Edited volumes
This information is for anyone involved in publication of an edited volume in the role of editor. Do you contribute as an author? Please select ‘book chapter’ as publication type.
Individual funding bodies, both within and outside cOAlitionS, can have very different policies around open access for books, edited volumes and chapters. You should therefore check with your own funder to find out what open access requirements it imposes on your edited volume (if any), and whether you are permitted to pay any publication costs from your research budget.
Even if your funder allows you to publish closed access, there is a good chance that authors of individual chapters will have to adhere to open access requirements imposed by their own research funder or institution. You should therefore check this before choosing a publisher.
Depending on the type of edited volume and the situation the authors are in, you can use the following routes:
- Diamond open access
- Gold open access
- Hybride open access, for individual chapters
- Green open access, for individual chapters
- Self-publishing
Diamond open access
What is Diamond open access?
- Publication is immediately open access.
- Publishing free of charge for authors and editor(s).
- Publication has an open licence (CC BY, if necessary CC BY-NC and/or CC BY-ND).
How does the funding work?
In Diamond open access the authors and editors does not have to pay publication costs. The publishers are funded by the academic community. Some publishers ask for a voluntary contribution. Your faculty may offer funding for this (see Faculty policy).
Where do I find publishers and more information?
- Open Book Collective: a collective of diamond book publishers that are financially supported by Utrecht University Library.
- Netherlands University Presses (NUPs): some of these are also accessible for UU authors.
- OA Books Toolkit | OAPEN: this toolkit can support you in making choices around the open access publishing of your book.
Gold open access
What is Gold open access?
- Publication is immediately open access.
- Involves publication costs (BPCs).
- Publication has an open licence, preferably CC BY.
How does the funding work?
You may be allowed to pay the BPCs from your research budget.
Please note: Some publishers also offer a ‘delayed open access’ option. This means that a book will be made open access after an embargo period at lower BPCs. We advise against this option due to the risk of ‘double dipping’.
Where can I find publishers?
In the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) you will find publishers who are experienced in publishing open access books.
Hybrid open access
What is hybrid open access for edited volumes?
- The edited volume will be published closed access.
- Individual chapters can be made immediately open access upon request.
- Involves publication charges (CPCs).
- The open access chapters have an open licence. Preferably choose a CC BY licence. The publisher owns the copyright on the closed access chapters.
Hybrid open access can solve things if individual book chapter authors have to meet open access requirements. Nonetheless, we advise against this option in general, due to the risk of ‘double dipping’.
How does the funding work?
Individual authors who wish to make their chapter available as open access via this route are responsible for funding this themselves.
Where can I find publishers?
Many traditional publishers who offer gold open access also offer hybrid options. In the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) you will find publishers who are experienced in publishing open access books (gold or diamond).
Green open access
What is Green open access, for individual chapters?
- You publish the edited volume closed access at the publisher.
- Individual authors may use the Taverne scheme:
- Book chapters of which at least one author is affiliated with a Dutch institution will be made open access six months after publication, via the repository of their institution.
- The open access version of the chapter gets the same licence as the closed version.
- Individual authors may use the Rights Retention Strategy:
- This route is only available to authors affiliated with certain institutions or certain research funders.
- They make the author’s version (AAM) of their chapter available immediately as open access via their institutional repository.
- This version is published under an open licence (CC BY).
- These routes is free of charge for both you and the authors.
What should do I do in my role as editor?
The individual chapter authors, or their institutions, are responsible for publishing individual chapters via the green route. Please bear in mind that publishers may object to the use of the Rights Retention clause. You should therefore find out as soon as possible whether any authors intend to do so, to ensure that no one is caught off guard late in the writing and publication process.
Self-publishing
What is self-publishing?
- You publish on an open platform.
- You do not use a publisher or the services a publisher offers.
- Your publication is immediately open access.
- This route is free for authors.
- The publication has an open licence (CC BY).
How do I follow this route?
Possible publishing tools include GitHub and Manifold. You can also publish your book as a collection in an external repository such as Knowledge Commons or Zenodo. Both are indexed in Google Scholar and assign DOIs to every upload; this ensures your publication is visible and discoverable. You can choose which open licence to publish under, preferably CC BY.