Community Governed Infrastructure for Academic Open Access Books in Croatia

Iva Melinščak Zlodi

Funding Area: Community governance / Gobernanza comunitaria

Problem Statement: Croatia's scholarly communication landscape features various infrastructures that promote Open Access. Notably, the national platform Hrčak (hrcak.srce.hr) supports publishers of OA journals, primarily non-profit organisations publishing diamond journals, while Dabar (dabar.srce.hr) serves as an OA repository network for various scholarly outputs. While a well-established and efficient solution for publishing OA journals exists since 2006 (Hrčak platform), financial incentives also encourage publishing diamond journals through an annual national subsidy program for OA journals on Hrčak. Moreover, the Croatian Association for Scholarly Communication supports OA journal editors, functioning as a national capacity centre. However, these support mechanisms are currently absent for book publishers. Croatia, as part of the European scientific periphery, faces limited readership for books, especially those in the Croatian language, making the development of publishing infrastructure reliant on non-market incentives. Academic books are predominantly published only in print, by public organizations or small private publishers. Even private publishers, catering to a niche audience, depend on public subsidies to sustain their operations. Unfortunately, existing subsidies do not encourage OA publishing. An exception to this is seen in two institutions - the Universities of Zagreb and Zadar, which have developed their solutions using PKP Open Monograph Press to facilitate OA publishing.

Proposed Activities: The project program is based on activities of the future Croatian Initiative for Open Scientific Books that is being launched by five academic institutional publishers (universities of Zagreb, Zadar, Rijeka and Osijek, together with The Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography) in early September 2023, highlighting their recognition of the importance of a sustainable publication system for Croatian scholarly books. These institutions aim to ensure maximum national and global visibility while emphasizing openness and compliance with international quality standards and interoperability procedures. The Initiative aims to create a community for the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and best professional, organizational, and technological practices and to develop a common infrastructure and a central national access point for OA scholarly books published by all types of publishers in Croatia. This infrastructure would be open, non-profit, interoperable, and built upon existing successful academic infrastructures and organizational structures: the envisaged solution is the establishment of an ‘overlay’ repository for books, within the national Dabar repository network. Its management will be transparently guided and overseen by the academic community while facilitating the participation of the private publishing sector. This project, if supported by the IOI, would provide the initial funding needed for the establishment of the Initiative’s governance structure: 1. Bringing together the Initiative and defining the mode of operation (the working bodies and management structure) of the Initiative to ensure the participation and public accountability of all involved stakeholders: These activities would be convened by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) and will require 1,8 PMs during the 18 months of the project duration. The representatives of 4 other institutions would be closely involved. FHSS would also be responsible for the communication of the Initiative’s activities to the public. (Kick-off meeting in November.) 2. Drafting legal documents (bylaws, MoUs, contract templates) to define the responsibilities and rights of participants, terms of use, copyright, and use of open licenses, all in a manner that ensures openness and reusability while retaining rights by the authors and their institutions: These activities would need the support of a legal counsellor experienced to work in the non-profit scholarly/educational domain, and using open licences in copyright contracts. (2nd in-person meeting in summer 2024.) 3. Collaboration with the information infrastructure provider/developer (the University of Zagreb Computing Centre Srce) in building an ‘overlay’ repository and a central access point for all OA books published in Croatia and broadening the Initiative’s membership. (Workshop with publishers in early 2025.) The project would last for 18 months (2023/11/01 - 2025/04/31).

Openness: The Initiative will be open for all other organizations involved in academic book publishing in Croatia to join. The goal of this project is to define the organizational structure of the Initiative and the resulting infrastructure to remain open, non-profit and community-led. The infrastructure aims to serve the availability of open access books, reusable under the terms of open licenses. The metadata for the included books will be available in interoperable formats and via open protocols, as public domain (CC0). All materials resulting from the project (legal documents, bylaws, publishing agreement templates etc.) will be made available (in Croatian and in English) for others to reuse, under open licences as well. The processes and the work on establishing the organizational structure will be thoroughly documented and transparently communicated so that it can serve as an example, especially to other smaller countries and non-English speaking scholarly communities.

Challenges: No serious challenges are expected in defining the organizational structure and community governance of the Initiative and the related OA book infrastructure or in attracting additional members among the public institutions that operate as book publishers. However, gaining the interest and engagement of small private publishers will be crucial for the Initiative's full success. This could prove challenging since Croatian private publishers currently operate solely in the print-only realm and lack an understanding of Open Access principles and digital publishing requirements. Building partnerships, motivating them, and involving them in the community of practice will be essential for the project's success. Hopefully, national funders providing subsidies and financial aid for book publishing will begin incentivizing OA, which could serve as an additional catalyst for driving change among private publishers.

Neglectedness: To the best of our knowledge, no other sources of funding are currently available for this type of work. Since this infrastructure primarily pertains to the national level, a majority of the funding should be expected from national funders. The Plan for the Development of Research Infrastructure in the Republic of Croatia 2023-2027 was adopted two months ago, intending to establish regular tenders for financing research infrastructure. We hope that this will present an opportunity to apply for more substantial funding, but the system is not yet in place. Certain elements of infrastructure, and of its governing structure (e.g. Dabar repository network) are already in place and supported through in-kind contributions of participating institutions. However, if the current IOI funding call is successful (once the applications are accepted), it would provide valuable initiative funding that could help the Initiative mature. This, in turn, would enhance the chances of applying for and receiving funding from other international schemes, potentially in collaboration with similar national efforts elsewhere.

Success: Indicators demonstrating the success of the project are planned as follows: 1. Documents defining the governing structure of the Croatian Initiative for Open Scientific Books will be drafted, publicly communicated, and accepted by the interested community. The documents will incorporate procedures for future improvements and safeguards against for-profit takeovers. (by Month 5) 2. The governing, advisory, and working bodies of the Initiative will be established and made operational. (M8) 3. Documents defining the use of the open infrastructure for Croatian OA books will be drafted and accepted by the governing structure of the Croatian Initiative for Open Scientific Books. (M12) 4. Templates of the publishing agreements, ensuring the retention of rights by authors and the use of open licenses, will be published and utilized by the members of the Initiative. (M15) 5. The number of members in the Croatian Initiative for Open Scientific Books will increase, with at least 20 more organizations joining by the end of the project. These members will actively participate in the governing structure. 6. Clear communication channels about the activities of the Initiative, such as a mailing list, website, social media presence, and presentations at a minimum of three conferences related to scholarly communication in Croatia, will be established and made operational. (M2-18) 7. A workshop with book publishers will be organized, aiming to attract a minimum of 40 attendees. (M18)

Total Budget: 17,955.3

Affiliations: The University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

LMIE Carveout: The project does not fit within the LMIE category, however, as Croatia is considered to be a part of the European so-called scientific periphery and a small non-English speaking scholarly community, the experiences from the project and the resulting materials (released under open licences) could be useful to individuals and organizations belonging to LMIEs.

Team Skills: The University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is the largest publisher of scholarly books (among public institutions), and the leading publisher of Open Access books in Croatia. It is one of the initiators and coordinators of the development of the Croatian repositories network DABAR (Digital Academic Archives and Repositories). Currently, it participates in the Horizon Europe funded project DIAMAS - Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication (diamasproject.eu/). Iva Melinščak Zlodi is coordinating the team working on the DIAMAS project, and the team maintaining and developing the institutional OA books platform FF Open Press. In that capacity, she has started to gather other interested institutions to launch the Croatian Initiative for Open Scientific Books. She is currently presiding over the Coordination Committee of the DABAR repository network. She was one of the initiators of the Croatian OA journals publishing platform Hrčak. She serves on the boards of the SPARC Europe, and the Croatian Scholarly Communication Association. She is a member of the Project RETAIN team within the Knowledge Rights 21 programme supported by the Arcadia Foundation (sparceurope.org/what-we-do/open-access/copyright/project-retain/), which will be a useful starting point in drafting the policies and documents related to copyright and sourcing legal counsels (within the network of KR21 national contact points).

How Did You Hear About This Call: Word of mouth (e.g. conversations and emails from IOI staff, friends, colleagues, etc.) / Boca a boca (por ejemplo, conversaciones y correos electrónicos del personal del IOI, amigos, colegas, etc.)

Submission Number: 158