OPERAS Living Book
In 2018, OPERAS consortium launched OPERAS White Papers as a vision statement advocating for Open Access in the SSH. Those documents constitute the practical and theoretical pillars on which OPERAS-P and OPERAS-PLUS stand to further enhance the development of the infrastructure.
Since the publication date, all documents have been viewed altogether almost 8,500 times and downloaded over 4,500 times, which indicates their relevance for the community. And although these papers provide a comprehensive, reliable overview of the state of the art, the three years that have passed since the day of their publication are a lot of time in scholarly communication.
This is why we decided to present revised and updated versions of OPERAS White Papers in the form of a living book. Since 2024, other important documents from projects and the Scientific Advisory Committee have also been added. The latest versions are ready for review, and we encourage you to participate (see Pundit Manual).
Introduction AdvocacyThe Advocacy Special Interest Group addresses advocacy in Social Sciences and Humanities, Open Science and Open Access publishing. The group offers reflexion, networking and support to various communities on the national and international level: researchers, publishers, librarians, politicians.
Common Standards and FAIR principlesThe Special Interest Group Common Standards and FAIR principles (former “Common Standards”) aims at exploring the workflows, mediums and technical standards that have recently emerged as a result of the changes brought about by the transition to Open Science. It places focus on the importance of common standards, the FAIR (fair, accessible, interoperable, reusable) principles, and examines key operational and technical aspects to ensure content quality and interoperability for scholarly output in the SSH and beyond.
MultilingualismThe Special Interest Group Multilingualism aims to support researchers who want to continue publishing in their own language and to develop transnational scientific cooperation at the same time. The SIG works on: translation, multilanguage discovery tool and the endowment of national languages.
Open Access PoliciesThe Open Access Policies section presents relevant outputs developed in the projects OPERAS is involved in.
Open Access Business ModelsThe Open Access Business Models Special Interest Group works on the main business models currently used by open access publishers, with a particular focus on the situation of European publishers in the social sciences and humanities, especially journals and monographs, in light of the Plan S guidelines. Furthermore, the group examines price transparency, and revenue infrastructure and management platforms.
Platforms and ServicesThe Special Interest Group Platforms and Services worked on the OPERAS catalogue of services, including their developments, governance, sustainability and insurance. It entails to set up contractual relationships between the infrastructure and the services. While this dedicated Special Interest Group is no longer active, we still present the valuable white papers they published.
Scientific Advisory CommitteeThe OPERAS Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) is an independent body, composed by various experts, providing advice and recommendations to the Executive Assembly on the ethical, scientific and technical area for current and future projects as well as OPERAS activities. Within the committee, papers are both discussed and written to provide valuable insights and discussions that support the strategic development of OPERAS activities.
Tools and PlatformsThe Special Interest Group Tools and Platforms (former “Tools Research and Development”) works on emerging practices and needs in the use of tools in Open Scholarly publishing: peer review, authoring, publication and dissemination. It provides a common approach and criteria for choosing tools, list of relevant tools detailing features and functionalities. The groups works on the current needs of the partners, and provides a watch on observed trends.