Author: Timothy Vollmer
Workshop Reminder — Managing & Maximizing Your Scholarly Impact on October 10, 2023
Date/Time: Tuesday, October 10, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: Join in person at 223 Doe Library, or on Zoom. Register via LibCal.
This workshop will provide you with practical strategies and tips for promoting your scholarship, increasing your citations, and monitoring your success. You’ll also learn how to understand metrics, use scholarly networking tools, evaluate journals and publishing options, and take advantage of funding opportunities for Open Access scholarship.
Join us next week!
Wrapping up our NEH-funded project to help text and data mining researchers navigate cross-border legal and ethical issues
In August 2022, the UC Berkeley Library and Internet Archive were awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to study legal and ethical issues in cross-border text and data mining (TDM).
The project, entitled Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining – Cross-Border (“LLTDM-X”), supported research and analysis to address law and policy issues faced by U.S. digital humanities practitioners whose text data mining research and practice intersects with foreign-held or -licensed content, or involves international research collaborations.
LLTDM-X is now complete, resulting in the publication of an instructive case study for researchers and white paper. Both resources are explained in greater detail below.
Project Origins
LLTDM-X built upon the previous NEH-sponsored institute, Building Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining. That institute provided training, guidance, and strategies to digital humanities TDM researchers on navigating legal literacies for text data mining (including copyright, contracts, privacy, and ethics) within a U.S. context.
A common challenge highlighted during the institute was the fact that TDM practitioners encounter expanding and increasingly complex cross-border legal problems. These include situations in which: (i) the materials they want to mine are housed in a foreign jurisdiction, or are otherwise subject to foreign database licensing or laws; (ii) the human subjects they are studying or who created the underlying content reside in another country; or, (iii) the colleagues with whom they are collaborating reside abroad, yielding uncertainty about which country’s laws, agreements, and policies apply.
Project design
We designed LLTDM-X to identify and better understand the cross-border issues that digital humanities TDM practitioners face, with the aim of using these issues to inform prospective research and education. Secondarily, we hoped that LLTDM-X would also suggest preliminary guidance to include in future educational materials. In early 2023, we hosted a series of three online round tables with U.S.-based cross-border TDM practitioners and law and ethics experts from six countries.
The round table conversations were structured to illustrate the empirical issues that researchers face, and also for the practitioners to benefit from preliminary advice on legal and ethical challenges. Upon the completion of the round tables, the LLTDM-X project team created a hypothetical case study that (i) reflects the observed cross-border LLTDM issues and (ii) contains preliminary analysis to facilitate the development of future instructional materials.
We also charged the experts with providing responsive and tailored written feedback to the practitioners about how they might address specific cross-border issues relevant to each of their projects.
Guidance & Analysis
Case Study
Extrapolating from the issues analyzed in the round tables, the practitioners’ statements, and the experts’ written analyses, the Project Team developed a hypothetical case study reflective of “typical” cross-border LLTDM issues that U.S.-based practitioners encounter. The case study provides basic guidance to support U.S. researchers in navigating cross-border TDM issues, while also highlighting questions that would benefit from further research.
The case study examines cross-border copyright, contracts, and privacy & ethics variables across two distinct paradigms: first, a situation where U.S.-based researchers perform all TDM acts in the U.S., and second, a situation where U.S.-based researchers engage with collaborators abroad, or otherwise perform TDM acts in both U.S. and abroad.
White Paper
The LLTDM-X white paper provides a comprehensive description of the project, including origins and goals, contributors, activities, and outcomes. Of particular note are several project takeaways and recommendations, which we hope will help inform future research and action to support cross-border text data mining. Our project takeaways touched on seven key themes:
- Uncertainty about cross-border LLTDM issues indeed hinders U.S. TDM researchers, confirming the need for education about cross-border legal issues;
- The expansion of education regarding U.S. LLTDM literacies remains essential, and should continue in parallel to cross-border education;
- Disparities in national copyright, contracts, and privacy laws may incentivize TDM researcher “forum shopping” and exacerbate research bias;
- License agreements (and the concept of “contractual override”) often dominate the overall analysis of cross-border TDM permissibility;
- Emerging lawsuits about generative artificial intelligence may impact future understanding of fair use and other research exceptions;
- Research is needed into issues of foreign jurisdiction, likelihood of lawsuits in foreign countries, and likelihood of enforcement of foreign judgments in the U.S. However, the overall “risk” of proceeding with cross-border TDM research may remain difficult to quantify; and
- Institutional review boards (IRBs) have an opportunity to explore a new role or build partnerships to support researchers engaged in cross-border TDM.
