2022 Open Access Publishing at IGI Global

With 2023 just around the corner, IGI Global reflects back on 2022 and the many firsts we embarked on in open access publishing, including work to convert the remainder of our journal collection to gold open access, the release of our first two full platinum open access books, the launch of our first gold open access encyclopedia, the introduction of our new Retrospective Open Access Program, and the formation of many new partnerships and collaborations.

We were pleased to publish our first two platinum open access books in 2022. The first, Handbook of Research on the Global View of Open Access and Scholarly Communications, is edited by Dr. Daniel Gelaw Alemneh from the University of North Texas, USA, and was published under platinum open access with full open access funding coverage through IGI Global's Transformative Open Access Initiative with the University of North Texas, USA. View the full story here.

The second platinum open access book, New Models of Higher Education: Unbundled, Rebundled, Customized, and DIY, is edited by Profs. Aaron M. Brower from the University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, USA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA and Ryan J. Specht-Boardman from the University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, USA, and was published under platinum open access through full sponsorship and open access funding from the Lumina Foundation and Walmart. View the full story here.

In its sixth edition, the Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology will be published under gold open access on a continuous publication frequency (view full story here). Under gold open access, if the author’s submitted work is accepted following the double-blind peer review process, a small open access processing charge (customary in open access publishing) will be requested (that covers the overhead costs including technology/software, formatting/layout, typesetting, hosting, distribution, and promotions) because the work will be freely accessible under open access and not placed behind a paywall or any login restrictions. Once payment is received, the work will then be processed through the production environment and made available online promptly. Authors receive the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licensing arrangement and so the copyright for the work remains solely with the author(s) of the chapter and they may freely reuse and distribute the content as they wish. By publishing under open access hundreds of quality entries to this renown publication will be openly available to the masses and authors will benefit from a significant amount of exposure and notoriety.

We introduced a new Retrospective Open Access Program, which allows authors who previously published their IGI Global work (journal article, book chapter, full book, journal volume/special issue), under the traditional publishing model (standard access) to consider converting their work to open access. This significantly expands the sharing power for the work, subsequently increasing download rates, citation rates, and impact. We also introduced a simple process for authors to easily convert their articles and chapters to open access within their personal library on the IGI Global Online Portal (view the process here). To date, IGI Global has worked with authors, editors, and librarians to convert more than 56 journal volumes, 791 journal articles, and 74 book chapters to open access via the Retrospective Open Access Program.

In 2022, IGI Global entered into multiple partnerships and collaborations with prominent directories, repositories, and organizations that greatly benefit and/or advocate for open access publishing.

The OA Switchboard initiative is a not-for-profit collaboration between funders, institutions, and publishers to provide essential infrastructure to facilitate the fulfilment of open access strategies across business models, policies and agreements. The OA Switchboard is the independent intermediary, connecting parties and systems, streamlining communication and the neutral exchange of open access related publication-level information, and ensuring a financial settlement. IGI Global is thrilled to be entering into this new collaboration to support greater open access content and data distribution.

To support greater open access content and data distribution for IGI Global’s growing portfolio of open access publications, IGI Global recently started working with the Research Organization Registry (ROR), a community-led registry of open, sustainable, usable, and unique identifiers for every research organization in the world. The intent of ROR is for use by the research community to increase the use of organization identifiers within that community while establishing connections between organization records in various systems.

ResearchGate is the professional network for researchers. Over 20 million researchers use researchgate.net to share and discover research, build their networks, and advance their careers. Based in Berlin, ResearchGate was founded in 2008. Its mission is to connect the world of science and make research open to all. IGI Global has signed an agreement with ResearchGate to establish a partnership for content syndication. This will see the addition of all of IGI Global’s open access content to ResearchGate’s platform of millions of researchers worldwide.

The OAPEN Foundation is a not-for-profit organization based in the Netherlands, with its registered office at the National Library in The Hague. OAPEN is dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. OAPEN promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication.

*IGI Global is the Founding Member*
The Association of Global Open Science and Research (AGOSR) was established to champion a fair and inclusive space where open access stakeholders of all sizes can come together to promote and disseminate ethical open access research. This alliance of publishers, libraries, institutions, open access funders, and service providers is committed to the growth of a diverse and equal community dedicated to the development of open research and the sharing of open resources to researchers across the globe.

If interested in submitting your research for open access consideration with IGI Global, find more information below: