Category: Academic Publishing

Academic Publishing, Libraries, Open Access, Webinar

Free the Books! The Path towards Open Access Monographs

Gold Leaf

30th March 2023, 2.30pm-4.15pm BST
(15.30-17.15 CET)

Webinar hosted by Gold Leaf, sponsored by De Gruyter

We would like to invite our readers to the new 2023 webinar series “Challenging the Status Quo: Taking Libraries into the Future”, run by Gold Leaf and sponsored by De Gruyter.

This webinar explores the knotty world of Open Access books. In principle, most people agree that OA books are a “good thing”; but the associated issues are complex for everyone in the Scholarly Communications industry.

Speakers include Niels Stern, Director of OAPEN, who will give the keynote; Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director at the University of Stockholm and Assistant Director of BIBSAM; and Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Access Librarian at the University of York.

The webinar is the first of a series sponsored by De Gruyter and will be moderated by Linda Bennett of Gold Leaf. Registration is free of charge.
For more details and to book your place on the seminar, click here.

Who should attend

The webinar will be very inclusive. It will be of interest to librarians, including student librarians, information scientists, funders, publishers, academics interested in Open Access and anyone involved in the current period of rapid change in the library and publishing industries.

The series

In this new De Gruyter Webinar Series, we invite library & information scientists, researchers, and industry experts to share their insights and wisdom into latest developments, emerging trends and best practices in the library and publishing services.

Agenda

15.30-15.35 Introduction and Welcome
Andrea Gregor-Adams, Marketing Manager EMEA, De Gruyter
15.35-16.05 Free the Books!
Keynote talk: Niels Stern, Director of OAPEN
16.05-16.45 Librarian Panel session
Two panellists will each speak for 10 – 15 minutes, followed by Q & A
Selling Open Access for books to the country.
Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director, University of Stockholm; Vice-Chairman of BIBSAM
At the coal face: the acquisition and payment issues
Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Access, University of York
16.45-17.10 Plenary Session: What next?
The three speakers and the audience will be invited to discuss what the future will bring for Open
Access for books and share their hopes and concerns.
17.10-17.15 Wrap-up

Niels Stern is director of OAPEN. He began his career in scholarly book publishing in 2003. In this capacity he became a co-founder of the OAPEN project in 2008. Since 2014 Niels Stern has also acted as independent expert for the European Commission on open science and e-infrastructures. Leaving publishing for a few years, he joined the Royal Danish Library in 2017 as director of licensing for five universities and chief negotiator for the national licence consortium.

Wilhelm Widmark is the Library Director of Stockholm University since 2012. Since 2020 he is also Senior Adviser for Open Science to the President of Stockholm University. He has a Master of Arts in Literature and a Master of Arts in Library and information science from Uppsala University. Wilhelm is active in the Open Science movement in Sweden and Europe. He is the Vice-Chairman of the Swedish Bibsam consortia and a member of the Swedish Rectors conference Open Science group. He is also a member of EUAs Expert Group on Open Science and one of the Directors of EOSC Association. During the years he has been a member of several publishers Library Advisory Boards. In year 2016 he got an assignment from the president to start an Open Access academic press for books and journals at Stockholm University. Stockholm University Press was created in 2017 and has published more than 50 Open Access books and host 12 journals. He is also the publisher of Stockholm University Press. Wilhelm is a well-known speaker at both national and international conferences.

Sarah Thompson is Assistant Director for Library, Archives and Learning Services at the University of York, where she has responsibility for Content and Open Research. She takes an active role in the RLUK Collection Strategy Network and in the White Rose Libraries Partnership, and is a member of the White Rose University Press Management Board. She also participates in a number of different national and international consortia groups and publisher and supplier advisory boards.
Sarah has strategic oversight of the Library’s content budget for both paywalled and open access content, and is steering a gradual transition towards the latter. This is being achieved by the Library financially supporting different models of open access monograph publishing; for example, it has signed up to a number of diamond open access monograph initiatives and has recently created an institutional OA fund which pays book processing charges (BPCs). She is also involved in White Rose University Press, which is a non-profit, open access digital publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books, run jointly by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

Academic Publishing, Case Studies, Digital Publishing, Open Access

The German new university press: small and perfectly formed or an enterprise in transition?

Gold Leaf

Gold Leaf have published a new report on German University Presses, which can be downloaded below or through the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.5584519

Innovations in publishing technology and staunch commitment to Open Access have combined to produce a proliferation of “new” university presses in recent years. Often run by the university’s library by seconding a tiny group of heroically-dedicated librarians, their ethos is very different from that of the traditional university presses – so different, in fact, that the two entities sometimes co-exist and collaborate within the same institution.

This paper examines the objectives, ideals and activities of 6 “new” German university presses, TU Berlin University Press, Göttingen University Press, BIS-Verlag, The Universitätsverlag Potsdam, Universitätsverlag universaar and universi (the University of Siegen Press). All are primarily engaged in Open Access book publishing. The paper explores their ethics and philosophy and the constraints and opportunities which they experience; their relationship with authors; the operational logistics they deploy; and the extent to which they can or may choose to use the services of third parties, including other publishers.

It concludes with an assessment of what the future might hold for these presses and others like them, including whether it is in their interests to grow larger, engage with additional ancillary activities, such as systematic marketing, or find other ways of generating greater revenues.  What are the options open to them, if the priority is not to compromise their Open Access ideals?

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

(cover photo for this blog post by Lezan @flickr)

the-german-new-university-press-white-paperDownload
Academic Publishing, Students, Teaching and Learning, Universities

The 2021 – 2022 Academic Year: Covid, academia, academic publishing and Gold Leaf’s birthday!

Gold Leaf

Covid is still with us, along with many restrictions and quasi-restrictions, even though this summer has in some ways appeared to be more “normal”, at least in the UK, than last. “Freedom Day” happened, although it was a bit of a damp squib – essentially, it consisted of the government telling us that it is now up to us to behave responsibly. Masks, social distancing and not gathering in large groups are no longer legally enforceable, but we have been warned that reckless behaviour might cause the numbers of infection and deaths to climb so rapidly that the government might have to impose another lockdown (despite the fact that formerly it was adamant that it wouldn’t). Shops, pubs and theatres have opened again, but have been encouraged to impose their own safeguarding rules; travelling abroad has been possible, but less so than last year, achievable only if you are prepared to jump through the many paperwork hoops created by almost all countries, including our own; are fully vaccinated; and prepared to spend quite hefty sums on lateral flow and PCR tests. So, a mixed picture, but perhaps with some light at the end of the tunnel.

And so we have reached the autumn and the start of a new university year. What will be significant about this academic year? What will distinguish it from its predecessors?

A key point that jumps out is that many students who had planned to begin their studies this year have now decided to defer. In certain subjects, at certain universities – e.g., Medicine – they have been offered a hefty financial incentive to do so.

Also in the news recently was that some British universities, including some from the Russell Group, have chartered planes to enable overseas students to travel to the UK without problems – in effect, creating a sort of “academic corridor” akin to the holiday corridors of summer 2020.

Most UK students who are planning to start or continue their courses this year have been told that while there will be more face-to-face teaching than last year, online learning will remain an important component of their tertiary education. Some seem to be dismayed or indignant about this, while others appear philosophical or even pleased. Parents, on the whole, are more vociferous in their disapproval. They perceive online delivery of lectures to be a substandard form of teaching, a “cheat” which does not merit full payment of the now-hefty tuition fees.

Finally, this year’s new cohorts of UK students have not had the traditional A level exams to arrive at their grades. Instead, these have been awarded largely on teacher recommendation. It has been controversial. Were the grades artificially inflated by over-indulgent teachers (or, in some instances, owing to the demands of pushy parents)? Or did the greater reliance on coursework and teacher judgment produce fairer results?

These four issues together are likely to produce a very different kind of student experience from that of pre-Covid years (last year cannot be counted as a comparator – it was hopefully a one-off!). Taken together, the first two issues are perhaps the most sensitive.  Is it truly the case, as some educational commentators have asserted, that UK universities are keener on giving precious places to overseas rather than home students because they bring more money? Substantiating such a claim would require a great deal of granular course-by-course, university-by-university analysis. More broadly, it does suggest that, for whatever reason – lack of reliable digital infrastructure in overseas countries, unwillingness of overseas students to miss out on the physical experience of studying in the UK, the limited appeal that online lecture consumption has so far succeeded in achieving – universities are still far from being able to deliver a satisfactory online learning experience. This is reinforced by the lukewarm reception with which announcements that some teaching will remain online has been greeted.  It overlooks the fact that if some UK students are admitted to British universities this autumn without the level of competence required to cope with first year work, online foundation / revision courses could offer them their best chance of getting up to scratch.

Publishers have a role to play here, as well as academics. It has long been recognised that technology could be put to much more creative use to deliver a better teaching and learning experience; at the same time, the development of such technology requires time and money – both in increasingly short supply to both academics and tertiary institutions – as well as a profound understanding of the mechanics, dynamics and legal issues attendant upon successful, compelling dissemination of content. Some enterprising publishers – not necessarily the ones that typically spring to mind as inspirational innovators – are already exploring ways of working with academia to develop exciting new kinds of content for undergraduates and attractive ways of delivering it. Gold Leaf hopes to publish occasional blog posts devoted to this topic.

We’re delighted to be able to continue to bring you news and insights in what promises to be a very interesting academic year. It’s also our twentieth birthday year, so there will be posts that celebrate this, too.

Officially, Gold Leaf was “born” on 1st September 2001. We’d like to thank all our clients, past and present and those about to work with us, for your support and we look forward to continuing to work with you. Let’s raise a glass to the next twenty years!

[written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Sustainability

Sustainability I – FSC certification

Gold Leaf

Following the advent of digital publishing at the start of the millennium, one of the key arguments to encourage the switch from print was ecological. Digital enthusiasts were quick to claim that using less paper and shipping fewer print books would help to save the environment. Maintaining sustainability in the publishing sector is, however, much more complex; and debates on sustainability began in the industry many years ago, even before digitisation was feasible on a mass scale. Today it has become one of the most pressing issues the industry has to address. Among the most important factors to consider is the carbon footprint: minimising a publisher’s carbon footprint has become the first priority when addressing sustainability targets across the whole industry. It exercises the minds of both trade and academic publishers, as well as paper manufacturers, printers, distributors and even authors and illustrators. A crucial way of achieving this is to build a circular economy which eliminates waste and re-uses resources wherever possible. The paper production industry, which arguably has been under pressure not to waste natural resources for longer than most others, has travelled the furthest distance in this respect; more than 70% of the paper produced in Europe uses pulp; and paper produced in this way can be re-used up to 7 times. Forestry in Europe has also been managed sustainably for the past decade, meaning that carbon dioxide emissions, the biggest problem for the paper manufacturing industry, are being mitigated by the continuing replenishment of the vegetation that combats them.

The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) was set up to create a global sustainability accreditation in 1993, and along with other environmental standards, such as ISO 14001 and EMAS (EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) has closely supervised sustainability for nearly 30 years.

But how does FSC certification actually work?

The certificate is available to various industries, including paper and cardboard manufacturing; some very specific sector-specific guidance has to be observed in order to gain the award. A key aspect is the use only of wood derived from sustainable forestry, but there is much more to it than that. Frequently-audited Forest Management is only one of two main components that are necessary for a FSC certification; the other one is Chain of Custody certification. This ensures that any company involved in the processing of FSC certified products continues to observe specific regulations and uses checked FSC-labelled woods only. For publishers and printers to become FSC certified, the use of certified papers is obviously essential, but they also are required to use FSC certified printers and distributors. For a product to carry the FSC label at the point of sale, every stage of the process has to be covered by FSC certification – from the forest itself to the finished printed book.
For publishers requiring more information, a fact sheet can be downloaded here.

Many other companies in the supply chain – notably publishers themselves – have felt obliged to develop internal sustainability strategies and find solutions for reducing their own carbon footprint. This has included the move to PoD [Print on Demand] to reduce the numbers of books printed unnecessarily, collaboration with printing companies who in turn are using sustainable methods and ensuring that materials such as inks, packaging and wrapping are as environmentally-friendly as possible; and the use of a sustainable energy supply.

To develop an industrywide sustainability strategy, the Publishers Association launched a Sustainability Taskforce in early 2020. We will talk a bit more about the aims of this in another blog post…

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Bookselling, Digital Publishing, VAT

Don’t Tax Reading: the case against VAT on knowledge

Gold Leaf

The removal of VAT from electronic publications earlier this year was the triumphant culmination of a vigorous campaign that had been led by publishers, booksellers, writers, librarians, teachers and readers over many decades to protest against taxation on knowledge. Originally it was started to save print books from tax: after VAT was introduced to the UK in 1973, successive governments had cast envious eyes on the thriving book and newspaper industries and debated whether to slap this surcharge  on their products, perhaps at a lower rate than for other consumer goods, as other European countries had already done.  Protests began immediately; there were crises as the threat reappeared periodically, which the campaigners always won – VAT has never been imposed on printed publications in the UK – but sometimes the victory was a close-run thing.

To a significant extent, the advent of e-books hobbled the power of those watchful that the government of the day might target print books again. VAT was imposed on e-books immediately they became commercially available, because it was argued that they should be treated in the same way as the products of the music industry – records, cassettes and CDs. Publishers, especially, were worried that if they protested too loudly the government might retaliate by imposing VAT on print publications rather than removing it from electronic ones.

When Annika wrote about the freeing of electronic publications from VAT a few weeks ago, I remembered a book had been published detailing the early struggles.  I have a copy and had hoped to quote from it.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it then, but yesterday was finally reunited with it. Published in 1985, it’s even more venerable than I thought.  It was designed to be submitted to the Treasury when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and Nigel Lawson the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and commissioned by an organisation called the National Book Committee.  (I’ve looked this up: it no longer exists, but in the foreword, contributed by its “Chairman” [sic], Baroness David, she explains that it represented “all the major organisations concerned with the production and reading of books”.) It was written by Marita Evans of W H Smith and Brenda White of CPI Associates (a research organisation similar to Gold Leaf), supported by several prominent academics, including Dr Frank Fishwick, of the University of Cranfield (with whom Gold Leaf subsequently worked on a JISC report on e-books).

Don’t Tax Reading: the case against VAT on knowledge is a fascinating compendium of history, economic argument, statements from prominent authors and accounts of the legal and political debates on the dissemination of knowledge that have taken place since the middle of the nineteenth century. Below are some selected quotations that seem particularly relevant.

“In 1941, in the darkest days of the Second World War, when the Government needed every penny it could get, the idea of a tax on books, on knowledge, was rejected.”

“Any attempt to separate out books of ‘non-educational value’ for taxation would lead to absurd judgements having to be made.  Fiction and poetry, for example, classical or popular, are just as important to understanding, literacy, and to our culture as serious works for formal education.”

“It seems that each generation has had to fight for the independence of the written word .. if this generation is to win its round, we must use words and tactics that are relevant today.  The arguments of the eighties.”

“The Government record for skimping on school books is abysmal: where among every twenty young adults leaving school – not even a classroom-full – there is at least one who is effectively illiterate; where a Government that is introducing huge training programmes to make sure that school-leavers are employable in our fast-thinking, fast-technology society, is now proposing to tax the basis by which those children’s minds are trained – the written word.”

“The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education stated the following: ‘At a time when the Government is crying out for a better-educated work force, imposing a tax on books is not only illogical, it is stark-raving mad. Further and higher education students would need an extra £1.5 million in grants to enable them to buy their books if VAT is imposed. Will the Government provide this? We think not. Students will be penalised and their access to books reduced. And those students already least able to afford books will be the hardest hit.’”

Some of these statements seem quaint to us now. Grants? Today’s students should be so lucky! And  in 1985 students paid no tuition fees. The £1.5 million figure given as a proportion of overall student spend on books is illuminating: in 1985 the proportion of school leavers entering Higher Education was still only approximately 15%. Most were spending – and expected to spend – more in actual amounts – i.e., not adjusted for inflation – than students expect to spend today. The concept of the UK aspiring to a “fast-thinking, fast-technology society” in 1985 may seem risible to us; but no doubt future generations will be having a similar laugh at our expense in 2055.

However, much of the information captured in these extracts raises serious questions about how much progress we’ve made in the intervening 35 years. The Literacy Trust says that 1 in 7 adults in the UK today has the reading age of a child of nine or lower. There is still under-investment in our schools. In 2015, Iain Duncan Smith, the then Work and Pensions Secretary and prominent member of the Cameron administration, congratulated the government because the number of children living in poverty had “dropped to 2.3 million” – “the lowest since the mid-1980s”.  That figure was shocking; and even more shocking was that the government thought achieving the child poverty level of thirty years before was a cause for celebration. There has been further deterioration since: the Children’s Society estimates that four million children are living in poverty in 2020.

Social imbalance and educational under-achievement are of course the result of a complex mixture of factors; they can’t be attributed to a single cause. Neither can a “silver bullet” be conjured to remedy them. However, enabling affordable access to knowledge in all its formats has to be the greatest single action a government can take to alleviate these ills. Let us hope that the removal of VAT from every kind of publication is permanent; but if its shadow looms again, key stakeholders must surely unite again to protect knowledge.

[Written by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Digital Publishing, Open Access, Trends in Publishing

From Open Access to Open Research: a summary of developments

Gold Leaf

As the OA movement picked up momentum, there were some watershed moments in the UK: the publication of the Finch Report (2012), which – to the surprise of many – chose the Gold “author pays” model (in which the author or his or her institution pays an APC, or Article Processing Charge) over the Green free-to-view-after-an-embargo-period model; the ruling by the major funding bodies, including RCUK and Wellcome, that outputs of the research they fund (journal articles and underpinning data) must be published OA and the content made available for re-use; and the requirement of REF 21 that authors’ final peer-reviewed and accepted article manuscript submissions must be placed in an Open Access repository.  The last of these supports the Green OA model, but without the embargo element. 

Developments in Europe were soon to surpass the UK in ambition. The principal research funder in the Netherlands, the VSNU, began to mandate a transition to full OA via “transformative agreements” with major publishers in 2016. In 2017, the Swedish government issued its Government Appropriation Directive to the National Library of Sweden (leading member of the BIBSAM consortium that co-ordinates library spending across the country) that “all scientific publications resulting from research financed with public funds shall be published immediately open access”, with a deadline of 2026 for “transitions” with all publishers to be fully realised; also in 2017, Projekt DEAL, a German consortium of libraries and research institutes, set a target of revising licence agreements with major publishers to “bring about significant changes in content access and pricing” of e-journals.  Denmark, meanwhile, remains committed to Green Open Access, as do some countries around the world, including the United States until recently (though without consistent policy or a mandate).

Despite all this activity, some major research funders across Europe and the UK believed that progress towards attaining full and complete Open Access to their funded outputs was moving too slowly. Concerns over “double-dipping” and the lack of take-up of initiatives such as membership schemes and the “block grants” from UK HEIs, compounded a view that publishers were profiteering from taxpayer-funded research that ought to be open for all. There is much general recognition that publishers do add value, but the margins and perceived behaviours of some have become polarising elements in negotiations with their stakeholders. The hard reality of adverse macroeconomic factors for higher education has fused with the ideal of democratisation of knowledge (propounded by groups like Unpaywall) to challenge the industry to change – although without concomitant change to the academic incentives that drive ever-increasing research publishing in the first place.