Gratitude & Next Steps
Thank you to the practitioners, experts, project team, and generous funding of the National Endowment for the Humanities for making this project a success.
We aim to broadly share our project outputs to continue helping U.S.-based TDM researchers navigate cross-border LLTDM hurdles. We will continue to speak publicly to educate researchers and the TDM community regarding project takeaways, and to advocate for legal and ethical experts to undertake the essential research questions and begin developing much-needed educational materials. And, we will continue to encourage the integration of LLTDM literacies into digital humanities curricula, to facilitate both domestic and cross-border TDM research.
[Note: this content is cross-posted on the LLTDM blog.]
Workshop Reminder — Copyright and Your Dissertation on September 27, 2023
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: Join in person at 223 Doe Library, or on Zoom. Register via LibCal.
This workshop will provide you with practical guidance for navigating copyright questions and other legal considerations for your dissertation or thesis. Whether you’re just starting to write or you’re getting ready to file, you can use our tips and workflow to figure out what you can use, what rights you have as an author, and what it means to share your dissertation online.
Some questions we’ll answer during the workshop include:
- What’s mine after I’m done writing my dissertation?
- Can I re-use previous scholarly articles I’ve written?
- Can I use content created by others? How?
- Where does my dissertation end up online? When?
Join us!
Workshop Reminder — Publish Digital Books & Open Educational Resources with Pressbooks
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 20, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Zoom only. Register via LibCal and you’ll receive the Zoom link for the event.
If you’re looking to self-publish work of any length and want an easy-to-use tool that offers a high degree of customization, allows flexibility with publishing formats (EPUB, PDF), and provides web-hosting options, Pressbooks may be great for you. Pressbooks is often the tool of choice for academics creating digital books, open textbooks, and open educational resources, since you can license your materials for reuse however you desire. Learn why and how to use Pressbooks for publishing your original books or course materials. You’ll leave the workshop with a project already under way.
Curious about how UC Berkeley faculty, students, and staff have used Pressbooks? Check out some of the Berkeley-created digital books and resources below, or browse over 5,700 open access books on the Pressbooks Directory.
Fall 2023 copyright and publishing workshops with the Office of Scholarly Communication Services
With the school year kicking off soon in Berkeley, the Library’s Office of Scholarly Communication Services is here to help UC Berkeley faculty, students, and staff understand copyright and scholarly publishing with online resources, Zoom and in-person workshops, and consultations. Here’s what’s coming up this semester.
Workshops
Publish Digital Books & Open Educational Resources with Pressbooks
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 20, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Zoom only. Register via LibCal.
If you’re looking to self-publish work of any length and want an easy-to-use tool that offers a high degree of customization, allows flexibility with publishing formats (EPUB, PDF), and provides web-hosting options, Pressbooks may be great for you. Pressbooks is often the tool of choice for academics creating digital books, open textbooks, and open educational resources, since you can license your materials for reuse however you desire. Learn why and how to use Pressbooks for publishing your original books or course materials. You’ll leave the workshop with a project already under way.
Copyright and Your Dissertation
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: In-person in Doe Library Room 223, or Zoom. Register via LibCal.
This workshop will provide you with practical guidance for navigating copyright questions and other legal considerations for your dissertation or thesis. Whether you’re just starting to write or you’re getting ready to file, you can use our tips and workflow to figure out what you can use, what rights you have as an author, and what it means to share your dissertation online.
Managing and Maximizing Your Scholarly Impact
Date/Time: Tuesday, October 10, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: In-person in Doe Library Room 223, or Zoom. Register via LibCal.
