Open Access Requests

Owned by Owen Stephens
Last updated: Nov 29, 2022
8 min read

Purpose

The Open Access requests application is designed to support the management of requests to publish Open Access books and articles, whether funded through direct charges for the publication, such as an article or book processing charge (APCs and BPCs), or through transformative agreements which include open access publications. The Open Access requests application is not currently (as of November 2022 / Nolana release) part of a Folio "Flower" release, but is available to be installed alongside other Folio modules including those included the flower releases.

In particular the Open Access requests application is strongly integrated with:

  • Agreements
  • Invoices

Concepts

The Open Access requests application has the following concepts:

  • Requests - these represent a request to publish a work (book or journal article) as open access. The core of the request is a description of the work (book or journal article) being published, but there is other key information that can be linked to the request including:
    • The corresponding author for the publication and a contact for the request (these may be the same and are both recorded as "People" in the Open Access requests application, see below)
    • If applicable, the journal in which the item is being published
    • If applicable, the Agreement under which the publication is being made (the Agreements are managed in the Agreements app)
    • If applicable, charges made for the publication (see below)
    • Notes about correspondence relating to the publications
    • Information about the publication status of the work (book or journal article) included in the request
    • Information about any funding bodies related to the request
  • Charges - these represent a charge made for the publication. A single request can have multiple charges (e.g. a publisher might charge an article processing charge, or APC, and a color charge for a single publication). Charges are always linked to a requests and can also be linked to Invoice lines (which are managed by the Invoices application)
  • Checklists - these represent a set of tasks or checklist criteria that need to be completed for each request 
  • People - name, contact information and institutional affiliation information for people related to requests
  • Journals - name and identifiers for journals in which publications are being made

Permissions

The Open Access requests application supports the following permission sets:

  • Open Access Requests: Search & view all
    • Grants permission to search and view all aspects of open access requests except Invoices and Agreements
  • Open Access Requests: Edit all
    • Grants permissions to edit all aspects of open access requests except Invoices and Agreements
  • Settings (Open Access): Manage all Open Access settings
    • Grants permissions to edit all Open Access settings

Typically users of the Open Access requests application will also need to have either view or edit permissions in Agreements and Invoices in order that they can view and/or edit information related to the requests that is managed in those places.

Searching

Functional workflows

Typical workflows enabled by the Open Access requests application are:

  • Recording the details of a request to publish an Open Access book or journal article
  • Processing a request through locally defined workflows
  • Ensuring all aspects of an Open Access publication request are completed - including payment of any charges (whether APCs, BPCs or some other charge such as Color charges)
  • Checking all the Open Access requests that have been made under a particular open access or transformative agreement
  • Checking all the Open Access requests made by a particular person
  • Checking all the Open Access requests made to publish in a specific journal
  • Reporting on APCs and/or BPCs paid during a particular year

Reporting

The Open Access requests application supports reports of the following types:

Considerations for Implementation

When implementing the Open Access publication request application there are a number of planning tasks and system setup tasks that will need to be completed in advance. These are detailed here:

Request and Publication setup

Request numbering

When you add a request to the system it is automatically allocated a number. There are a couple of options for controlling number generation, but each number can be allocated a prefix either by:

  • going to Settings → Open access → Publication requests and editing the "HRID prefix"
  • going to Setting → Service interaction → Number generators sequences and edit the "Open Access" generator request sequence to update the "Output template"

For example if you wanted to group the request numbers by year you could change the prefix to the current year, and then update it each year. 

Closure reasons:

When a request is closed, you can optionally add an explanation for why it is closed (for example "Completed", "Rejected"). The list of valid reasons is controlled by a list in settings. To setup the closure reasons:

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "PublicationRequest.ClosureReason"
  • Click "New"

Add as many closure reasons as you wish. Additional closure reasons can be added at any time, but only closure reasons that have not been allocated to any requests can be deleted.

Publishers:

When a request is recorded you can choose the publisher which is publishing the article or book. When creating or editing a request the publisher must be chosen from a list to ensure consistency in how publisher names are recorded. The list of publisher names is controlled in settings, and it is recommended that the most common publishers are added to the system in advance, and then additional publishers added as required.

To add a publisher

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "PublicationRequest.Publisher"
  • Click "New", enter the publisher name and click "Save"

Publisher names can be added and edited at any time but only publishers that have not been associated with any requests can be deleted.

