Huddersfield Open Access Publishing final report

The Huddersfield Open Access Publishing (HOAP) Project aimed to develop a low cost sustainable journal publishing platform using EPrints software. The development of the HOAP platform has three main outcomes as part of the project.

It has been used to convert the University journal, Teaching in Lifelong Learning, from its existing model of a print subscription journal to an open access e-journal. A specific front end has been created for the journal, with content being archived in the University Repository. As part of this work, there has been a re-write of the notes for contributors section and a move from copyright transfer to a licence to publish model. Membership of CrossRef and the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) has been investigated and the journal is to be submitted to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in due course.

The platform will also be used to launch a new title, Huddersfield Research Review, which will showcase the most significant research at the University of Huddersfield by including interviews with the authors of the most cited and/or most downloaded University articles in the University Repository together with an editorial overview by a senior researcher who will locate Huddersfield research within the broader national and international literature in the relevant fields and disciplines.

An audit of the University’s journals has also been undertaken to assess the suitability of adding these to the platform in the future, this has proved extremely successful resulting in the addition of another title during the project but also the potential for starting two new Open Access titles in 2012.

Finally, the project has developed a toolkit for other institutions to use, including details of new workflows, a licence to publish template and guidelines for new title proposals, which the project hopes can be adopted by the wider community.