This workshop will provide you with practical strategies and tips for promoting your scholarship, increasing your citations, and monitoring your success. You’ll also learn how to understand metrics, use scholarly networking tools, and evaluate journals and publishing options.
How to Publish Open Access at UC Berkeley
Date/Time: Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Zoom only. Register via LibCal.
Are you wondering what processes, platforms, and funding are available at UC Berkeley to publish your research open access (OA)? This workshop will provide practical guidance and walk you through all of the OA publishing options and funding sources you have on campus. We’ll explain: the difference between (and mechanisms for) self-depositing your research in the UC’s institutional repository vs. choosing publisher-provided OA; what funding is available to put toward your article or book charges if you choose a publisher-provided option; and the difference between funding coverage under the UC’s systemwide OA agreements vs. the Library’s funding program (Berkeley Research Impact Initiative). We’ll also give you practical tips and tricks to maximize your retention of rights and readership in the publishing process.
From Dissertation to Book: Navigating the Publication Process
Date/Time: Thursday, November 9, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Location: Zoom only. Register via LibCal.
Hear from a panel of experts—an acquisitions editor, a first-time book author, and an author rights expert—about the process of turning your dissertation into a book. You’ll come away from this panel discussion with practical advice about revising your dissertation, writing a book proposal, approaching editors, signing your first contract, and navigating the peer review and publication process.
Other ways we can help
In addition to the workshops, we’re here to help answer a variety of questions you might have on intellectual property, digital publishing, and information policy.
- Check out our website for information on issues such as copyright and fair use, text data mining, and how to participate in UC’s Open Access Policy.
- Interested in publishing your research Open Access? UCB Library can help defray the costs of an article processing charge (up to $2,500) or book processing charge (up to $10,000). See the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) for more information. And explore the various UC-wide open access agreements and discounts that can help UC corresponding authors publish their scholarship open access.
- Do you want to create an open digital textbook? Take a look at UC Berkeley’s Open Book Publishing platform (anyone with a @berkeley.edu email can sign up for a free account), and get in touch with us about our Open Educational Resources (OER) grant program.
- Keep an eye on the Library’s events calendar for more workshops and trainings.
- Follow our blog, social media, and YouTube channel.
Want help or more information? Send us an email. We can provide individualized support and personal consultations, online class instruction, presentations and workshops for small or large groups & classes, and customized support and training for departments and disciplines.
UC Berkeley author tips: What to do when you have to pay an open access publishing fee
This post provides information to UC Berkeley authors about programs that our Library and the UC system offer to help defray open access article processing charges. It also offers tips about how to plan or budget in advance for these fees when possible.
The University of California has been a long-time supporter of open access publishing—that is, making peer-reviewed scholarship available online without any financial, legal, or technical barriers. Just because the publishing outcome is open to be read at no cost, though, doesn’t mean the publishing enterprise as a whole is “free.” One of the most common ways for open access publishers to continue to finance their publishing and production of journals in the absence of selling subscriptions for access is to instead charge authors a fee to publish—moving from a publishing system based on paying to read to one based on paying to publish. Of course, not all methods of funding open access require authors to pay publication fees in this way. And in all cases (except those rare instances in which a publisher requests that you waive this right), the UC’s open access policy makes it possible for UC authors to share their author-accepted manuscript version of their articles on eScholarship, the UC’s research repository, immediately upon publication in a journal.
But when a publisher does charge a fee to publish, we want to help you understand what UC Berkeley resources are available—whether from your grant funds or the University of California Libraries—to help with those costs.
Typically publishers refer to author-facing fees as “article processing charges”, or “APCs”. APCs can range from a few hundred dollars all the way up to $10,000 or more for some select Nature journals.
UC authors may be able to cover or contribute to these fees by leveraging research accounts or grant funds (to the extent available). But there are also other University Library programs available to support payment when research accounts or grant funds are not available.
UC-wide open access publishing agreements will cover some (or all) APCs
UC corresponding authors can take advantage of funding opportunities to defray the cost of publishing their scholarship open access where their grant or other research funds come up short or are not available. The University of California libraries have entered into a growing number of systemwide transformative open access agreements with publishers. UC libraries’ transformative agreements aim to transform scholarly publishing by moving from a publication model based on subscription access to an open access model.
