Tool Spotlight: OA Books Toolkit

Editorial Management/Quality, Research Integrity
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What is it?

The OAPEN Open Access (OA) Books Toolkit is a free-to-access resource that is aimed at promoting and supporting OA to academic books. It consists of 50 short articles covering a wide range of topics relating to OA books.

Tool ID card

  • Main purpose: To help academic book authors to better understand open access book publishing, and to promote and increase trust in open access books

  • Who is it for? Predominantly researchers, but publishers, universities (libraries), research funders and policy makers, and research institutions may find it useful too

  • Skill level: Beginner to intermediate; those who have no or a little knowledge of OA books/OA book publishing but it can also be useful for all level if someone wants a reference or to double check the latest information

  • Access: https://oabooks-toolkit.org

  • Key features:

    • The Toolkit has two sections:

      • One section is for researchers as authors of academic books, and is intended to help authors to better understand OA book publishing and to increase trust in OA books.

      • The other section is aimed at policy makers and provides a resource to support policy development for OA books.

    • Each article includes source acknowledgements, references, and further reading

    • A glossary of terms used in the Toolkit is available. Each term has a short definition and links to relevant articles.

What can I do with it?

  1. Download the whole Toolkit into one PDF (i.e. to add to a library guide)

  2. Search for relevant terms or articles using the search box or glossary

  3. Discover further reading about a specific topic of interest/relevance

  4. Donate to the maintenance of the Toolkit

Good to know

  • Governed by an international, multi-stakeholder Editorial Advisory Board

  • Articles are reviewed and updated on an annual basis

  • The Toolkit is a business model neutral resource and caters to all types of OA book publishing, included (but not limited to) Diamond OA publishing

  • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  • We are open to suggestions and recommendations for developing this resource further: Feedback | OA Books Toolkit

Try it if you…

  • Want to learn more about or are interested in OA books and OA book publishing

  • Have a specific need or knowledge gap relating to a specific part of the OA book publishing lifecycle

Thank you to Silke Davison for writing this post!

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