Many funders such as UKRI, Wellcome, NIHR, Horizon Europe now require Open Access publication for books and book chapters. For full details see our Open Access and UKRI funded projects page and our Open Access and funder requirements page .
Publishing your book Open Access has a range of benefits such as
- Flexibility to link to audiovisual resources and other multimedia such as interactive maps, digitised archives etc. or to toggle between versions in different languages
- Reaching a wider audience across a more diverse range of countries, increasing donwloads and citations. See this report from research by Springer in 2020
- OA books as a group have ten times more downloads than non-OA books and more than double the number of citations. See https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.558
- Ability to measure use and downloads of your work
- Freedom to post and share your work online wherever you want
- Making it easier for your work to be included in Reading Lists and other teaching resources
Academics talking about their experiences of publishing OA
Caroline Warman, University of Oxford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYG6Um90bVI&t=883s
Claire Brock, University of Leicester (forward to 41.18 in recording) UKRI open access policy for longform publications event | Part 2: Presentations from research sector - YouTube
Joanna Page, University of Cambridge (forward to 46.21 in recording) UKRI open access policy for longform publications event | Part 2: Presentations from research sector - YouTube
14 case studies from researchers at the University of Sheffield who reflect on publishing with Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Punctum, Edward Elgar and Open Book publishers.
The Open Access Books Toolkit’s collection of case studies where authors from different disciplinary and geographical backgrounds explain their experiences with a range of publishers.
Understand the process and choose the right publisher
The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit explains the process of publishing an Open Access book.
Use these tools to choose a quality, trusted publisher for your book or chapter.
Open Access licences
OA books and chapters must be published under a Creative Commons licence which specify the ways in which your work can be used and shared. Check if your funder requires the use of a specific licence. CC BY is recommended by most funders.
Third party copyright
Including third-party content in online OA publications is largely the same as for print non-open access publications. However, licences from copyright holder and attribution may differ. Third-party items in OA publications can be made available under their own separate licences. Refer to UKRI’s Managing third-party copyright for research publications.