When a UC-affiliated corresponding author has an article accepted for publication in a journal with which the UC has an open access publishing agreement, the UC libraries will pay some or all of the associated publishing fee. So, when it comes time to pay the APC, the UC libraries will pay at least the first $1,000. If there’s any remaining balance due on the APC, the publisher’s payment system will ask if the UC author has grant funding available to cover the remainder. If the UC author cannot contribute the remaining balance, the UC libraries will pay the entire APC on their behalf. (Note: there are a few instances where the UC libraries will contribute a maximum of $1,000 toward the APC, such as Nature-branded titles.)
The UC maintains an updated list of Publisher OA Agreements and Discounts where you can explore which journals are available for partial or full APC coverage under the open access agreements.
The UC Berkeley Library-specific fund can reimburse open access fees for other fully open access journals
UC Berkeley’s Library also has a campus open access fund that UCB authors can use if they are publishing in a fully open access journal and are required to pay an APC. The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) is open to any current UC Berkeley faculty, graduate student, postdoc, or academic staff who does not have other sources of funds to pay article processing charges. The BRII fund is available for journals other than those with which the UC has entered into a systemwide transformative open access agreement.
For BRII APC coverage to apply, the entire journal must be freely available to the public without subscription fees. BRII cannot cover fees for publishing in “hybrid” OA journals—which are subscription-based journals that only offer open access options if an author decides to pay an additional fee to make their individual article open access. BRII reimbursements are capped at $2,500 per article, and a UC Berkeley author can use BRII funds once per fiscal year.
How to plan in advance
If your research is grant funded, it is important to think about publishing costs at the beginning of your research cycle and account for them in your grant applications and annual research budgeting. For grant recipients (such as researchers with funding from NIH, NSF, etc.), open access publishing costs generally are considered an allowable direct expense unless funders explicitly prohibit them. For more information on how and why to plan in advance, check out the Open Access Fact Sheet for Researchers Applying for Grants.
Planning in advance allows you to be a partner in the publishing process. It allows the UC libraries to cover some of your article processing charge ($1,000) and, where possible, you to use grant or research funds to cover the rest. The more researchers are able to contribute, the farther the UC agreements can go in publishing more articles open access, and the better UC libraries are able to help provide financial support to researchers who do not have specific access to grant funds.
Most of the UC transformative open access agreements are set up to cover the full article processing charge should UC authors not have research or grant funds to contribute to making their journal articles open access. But there are a few journal titles and series within transformative agreements for which the libraries were unable to negotiate full coverage. For example, if a UC author has an article accepted in Nature Communications, the UC libraries cover only the first $1,000 of the article processing charge through the terms of the UC-Springer Nature transformative open access agreement. Since the current APC for Nature Communications is $6,290, then the UC author must pay the remainder of the fee ($5,290).
Another instance in which an author may need to pay a balance is when the author is publishing in a fully-open access journal not covered by a transformative agreement at all, and in turn when that journal’s article processing charge exceeds what can be covered through the BRII program. For instance, if a UC Berkeley author has an article accepted for publication in JAMA Network Open, the BRII program is capped at covering $2,500 of the article processing charge. Since the APC for JAMA Network Open is $3,000, then the UC Berkeley author must pay the remainder of the fee ($500).
Since both of the examples above are journals in which an APC is required in order to publish there, authors are responsible for securing the remainder of any publishing fees should the open access publication costs exceed the amount of UC libraries (or UC Berkeley Library’s) support.
Need more help?
- Contact the Library’s Office of Scholarly Communication Services at schol-comm@berkeley.edu
- Read the Open Access Fact Sheet for Researchers Applying for Grants
- Explore the Open Access at UC webpage
- Explore the Open Access at Berkeley webpage
- Watch the YouTube workshop video How to Publish Open Access at UC Berkeley
- Visit the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) website
Supporting open access book publishing at UC Berkeley: Winter 2023 update
The University of California continues to support a variety of ways UC authors can participate in open access publishing. At its heart, open access refers to the free, immediate, online availability of scholarship. Open access materials can be read and used by anyone, without any financial, legal, or technical barriers other than gaining access to the Internet.