In 2018, the EU Commission created cOAlition S and launched Plan S, which set out ten main principles intended to achieve full and immediate Open Access by 2021: “…all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.” Key tenets of Plan S are that research must be available via free online access immediately upon publication; be free for sharing and re-use under (ideally) the CC-BY copyright licence; and that publication in hybrid journals is not acceptable unless covered by a transformative agreement.

UK Research & Innovation, allied with cOAlition S, is consulting on its own very similar recommendations at present, with a 2022 compliance target. Separately, the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) of the President of the United States appears to be preparing a similar position. Some academic publishers felt that Plan S merely formalised the goal to which they were already working, although bringing forward the deadline; others, including the largest, have resisted the mandate, which has led to disputes and ongoing battles that these publishers probably can’t win.

A benefit of the pressure being applied by funders is that the most enterprising publishers are considering real openness throughout the research cycle – often of more actual value to researchers than the formal published output – and trying to add value in supporting academic dialogue, early findings, failed experiments, supporting datasets and more.

Open Access for books has also been experimented with, at first either by small publishers – often new university presses set up for this specific purpose – or via open funding platforms such as Knowledge Unlatched; later by the larger academic publishers themselves. In the UK, the 2027 REF requirements have mandated Green open deposit of accepted book manuscripts; UKRI considers them “in scope” from 2024; and the National Endowment for the Humanities is approaching both authors and their publishers with offers of grant funding to turn monographs OA retrospectively. Nevertheless, a viable OA business model for books does not yet exist.

The conundrum that academic publishers have had to address is how to fulfil the requirements of the mandates, treat their librarian customers fairly, and develop a sustainable business model to ensure their own survival.  The “transitional model” developed – which has many variants –  is commonly called “Read and Publish”. It involves signing an agreement with an individual library or consortium that monies formerly supplied to the publisher for subscriptions and/or APCs should be combined in a single payment that allows readers access to the publisher’s content and pays for new articles to be published at the same time.  Ideally, no new money will be introduced into the system, though if a per-article APC model predominates, both cost and complexity will inevitably increase. Some publishers allow unlimited new articles to be published within this payment scheme; others put a cap on the number the payment will cover.

The model is simple in principle but needs much work by both publishers and libraries to make it work, and will only be successful if a) it really effects transformation and b) if the author experience is at least as smooth as it was in the old world of subscription funding.  There are plenty of issues besides this to address: transitional agreements are not intended to last forever – basing payment on historic spending will not work in the long term; funding streams across institutions are not centralised; big research libraries may not be able to publish all accepted articles if there is a cap on the “publish” element of the deal – and if this happens, who will decide which articles to publish?; metadata capture and workflows are still painfully inadequate; crucially, many academics are still unaware, or shaky on the detail, of what it means to publish Open Access and need a great deal of support from librarians and publishers in the form of workshops, online tutorials, etc.; and some confuse OA publishing by reputable mainstream publishers with the “cowboy” publications that proliferated after APCs were accepted as a form of payment, and are therefore hostile to the concept.

Above all, the model must be adopted globally in order to succeed. There may be enough money in the system overall, but its distribution will differ radically under R&P, which has implications for the whole ecosystem. China and the USA lead the world in the quantity of their research output.  Neither has a national OA mandate yet – though some American institutions have now signed Read and Publish deals.  The consumer nations, which publish less than they read, should end up paying less – but how will publishers support research outputs from the developing world? In the long term, publishers can’t run with two major business models – i.e., subscriptions + APCs and Read and Publish.  They need the whole world to get behind the Read and Publish model.  Will this happen?

[Written by Linda Bennett]
This article was first published by Bookbrunch on 13th May 2020.

Academic Publishing, Apprentices, Deutsch

Apprenticeships in academic publishing – part 3: Germany

Gold Leaf

For the past two weeks this blog has focused on apprenticeships in academic publishing. In earlier blog posts, we talked about the – relatively new – system of apprenticeships in the UK.

Today, we would like to look at Germany, where the apprenticeship scheme has been long established and where apprentices have worked in publishing for many decades. Of course, apprentices have been learning the skills of certain trades for centuries, but a standardised apprenticeship scheme was first introduced in the Germany in the 1920s. Then, many trades applied standards that were thereafter recognised country-wide and guaranteed that each apprentice learned certain basics of his or her trade within the apprenticeship scheme. Since then, the standard length of an apprenticeship has been established as 3 years (some of them can be shortened under certain conditions); and so-called “Berufsschule” (a kind of FE college) is compulsory for each apprentice. Usually, apprentices will spend between one and two days a week at school, and the rest of the time in the companies to which they have been apprenticed. During the school time, they study subjects relevant to their trade, but are also taught English as a foreign language; and German, Politics and Maths, to ensure a rounded general knowledge. At the end of their apprenticeship they have to sit exams – both academic ones (at school) and practical ones (usually a final piece of work that is judged by an external jury). They then get their formal qualification, which is nationally recognised. Apprentices in Germany receive a basic salary from the company that employs them, and their tutor is usually their manager within the company.

