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In this blog, Anneliese Taylor, Head of Scholarly Communication, at the University of California San Francisco Library, shares the key tactics that the University of California system has developed and deployed to promote Open Access publishing within the system. 

Despite almost two decades of effort by the open access movement to transform scholarly publishing to an open access (OA) model, 80% of journal literature is still published behind a paywall. In order to break down the remaining access barriers on a sizeable scale, we at the ten-campus University of California system (UC) have made it our public service mission to openly transmit advanced knowledge and have been working to position ourselves as a key player in encouraging the shift from a primarily paywalled publishing world to a majority open access one. 

Starting out

So how did we get to where we are today? In 2017, a task force from the UC Libraries undertook a comprehensive analysis of the multitude of approaches and strategies for advancing the transition of scholarly publishing to open access. The UC Libraries had been supporting a number of OA approaches and strategies for several years, including green OA policies and funding for gold OA through both article processing charge (APC)- and non-APC based models.

The open-access policies of the University of California can be broken down into two separate policies:

1. A policy which covers scholarly articles for faculty members – In place since 2013 
2. A policy which covers all remaining members of staff – In place since 2015 

Several of the UC campuses provide funds to support their authors publishing in open access books, journals or open educational resource endeavours. In addition to these initiatives and policies, the UC Libraries also invest in several open access strategies, including collective models such as Knowledge Unlatched, Annual Reviews in Public Health, and Open Library of Humanities, as well as APC-based publishing such as BMC Supporter Membership and PeerJ memberships.

Pathways to Open Access 

Based on the Task Force’s analysis, in 2018 the Libraries published the  Pathways to Open Access report which maps out the key approaches of open access (green, gold-APC, and gold-non-APC), explores the strategies within, and recommends possible next steps for the UC Libraries to effectively transition more scholarly works to open in alignment with our mission. The toolkit is designed to provide the UC and other libraries information and analysis to guide their decisions on which OA strategies to pursue both at the campus level and collectively.

In addition to this report, a Choosing Pathways to Open Access forum was held in Berkeley in October 2018. This forum provided an opportunity for librarians and academics from across North American academic institutions to come together and explore the spectrum of the strategies outlined in the Pathways report. From this, participants could then customize their plans for how they could repurpose subscription spends towards open access within their home organizations or communities.

Another fantastic outcome of the Pathways forum was the formation of Transitioning Society Publications to Open Access (TSPOA). This is a group made up of like-minded individuals from libraries, academic institutions, publishers, and consortia who have organized to connect society journal editors and publishers with support and useful resources to transition society publications to open access. TSPOA provides consultation services, conducts outreach and presentations, evaluates opportunities for new publishing models for society publishers, and helps connect societies, editors, and libraries with localized groups and individuals.

A principled approach to negotiating publisher agreements

In 2018, a coalition of UC-systemwide stakeholder groups released a couple of documents to guide the University’s upcoming negotiations with journal publishers for open access ‘read and publish’ agreements. UC recognizes OA agreements with publishers as a way to quickly and effectively transition a significant amount of scholarly articles to OA. The first document was devised by the UC Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), which is a faculty body with a representative from each of the UC’s ten campuses. The group, led by then-Chair Rich Schneider at UCSF, laid out 18 rights and principles that affirm the values the faculty expect to guide scholarly communication. This declaration from the faculty clarified their resolve to create a more open, fair, transparent and sustainable system of scholarly communication. 

Following on from those principles, the Systemwide Library & Scholarly Information Advisory Committee issued a Call to Action for negotiating journal agreements with publishers, with endorsement by UCOLASC and the Council of University Librarians. This document solidified UC’s declaration of their intent to use subscription expenditures to transform UC authors’ scholarly publications to open access and to achieve cost control and sustainability for publisher agreements. Having buy-in to the University’s approach to publisher negotiations from the faculty, libraries, and administrative leadership was an essential step for ensuring that negotiations are in alignment with the University’s principles. Furthermore, faculty and librarians engaged their UC campus communities through town halls and other discussions about the University’s approach.

Open access publishing deals & toolkit

A negotiating team made up of university librarians, faculty members and California Digital Library negotiators was assembled to lead UC’s negotiations with Elsevier. The negotiating team made significant progress with Elsevier towards an integrated ‘read and publish’ deal for both access to Elsevier’s journals and open access publishing for all UC corresponding-authored articles in Elsevier journals. Nevertheless, UC was unwilling to accept several of Elsevier’s unfavourable conditions and ended its contract with Elsevier in February 2019. Without the coalition of support from representative systemwide groups, this decision would not have been tenable.

In April, UC entered into their first OA read and publish agreement with Cambridge University Press. The agreement was based upon UC’s model, which includes OA publication for UC authored articles (corresponding authors on research and review articles or conference proceedings) using a split payment model for APCs. The Libraries pay for access to subscription journals and contribute $1000 to each APC. Authors with grant funds are asked to pay the remainder from their funds, and those without may have the full APC covered by the Libraries. Authors may opt-out of the open access option at their discretion, thus ensuring academic freedom while simultaneously providing all authors financial support for open publishing.

The UC-Elsevier negotiation team has put together a toolkit, which is based on their experience of negotiating transformative deals, what kind of data is needed, how to build coalitions, how to manage communications and how to plan for alternative access in the case of ending a contract with a publisher. 

The OA tipping point

When UC ended our contract with Elsevier, the international scholarly community responded with statements of support and encouragement. Having the support of the academic community helped reinforce the decision UC made, and we feel helped galvanize interest in this community in tipping the needle further towards OA.

Looking to the future, UC has been very active in open access in the last year-plus, but we continue to recognize how important it is for deals to be struck around the rest of North America and across the world as well. The more that academic institutions lay out their values and principles and enable OA publishing for their authors, the faster we will reach an OA tipping point.

Final thoughts 

Other universities have also declared their guidelines for publisher OA agreements, such as Iowa State University’s recent announcement of their Principles for Advancing Openness through Journal Negotiations and MIT’s Framework for Publisher Contracts. Initiatives like this allow stakeholder groups on campus to self-assess and create alignment based on their values and principles. They also work to show publishers what institutions want and are willing to fight for.

If you’re interested in listening to the webinar on ‘How the University of California Libraries Drive the Open Access Movement’ click here for the recording.