But you might be wondering, why is the University of California concerned about trying to make research more openly available and accessible? Well, one fundamental reason is that the research and teaching mission of the UC includes the aim of “transmitting advanced knowledge,” and as part of doing that, our faculty, researchers, and students create and share their scholarship.
This system of scholarly publishing includes traditional or formal publications, such as peer-reviewed academic articles, scholarly chapters or books, and conference proceedings. It also includes emerging publications such as digital projects, data sets and visualizations, and working papers.
Support for Open Access Articles
UC offers a wide range of support to help authors publish scholarly articles. The UC’s Open Access Policies ensure that university-affiliated authors can deposit their final, peer-reviewed research articles into eScholarship, our institutional repository, immediately upon publication in a journal. Once they’re in eScholarship, the articles may be read by anyone for free.
The University of California has entered into 20+ transformative open access agreements or discount arrangements with scholarly publishers. These agreements permit UC corresponding authors to publish open access in covered journals, with the publishing fees being covered in part (or in full) by the UC. Last year there were 420 articles published open access by UC Berkeley authors under transformative open access agreements.
Locally, the Library continues to offer the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII). This program helps UC Berkeley authors defray article processing charges (APCs) that are sometimes required to publish in fully open access journals (note that BRII doesn’t reimburse authors for publishing in “hybrid” journals—that is, subscription journals that simply offer a separate option to pay to make an individual article open access). This past year BRII provided funding for the publication of 75 open access journal articles.
Support for Open Access Books
We know that not all University of California authors are publishing journal articles, and many disciplines—such as arts, humanities, and social sciences—focus on the scholarly monograph as the preferred mode of publishing. Some open access book publishers charge authors (or an author’s institution) a fee in exchange for publishing the book, similar to the practice of open access journal publishers charging an “author processing charge” to make a scholarly article open access.
UC Berkeley is supporting authors who wish to publish their books open access. The library provides funding assistance and access to publishing platforms and tools for UCB authors to make their books open access.
Berkeley Research Impact Initiative
Above we mentioned how the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative helps UC Berkeley authors publish articles in fully open access journals. BRII funding can also be used to help authors pay book processing charges (up to $10,000/book) so that their monographs can be published open access. In the last year, several UCB-authored books have been published open access in part due to BRII funding support.
- Susan Fawcett from The University and Jepson Herbaria published A Generic Classification of the Thelypteridaceae with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
- Chris Hoofnagle from UC Berkeley Law School published Law and Policy for the Quantum Age with Cambridge University Press.
- Asad Q. Ahmad from the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures published Palimpsests of Themselves: Logic and Commentary in Postclassical Muslim South Asia with University of California Press.
- Daniel Boyarin from the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric published The Cultural Legacy of the Pre-Ashkenazic Jews in Eastern Europe with University of California Press.
Springer
In March 2021, UC Berkeley Library entered into an institutional open access book agreement with Springer Nature. The partnership provides open access funding to UC Berkeley affiliated authors who have books accepted for publication in Springer, Palgrave, and Apress imprints. This means that these authors can publish their books open access at no direct cost to them. The agreement covers all disciplines published by Springer. All the books are published under a Creative Commons Attribution license for free access and downloading. In the last year, several UCB-authored books have been published open access as a result of the UCB-Springer agreement.
- Erin Murphy-Graham from the Graduate School of Education published Life Skills Education for Youth with Springer.
- Karl van Bibber from the Department of Nuclear Engineering published The Search for Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter with Springer.
- William Paul Fisher Jr. from the Graduate School of Education published Person-Centered Outcome Metrology with Springer.
- Alexandre Bayen from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences published Control Problems for Conservation Laws with Traffic Engineering with Springer (Birkhäuser).
- Natasha Distiller from the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies published Complicities – A Model for Subjectivity in the Psychological Humanities with Springer (Palgrave Macmillan).