Licenses:

When a request is recorded you can choose the license under which the article or book it being published. When creating or editing a request the license must be chosen from a list to ensure consistency in how licenses are recorded. The list of licenses is controlled in settings, and it is recommended that the most common licenses are added to the system in advance, and then additional licenses added as required.

To add a license

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "PublicationRequest.License"
  • Click "New", enter the license name and click "Save"

Licenses can be added and edited at any time but only licenses that have not been associated with any requests can be deleted.

Publication Identifiers:

When a request is recorded you can record identifiers for the item being published (article or book). The some common identifiers are already included by default and do not require any additional setup:

  • DOI
  • ISBN
  • PMID

However if you wish to record further IDs for publications such as PMCID, arXiv ID, ADS ID, SSRN ID, RePEC ID etc. then you will need to add these as follows:

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "PublicationIdentifier.Type"
  • Click "New", enter the publication identifier type and click "Save"

Additionally ID types can be added and edited at any time but only ID types that have not been used can be deleted.

Note that:

  • DOI does not appear in the PublicationIdentifier.Type list as it is built into the system and is treated as a fundamental property of a publication
  • ISSN does not appear in the PublicationIdentifier.Type list because these identify journals rather than specific works being published (i.e. articles, books). All journals added to the system can have electronic and print ISSNs as well as EZB IDs and ZDB IDs

Publication subtypes:

Currently the application supports two types of publication to for which an OA publication request can be made:

  • Article
  • Book

The type determines what metadata is used to describe the publication and the list of supported types cannot be changed in a setting as the required functionality is built into the application software.

However, in order to allow the recording of more detail of the type of publication the request refers to, there is an additional "Publication subtype" which can be used to record additional information. This could be particularly important where publisher agreements only cover articles of certain types (e.g. Research articles) or for additional granularity in reporting on the types of publications that have been funded / published Open Access.

To add a publication subtype

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "PublicationRequest.Subtype"
  • Click "New", enter the publication subtype and click "Save"

Publication subtypes can be added and edited at any time but only publication subtypes that have not been associated with any requests can be deleted.

Charge setup

There are three key settings for charges.

Firstly, each charge can have a category that allows you indicate what the charge was for. Typically you will want to have a charge category for at least:

  • APC
  • BPC

If you also want to record other types of charge such as Color charges, you can add additional categories to the list as follows:

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "Charge.Category"
  • Click "New"
  • Add the new category name in the "Label"
  • You can change the labels for any of the categories at any time (e.g. change "APC" to "Article Processing Charge") if you need to. This will change how the value displays but won't change the underlying information for any of the charges

Secondly, you can set a default tax rate which will be used for new charges. Charges have to have a tax rate applied, although it can be zero if there is no tax to be added. You can change the tax rate for any specific charge, but a default rate will be applied based on a setting. If the majority of your charges will have a standard tax rate applied (even if that rate is zero) then you should setup a default tax rate as follows:

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Publication requests
  • Click "Edit" on the "Default tax" setting
  • Enter a number 0-100

Finally, each charge can be linked to one or more "Payer". The payer is a way of recording who will pay a part (or all) of a charge. Note that it is not intended as a substitute for full fund and invoice management which requires the Invoice and Finance applications to be installed, but it can be used to split a charge between payees such as "Library" or "Author" independently of any invoice processing.

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Pick list values
  • In the pick list drop down, choose "Payer.Payer"
  • Click "New" enter the Payer and click Save

People setup

  • Institution structure: Party.InstitutionLevel1

Correspondence setup

  • Correspondence.Category
  • Correspondence.Mode
  • Correspondence.Status

Funding details setup

  • Funding.AspectFunded
  • Funding.Funder

Checklist setup

Checklists allow you to track progress of an Open Access request through any progress you wish to implement. For example you might want to have checklist items to ensure that you have checked the current DOAJ, or that Invoices have been paid by finance, or that a corresponding author has provided proof of institutional membership.

In the application settings you can set up as many checklist items as you need, and once these have been set up, each request will come with its own checklist where you can check off (or hide if not needed) each item on the checklist.

To setup the checklist items:

  • Go to: Settings → Open access → Checklist items
  • Click New
  • Add the following information:
    • label: this will be how the checklist item appears on each checklist. Think carefully about how this is phrased - e.g. whether it is a thing to be done such as "Check journal in DOAJ" or an outcome "Invoice paid by finance"
    • weight: this controls the order in which checklist items appear on requests - the lower the "weight" the higher up the list the item will appear 
    • description: this is an optional description that will be available to other staff when using the application, which can be used to clarify the purpose of the checklist item if it isn't clear from the label