In some trades, it is possible – or even necessary if you want to work as self-employed and/or train apprentices yourself – to add a higher-level “Meister” (master craftsman) qualification in the same profession.  It requires study in Business Studies, Law and Pedagogy, as well as becoming proficient in the expert knowledge and skills of the trade.

Apprentices first joined German publishing companies in the 1950s, when a national curriculum for the profession, “Kaufmann im Zeitschriftenverlag” (businessman in magazine publishing) was established. It didn’t take long for non-magazine publishers to follow suit and soon the job title was changed into “Verlagskaufmann” (Business Administration, Publishing). This changed again several times until in 2006, the current name of “Medienkaufmann/-frau Digital und Print” (Media Business Administration for digital and print) was established.

Therefore, German publishing companies have been employing and training apprentices for several decades and they are an integral part of each publishing company.

To find out more details we spoke to Nadine, who started her 3 years’ apprenticeship with a German pharmaceutical publisher in autumn 2019. (She wishes not to be named in full and asked for her employer to remain anonymous)

“I am doing an apprenticeship as ‘Medienkauffrau Digital und Print’ (Media Business Administration for digital and print) with an addition qualification in Media Economics, publishing. The main focus of my apprenticeship is the production of different kind of media, but I also learn about the planning, marketing, finances and many more things. The company I work in mainly publishes academic books and journals, and so far I have been very involved in the marketing of products and advertising sales. However, as an apprentice I change departments frequently, and even within each department the kind of jobs I have vary hugely. This ensures that I learn about the publishing process and the many different departments that contribute to a successful product. At the end of my apprenticeship, I am expected to know how different departments and workflows relate and I should be able to work in any part of the publishing process. It means that one day I may be analysing sales figures and, on another day, I am looking through a selection of freebies to send to customers. That’s what I enjoy about my apprenticeship – I find it interesting to work on a journal that contains specialist knowledge.  Even if most of the content is too specific for me to understand, I have found many interesting articles that have helped me already.
Before I started my apprenticeship, I completed my “Abitur” (A-Levels) at a Sixth Form that specialised in Design and Media. A-Levels were necessary for the apprenticeship, but the main reason for completing them was to keep my options open for the future. At “Berufsschule” (college) I go into a special class for apprentices who are working for additional qualifications: we are also being taught Business English, presentation techniques and rhetoric, and the handling of New Media. In addition to this, we all learn about Business Administration, industry-relevant law, production (for example we learn about paper quality and printing costs), budgeting, multimedia (programmes like Photoshop or InDesign), design and skills in computer applications such as Excel or Access.
I enjoy learning all of these things because they have a relevance to what I do in my job.  A university degree was not something I considered, because I didn’t want to learn purely academic subjects any longer.
The apprenticeship is meeting my expectations; it is never boring, and I get to do a variety of tasks. In my company the apprentices are continually being challenged but never overburdened, and it is always ok to make mistakes, too.
I would definitely recommend an apprenticeship like mine, especially to people who love to read. It is exciting to see how a product is being developed and to see it through from planning to sales. Also, this apprenticeship allows you to work in any department of a publishing house and to follow your strengths. That’s also my plan for the future: I hope I can stay at the company when I finish my apprenticeship, but I do not yet know which department I will want to work in, because I haven’t experienced all of them yet.”

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Apprentices

Apprenticeships in academic publishing – Part 2: The Apprentices

Gold Leaf

In last week’s blog post, we gave an overview over the UK apprenticeship scheme and explained how apprenticeships are a valuable addition to Academic Publishing.

This week we have asked some apprentices to speak for themselves. Gerda Lukosiunaite from the Royal College of Physicians [RCP] and Kaya Spencer from Cambridge University Press [CUP] kindly agreed to tell us about their experiences.

When talking about their experiences as apprentices, both Gerda and Kaya were full of enthusiasm. They both found themselves in similar positions: they had finished school and were unsure about what they wanted to do next. Gerda had been made aware of the apprenticeship scheme by a friend and decided to take that route to become a dental nurse. After qualifying, she decided that she would prefer a more office-based job; discovering that the RCP was looking for an apprentice in its publications department, Gerda decided to apply. She got the place and worked on the RCP’s medical journals and monograph publications. She wasn’t sure what to expect from working in a publishing environment.  She hadn’t really considered publishing before, but found she wholeheartedly enjoyed it. “I never thought I would work in publishing, because I always assumed that you would need a lot of experience to get into it. I was absolutely thrilled when I learned I had got the apprenticeship position in the RCP’s publications department. It was such a great place to be and I was very involved in most of the tasks there: I did some basic admin, arranged for meetings and travel for the team, I was responsible for copyright permissions and liaison with the print room and was even allowed to do some proof-reading  and attend editorial meetings. The apprenticeship did exceed my expectations and I have loved working for the RCP so much, that I have recently changed to a permanent role as Membership Engagement Coordinator. I am still able to finish my apprenticeship in Business Administration at the same time”.

