–
EDItEUR will be holding its annual mini-conference aimed at metadata specialists, covering standards and identifiers, on Tuesday 15th October in central Frankfurt. For programme details and registration, see https://www.editeur.org/3/Events/Event-Details/691
–
Several years ago, the concept of open access (OA) publishing became important – initially in academic journal publishing, then later for monographs, almost always made available as e-books. How should these OA products be integrated into an existing metadata framework for commercial books and e-books? The first step is clearly analysis. Can OA products be handled in the same supply chain? What extra information needs to flow along the supply chain to enable that? And is any of the existing framework inappropriate for OA?
The key additional requirements for OA ‘products’ boil down to – first and foremost – a simple ‘flag’ that indicates ‘yes, this is OA’. This is for ease of recognition of OA material by data recipients, since there are so many different types of OA, some more ‘open’ than others. Thus it’s also important to be able to detail the exact licensing terms under which the e-book is available. Third, perhaps, is the need to identify any body or institution which is funding the publication, through a specific grant which enables a bibliometric approach to funding effectiveness (though not all OA models require a named funder). Finally, some indication of the source from which a potential reader can obtain the book – which need not be a traditional bookstore.
There are of course further important aspects of OA – the fact that OA products are almost always free of charge (to the end ‘purchaser’), or that OA material is usually peer-reviewed, or that some OA e-books are published as normal commercial products but later switch or flip to OA. But these aren’t unique to OA publishing, and so were already present within the ONIX framework. Even licensing details are not exclusively for use with OA – hence the requirement for the initial simple flag.
ONIX as a standard (in essence, a carefully-specified file format) is regularly extended. Given the growing importance of OA monographs, the additional requirements were added in ONIX 3.0 revision 3 (released in 2016).
The ‘flag’ was added as a chunk of marketing text. Simple presence or absence of this text is the diagnostic ‘flag’, but the text itself can be informative as a very brief summary of the terms of access. It also means that the text can be given a date when it becomes valid – so delayed open access can easily be specified by setting the publication date of the e-book earlier than the flag validity date. However, in many cases the flag is as simple as this:
<TextContent>
<TextType>20</TextType> <!– new code for ‘OA flag’ –>
<ContentAudience>00</ContentAudience>
<Text textformat=”05″><p>Open access</Text>
</TextContent>
The exact OA license can be specified through a URL pointing to the license document itself. In ONIX, this is placed adjacent to any listed constraints on the use of the e-book, since the constraints already existed in the ONIX framework – though of course for OA, it’s the constraints that don’t exist that can be the most important. Most often, OA publishers use one of the Creative Commons licenses:
<EpubLicense>
<EpubLicenseName>Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License</EpubLicenseName> <!– the so-called ‘CC-By’ license –>
<EpubLicenseExpression>
<EpubLicenseExpressionType>02</EpubLicenseExpressionType>
<EpubLicenseExpressionLink>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
legalcode</EpubLicenseExpressionLink> <!– URL for the the license text –>
</EpubLicenseExpression>
</EpubLicense>
but some create their own. It’s the legal text of these licenses that controls what use may be made of the content of the OA publication (copying and redistribution, creating derivatives or using excerpts in other publications etc).
In ONIX, the funders of OA publications are thought of as akin to publishers, not as contributors who are responsible for the content:
<Publisher>
<PublishingRole>16</PublishingRole> <!– new funder role code –>
<PublisherName>Wellcome Trust</PublisherName>
</Publisher>
There’s provision for Research Organisation Registry (ROR) identifiers, and a special <Funding> tag within which grant numbers can be listed.
Finally, of the requirements that were added to ONIX specifically to support OA monographs, where can the OA e-book be downloaded? This was added as a new code to be used within the existing <Website> tag.
EDItEUR policy is to revise the controlled vocabularies, often just called ‘codelists’, every quarter, and some new functionality can be added this way. The ONIX tags are revised at least every two years to add new functionality, though it’s often more frequently. You’ll see that three of the four brand new requirements for OA could be met simply through adding a new code – an additional term in the ONIX controlled vocabulary – and this is a relatively simple way to extend the power of ONIX. Only one entirely new tag, for licensing, was required.
One final point – OA products are typically free of charge. This could always be specified in ONIX through a simple tag like this:
<UnpricedItemType>01</UnpricedItemType> <!– code 01 means ‘free’ –>
Unfortunately, ONIX data senders often fail to use this tag correctly, and fall back to setting a price of zero. This is incorrect, and there are good technical reasons why this is so, yet ONIX data recipients are often forced to accept invalid ONIX data. Not everything in the garden is rosy – but increasingly, data recipients are imposing technical checks on validity before they will accept the data.
For more information about describing OA products in ONIX, see EDItEUR’s detailed application note at https://www.editeur.org/files/ONIX%203/APPNOTE%20Describing%20Open%20Access%20monographs%20in%20ONIX%203.0%20and%203.1.pdfor watch the pre-recorded webinar at https://www.editeur.org/files/videos/20240104%20OA%20products%20in%20ONIX%20720p.html (20mins)
For another example of how additions are made to ONIX to ensure it can evolve to meet new business challenges, while remaining fully compatible with earlier versions, watch the pre-recorded webinar on preparations for the EU Deforestation Regulation – which is expected to come into force at the end of 2024, and which will affect publishers both inside and outside the European Union: https://www.editeur.org/files/videos/20240903%20EUDR%20Lunch%20and%20Learn%20720p.html (40 mins).
Is it possible to put the tags in these examples (eg <EpubLicense>, <EpubLicenseExpression> and so on) in one colour and the data between the tags (Creative Commons Attribution… or the code 02) in another?