University of California Press
UC Berkeley Library continues to support open access book publishing via Luminos, the open access arm of the University of California Press. The Library membership with Luminos means that UC Berkeley authors who have books accepted for publication through the UC Press can publish their book open access with a heavily discounted book processing charge. When combined with additional funding support through BRII, a UC Berkeley book author could potentially publish their book open access with the costs being covered fully by the Library. Luminos books are published under Creative Commons licenses with free downloads.
Pressbooks platform
The UC Berkeley Library hosts an instance of Pressbooks, an online platform through which the UC Berkeley community can create open access books, open educational resources (OER), and other types of digital scholarship. In the last year, Christopher Jelen from the Department of Ancient Greek & Roman Studies published A Few Stories in Attic Greek: Adapted to Accompany Hansen & Quinn (11-20). The book is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.
Educational Workshops on open access book publishing
The Office of Scholarly Communication Services OSCS continues to offer a bi-annual Pressbooks workshop and demo where participants can learn how to navigate the platform and create and publish their own eBooks and open educational resources. (Note: the next Pressbooks workshop is coming up on February 8, 2023. Sign up now if you’re interested!)
Every year during the fall semester OSCS hosts an author panel to unpack the process of turning a dissertation into a book. One of the topics discussed during the panel are options for open access publishing. Here’s a recording of last year’s panel discussion.
We also talked with an author about their experiences in publishing a book open access with Springer.
UC supporting broader ecosystem of open access book publishing
At the systemwide level, the UC is supporting several open access book publishing ventures, including Opening the Future and the University of Michigan Press’ Fund to Mission. In general, these models secure investments from libraries or other stakeholders, and agree to publish some or all of their frontlist books open access, with limited or zero direct cost to the authors. The backlist books are made accessible to participating institutions. The UC has also supported projects such as the Open Library of Humanities, Knowledge Unlatched, the Directory of Open Access Books, Open Education Network, and other initiatives.
Wrapping up
In this post, we highlighted several ways that the University of California—and specifically UC Berkeley—is supporting scholarly authors to create and share open access books. In addition to providing financial assistance, platforms, and publishing guidance, the Library is committed to promoting the broader OA book publishing ecosystem. We’ll continue to explore a variety of approaches to support the UC Berkeley community (and beyond) who wish to publish books on open access terms.
If you’re interested to learn more about how you can create and publish an open access book, visit our website or send an email to schol-comm@berkeley.edu.
Upcoming Workshop: Can I Mine That? Should I Mine That? A Clinic for Copyright, Ethics & More in TDM Research
Workshop Date/Time: Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Register to receive Zoom link
If you are working on a computational text analysis project and have wondered how to legally acquire, use, and publish text and data, this workshop is for you! We will teach you 5 legal literacies (copyright, contracts, privacy, ethics, and special use cases) that will empower you to make well-informed decisions about compiling, using, and sharing your corpus. By the end of this workshop, and with a useful checklist in hand, you will be able to confidently design lawful text analysis projects or be well positioned to help others design such projects. Consider taking alongside Copyright and Fair Use for Digital Projects.
Please sign up today and join us online on March 8.
Upcoming Workshop: Publish Digital Books and Open Educational Resources with Pressbooks
Workshop Date/Time: Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm
Register to receive Zoom link
If you’re looking to self-publish work of any length and want an easy-to-use tool that offers a high degree of customization, allows flexibility with publishing formats (EPUB, PDF), and provides web-hosting options, Pressbooks may be great for you. Pressbooks is often the tool of choice for academics creating digital books, open textbooks, and open educational resources, since you can license your materials for reuse however you desire. Learn why and how to use Pressbooks for publishing your original books or course materials. You’ll leave the workshop with a project already under way! Signup at the link above and the Zoom login details will be emailed to you.
Please sign up today and join us online on February 8.
Workshop Reminder—Copyright & Fair Use for Digital Projects
Workshop Date/Time: Tuesday, November 8, 2022, 11:00am–12:30pm
RSVP for Zoom link
Please sign up today and join us on November 8.