When she finished Sixth Form, Kaya had never imagined that she would work in publishing. “I wasn’t quite sure what to do after my A-Levels and wanted to set myself apart from graduates going for similar jobs to me. After working in some part-time jobs for a while, I was very excited to see the apprenticeship advertised on the CUP website. I had previously unsuccessfully applied for an Editorial Assistant role with the Press, but getting a place as an apprentice was fantastic, because not only was I able to get into a publishing job, it also allowed me to gain another formal qualification. I did my first apprenticeship in recruitment as an interview coordinator, where I worked with colleagues at all levels; this enabled me to gain great knowledge of the Press and a better understanding of the business as a whole – the different kinds of jobs people do, from entry-level positions to board members.”

Kaya finished her Business Administration apprenticeship within the HR department at CUP 4 years ago and has continued to work at the Press. She is currently a Communications and Community Executive and has recently started on a degree-level apprenticeship. The “Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship” [CMDA] is provided by the Open University and runs for the duration of 4 years alongside her current role, offering her continuous development whilst working. “This is a great opportunity to develop myself and build on the skills I already have as well as gain more skills in the managerial area.”
Looking to the future, Kaya says she would like to use the skills and knowledge she has gained to move into a managerial role where she can continue to help others. “I hope to develop the CSR programme at the Press that supports social mobility in Cambridge. I would definitely recommend apprenticeships to young people – we actively promote them to local schools in our area, as we feel apprenticeships are a great alternative to university and an invaluable opportunity to gain more skills whilst gaining real experience.”

Gerda also has ambitions beyond her apprenticeship. She has developed a keen interest in marketing and would like to develop her skills in this area. As she says, “it is never too late to go to university. I may well one day decide to do a marketing degree, but then I will be 100% sure that’s what I want to do and the money and efforts that I put into this degree will be well placed and thought through.”

Many thanks to Gerda Lukosiunaite (Royal College of Physicians) and Kaya Spencer (Cambridge University Press).

We also spoke to an apprentice in Germany, where the apprenticeship scheme has been well established for several decades – look out for our next blog post, where you will be able to read all about it.

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Apprentices, Students

Apprenticeships in Academic Publishing – Part 1: The Scheme

Gold Leaf

National Apprenticeship Week featured prominently in the media earlier this month, which made us think about the scheme and how it is represented in Academic Publishing. We therefore decided to speak to several people involved and have received so many good responses that we have decided to create two blog posts about it.

This is the first, which introduces the scheme.

In the UK, the Education and Skills Act was passed 12 years ago; it makes education or training compulsory until the age of 18. This means that all young people are expected to continue learning after they have reached school leaving age at 16, and the government has since put various schemes in place to give everyone opportunities to shape this learning according to their interests and needs. This does not necessarily mean that everyone has to continue going to school – the training can, for example, be fulfilled by taking up on-the job training; and later this year the new T-Levels will be introduced, to provide qualifications for 16 to 18 year olds who do not want to go down the route of  (more academic) A-Levels. Whilst T-Levels will offer a mixture of classroom and “on-the-job” learning, apprenticeships offer an additional option to school leavers. These are mainly focused on the workspace (like other workers, apprentices earn a salary and have the right to paid holidays), but allow the apprentices time off for academic learning, in conjunction with a Training Provider.

With the high increase of university tuition fees 8 years ago and the government’s strong support of a newly-created apprenticeship scheme, apprenticeships have become an attractive alternative for some students who have completed their A-Levels. The government has introduced nationally recognised standards and in recent years, apprentices have become more and more part of the workforce, including the Academic Publishing industry.

So, what is the scheme?

Apprentices usually work in a full-time post at a company, receiving on-the-job training and gaining the skills and knowledge necessary for the job. However, unlike an untrained or unqualified member of staff who will simply learn a job by doing, apprentices are supported by the Training Provider – they are enrolled on a course that provides theoretical learning needed for the job (up to 20% of the time); an independent mentor who is in weekly contact with the apprentice to monitor their progress and answer questions; and pastoral care. Apprentices receive a basic salary (in Academic Publishing it usually is somewhere between £14,500 and £19,000 pa) and get the course fees paid via Apprenticeship Levy funds.
These entry-level apprenticeships usually take around 18 months.

The Apprenticeship Levy was introduced by the government in 2017, to support more apprentices. The Levy is a tax paid by every business that has an annual pay bill of more than £3million and the money is held in a fund that the employer can access to train staff who are doing an apprenticeship. Surplus money is used to cross-fund apprenticeship courses at smaller companies. These companies do not pay into the levy, but can still appoint apprentices – the cost is then split between the government (which covers 95% of the cost through the levy) and the employer, which covers 5% of the cost, plus the apprentice’s salary.

