MIT, Oregon State, the UC System• Departmental

• OA Journals

• Preprints (arXiv and ASAPbio)

Self-Determination

• Who did the work? Who owns the work?

• Who pays to create it? To access it?

• Who determines how to share the work?

Does the right to share matter?

1) Last year, UT was sent 5 take down notices

2) NY Southern District Court in 2015:Elsevier v. Sci-Hub

3) #icanhazpdf

Researchers want to share. They often can’t.

Our system of scholarly publishing is broken. And, it’s no longer ours.

How do we get it back?

Publishing Agreements = Contracts

• Recognize that they’re legal documents

• Recognize that they’re negotiable (you can change the terms)

• Authors have the right to hold onto their rights (librarians can help them with that)

Options

Publication Agreement Amendments

How to hold onto your rights?• If you’re aiming for a particular journal, review their

standard publication agreement. (Sherpa/RoMEO database)

• Rely on a grant policy or a departmental policy.

• Ask for a “license to publish” as opposed to a copyright transfer agreement.

• Use an addendum. Retain the rights most important to you.

http://libguides.utk.edu/scholarlypublishing/agreements

Best Practices in Publishing• COPE (Committee on

Publication Ethics)

• Open Access• DOAJ (Directory of OA

Journals)• OASPA (OA Scholarly

Publishers Association)

Support from the Libraries• Open Publishing Support Fund with ORE*

• PeerJ, BioMed Central memberships: Reduced fees for OA publishing

• Trace (Green/Delayed OA, after an embargo)

• DMP Tool (Sample data management plans)

• We host new e-journals

*ORE and UT’s Humanities Center also offer a book subvention fund

Developments, Not Trends

• ORCID Identifier (ORCID search wizards)

• Symplectic Elements: Publications Help

• Metrics

• Alternative Metrics (e.g., Do Tweets matter? Yes!)

Theses & Dissertations

• Embargoes

• Copyright permissions for tables, figures

OER & Open Textbooks

https://www.lib.utk.edu/scholar/