UC OSC Blog
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Advancing Open Monograph Opportunities at UC: New Pathways for the Future
The University of California (UC) Libraries have released a new report, Advancing Open Monograph Opportunities at UC, outlining a values-based framework, key recommendations, and practical strategies for advancing open access (OA) monograph publishing. Developed within UC, the report is intended to inform and support conversations within the library and scholarly communication communities about how scholarly monographs—particularly in the arts, humanities, and social sciences (AHSS)—can be made more open, equitable, and sustainable. The report synthesizes the current landscape of OA monograph publishing and presents a framework including investment strategies and tactics that are grounded in shared scholarly values. The framework builds […]
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Open Access for UC-Authored Monographs – A UC Libraries Pilot Project
Starting in 2025, UC Libraries are supporting several projects intended to broaden access to University of California research and scholarship by making UC-authored books open access. Following on successful efforts to open UC-authored journal articles, these projects will enable UC authors publishing books with select university presses to choose open access at no cost to them, and will also begin opening previously published books by UC authors. The projects represent both a “strategic investment in BPC-based OA monograph initiatives that directly support authors…aligned with UC research and teaching” and “strengthened partnerships with university presses,” two core recommendations of UC Libraries’ recently […]
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Lyrasis, Big Ten Academic Alliance Libraries, and California Digital Library Receive Grant to Advance Diamond Open Access in the United States
This post originally appeared on the Lyrasis website. California Digital Library (CDL), together with our partners Lyrasis and the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Center for Library Programs, received a $206,886 grant-funded project from the Gates Foundation to advance community-governed, open access scholarly publishing in the United States. The grant will support the project Mapping U.S. Diamond Open Access Journals, which will conduct the first national mapping of Diamond Open Access (OA) publishing in the United States. Diamond OA journals are peer-reviewed publications that are free for both authors and readers and operate without commercial profit motives. The project will illuminate the decentralized […]
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Making Data Count in Academic Evaluation
John Chodacki is the Director of the UC Curation Center at California Digital Library, and Stephanie Lieggi is Executive Director of OSPO (the Open Source Program Office) at UC Santa Cruz. Research data are central to modern scholarship, and building clear pathways to reward data contributions is increasingly important across academia, including in hiring, promotion, and review decisions. Because of this, we joined the Implementing Data Evaluation in Academia Working Group (IDEA WG) to showcase peer examples of data evaluation and data impact from around the world, and help build practical resources that institutional departments can adopt now. The IDEA […]
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eScholarship Journal Spotlight: American Indian Culture and Research Journal
In this University of California (UC) Office of Scholarly Communication blog series, we highlight interesting work of leading journals published by UC’s eScholarship Publishing program. Our latest dispatch is from David Delgado Shorter, Editor-in-Chief of American Indian Culture and Research Journal. In his Editorial Statement from the the journal’s most recent issue, Shorter writes: In the two years since our journal moved to an open-access publishing model, the world has changed in many ways. Many of us in North America are feeling whiplashed by unprecedented cuts to those resources that have made Indigenous studies possible. By leaving the subscription-based budget […]
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NIH Asks For Input on Ways the Agency Could Control Costs
The University of California recently submitted a response to NIH’s Request for Information on Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs. In this Request for Information (RFI), NIH asked for input on ways the agency could control costs, particularly with regard to limiting the amount of grant funds that could be spent on article processing charges (APCs). In its response, UC did not support any of the five options for such savings as suggested by NIH in the RFI, predicting that APC caps would shift costs onto authors rather than reducing the amount that publishers charge, and could “unintentionally […]
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OSC Guidance on Revised NIH Public Access Policy
The revised public access policy for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now in effect, covering NIH-funded articles accepted for publication after July 1, 2025. Since NIH is a significant source of grant funding for UC, this change is likely to affect many UC-affiliated authors. Visit OSC’s Guidance on the Revised NIH Public Access Policy page to learn how to comply with these policies and how UC’s open access agreements with publishers can help. This guidance features a summary of the requirements for NIH-funded authors, notes on publication costs and policy compliance, and an explanation of how the policy […]
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IOP Publishing and University of California sign open access agreement
IOP Publishing (IOPP) and the University of California (UC) today announced a new transformative open access agreement that will accelerate publishing and expand access to high-quality research in physics and related disciplines. The three-year agreement will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access articles in all of IOPP’s owned journals and most of its partner journals, a total of 77 titles, and will advance the university’s efforts to empower more of its authors to share their research freely with the world. “As a global leader in open access, this new agreement enables UC to […]
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BioOne and University of California Sign 5-Year Agreement to Include Subscribe to Open Pilot
Five year agreement will deliver access to UC researchers and support sustainable open access for independent nonprofit publishers This post is a joint press release issued by BioOne and the University of California. Washington, D.C. and LOCATION, June 25, 2025 — The University of California (UC) and BioOne today announced the signing of a five-year agreement to bring the flagship BioOne Complete aggregation to 9 UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory through 2029. Notably, this agreement includes the full term of BioOne’s Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot from 2026 through 2028. This extended partnership advances the mutual goals of […]
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eScholarship Journal Spotlight: Parks Stewardship Forum
In this University of California (UC) Office of Scholarly Communication blog series, we highlight the successes and challenges of leading journals published by UC’s eScholarship Publishing program through interviews with journal editors. Our latest interview is with editors of Parks Stewardship Forum (PSF): Jonathan B. Jarvis (Editorial Board member), Rebecca Conard (Co-Managing Editor), and David Harmon (Co-Managing Editor). In a few sentences, describe how Parks Stewardship Forum started and the purpose it serves within your field: PSF started in 2020, when the Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity at UC Berkeley was launched. The Institute’s founding director has a long-standing […]