When talking about apprentices, many people will think of school leavers who join the workforce for the first time through their apprenticeship. These are usually called “Level 3” apprenticeships, and there are many different courses to choose from. The ones typically offered in Academic Publishing might include Business Administration, Customer Services, Accountancy, Project Management or – a newly accredited standard – Publishing Assistant.  However, employers also have the option to use the levy to offer apprenticeship learning to existing colleagues to further their education in work-related qualifications. These apprenticeships range from mid-level qualifications (such as Data Analysis or Operations Management) to a degree-level apprenticeship such as a Senior Leader Master’s Degree, which is the equivalent of an MBA. Like entry-level apprenticeships, these are studied for whilst the apprentice is working; the apprentice doesn’t pay for any tuition fees and continues to earn a salary, but is given 20% of working time off to study.
The courses are taught in block seminars, or through online learning; and it is a statutory requirement that all apprentices are given “20% off-the-job” learning during the working week. This might be done one day per week, or spread across the week, depending on individual circumstances.

Why do companies engage in the scheme? In an interview with Heidi Mulvey, Head of Community Engagement at Cambridge University Press, she made the reasons clear:

“We started employing apprentices in 2012, before the levy was introduced, initially with roles in shared services such as Customer Services, HR and IT. Now we employ apprentices in departments right across the business and we currently have 28 entry-level apprentices, plus more than 50 colleagues who are using apprenticeships to further their development.

Apprenticeships are helping us to attract fantastic new people into the business, many of whom, for a variety of reasons, did not go to University. Most of our apprentices have A-Levels or equivalent, though in some cases candidates as young as 16 have been successful in their applications, which really demonstrates how much they have to offer: their potential is more important than their formal qualifications, and the apprenticeship provides training around the skills and knowledge needed for their role, whilst they also learn their role. Apprenticeships are playing a big part in helping us attract diverse new talent into publishing, and our apprentices are bringing in fresh and innovative thinking.

Most of our apprentices stay at the Press when they have finished their apprenticeships and have opportunities to continue their development and gain promotions.  One of our earliest apprentices now manages an apprentice herself and two others are doing a degree apprenticeship. This opportunity to earn while you learn has become a very viable and attractive alternative to the classic career path of a university degree and graduate training.”

…please also read our next post, in which three apprentices in Academic Publishing will tell us about their experiences.

Many thanks to Heidi Mulvey, Cambridge University Press, who provided a lot of the insight for this article.

[Written by Annika Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Academic Publishing, Learning from Libraries, Libraries, Open Access

White Rose University Press: the Library as Publisher

Gold Leaf

Triggered in part by the Open Access movement and also by the desire of early-career researchers and students (undergraduates as well as postgraduates) to find reputable publishing outlets for their work, in recent years there has been a steep increase in the number of university libraries setting up or encouraging the foundation of presses for their own universities.  (In 2015-16, Gold Leaf conducted research to determine the feasibility of one such project, on behalf of the University of Manchester.)

Most of these presses support the publication of new journals. Less common, but also steadily increasing, are publishing projects started by university libraries for the creation of Open Access monographs.  White Rose University Press [WRUP], founded jointly by the libraries of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, publishes both journals and monographs.  WRUP was created to ensure academic quality, support Open Access and support innovation in publishing. It welcomes proposals across all disciplines and from across the academic community, not just from its host universities.

There are four live WRUP journals (JACHS, JESLA, UJPIR and BIOJ), with another on Contemporary Chinese Writing in development. Each journal has its own website, from which articles are available to access and download without charge. 

WRUP’s first monograph, Star Carr, published in two stunning volumes, was released in April 2018 and has now had more than 20,000 views/downloads.  Three more monographs have since been released with the most recent, Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics, seeing nearly 1000 views/downloads since publication in Sept 2019. Further monographs have been commissioned, with three expected to be published in 2020.

Books are made available in a variety of e-formats, (HTML and downloadable PDF, ePUB and MOBI files). These are offered through the book listing page on the WRUP website, as well as via other content providers like JSTOR, and are free to access, download, etc. WRUP also offers print versions (via POD), so that for a modest fee people can obtain a hard copy of the book.  This means there is no embargo period; authors retain copyright; the Open Access version is the published Version of Record; charges apply: both APCs and BPCs; and, as WRUP is not-for-profit, the charges levied are enough to cover production costs only.

Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Research at the University of York, was involved in early conversations about the possibility of establishing a shared university open access press and is also one of its board members.  She says that setting up and working with the Press has been very exciting and has involved a steep learning curve.  In common with more commercial publishers, WRUP has found that monograph publication schedules are hard to stick to.  Many academics have still to get to grips with the concept of Open Access and need support in navigating the choice of OA licences and in e.g. securing the right permissions for images. 

Sarah says: “White Rose University Press has been a very worthwhile enterprise.  We are fortunate in having been able to secure the support of our Vice-Chancellors and other senior administrators at the WRUP universities.  We were also lucky to be able to supply the relevant expertise in-house.  We are looking forward to continuing the White Rose University Press adventure in 2020.”

For more information about White Rose University Press, please go to https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/

Sincere thanks to Sarah Thompson and Kate Petheridge, WRUP Manager, for providing the information for this article.

Sarah Thompson