ABSTRACT

Introduction:

There is a growing trend among Brazilian University Presses (BUPs) to publish scientific and academic books in open access, making them available online. To this end, the BUPs adopt one or more business models, especially focussed on how to finance the publishing of books.

Objective:

The research here presented aimed to describe the business models and sources of funding used by the BUPs to fund the publication of academic and scientific e-books in open access.

Methodology:

Document research was carried out to survey the editorial policies accessible from the websites of 92 BUPs of Brazilian public higher education institutions. In most cases, after analysing the documents available on the websites, it was possible to identify the business models adopted for open access publishing. A questionnaire was also applied to the BUPs to identify, from the semi-structured questions, other details on the business models, which supplemented information not found on the university press websites.

Results:

The results reveal that 94.6% of participating BUPs publish books in open access, exclusively or associated with print book sales. The following business models adopted to finance editorial activities and open book publications were identified: institutional funding, cross-subsidies, grants, shared infrastructure, partnerships with university libraries, donations, book processing fees, release, hybrid and embargo period publishing.

Conclusion:

The research shows that, by aligning themselves to the open science movement in general and open access movement for book publishing specifically, BUPs adopt innovative editorial practices, but face challenges in terms of their financial sustainability.

KEYWORDS:
University press; Open access; Books; Business Models

RESUMO

Introdução:

existe crescente tendência entre as Editoras Universitárias Brasileiras (EUB) publicar livros científicos e acadêmicos em acesso aberto, disponibilizando-os on-line como e-books. Para tal, as EUB adotam um ou mais modelo de negócio, especialmente focados na forma de financiar a editoração e publicação de livros em acesso aberto.

Objetivo:

Descrever os modelos de negócio utilizados pelas EUB para a publicação de e-books acadêmicos e científicos em acesso aberto.

Metodologia:

Foi realizada pesquisa documental com levantamento das políticas editoriais dispostas nos websites de 92 EUB de instituições de ensino superior públicas brasileiras. Na maioria dos casos, a partir da leitura e análise dos documentos e informações disponíveis nos websites, foi possível identificar os modelos de negócio adotados. Também foi aplicado um questionário às EUB para captar alguns dados sobre os modelos adotados, que suplementaram as informações não encontradas nos websites das editoras; foram retornados 36 questionários preenchidos.

Resultados:

Foi identificado que 94,6% das editoras participantes publicam livros em acesso aberto, exclusivamente ou associado às vendas de livros (impressos e e-books). Verificou-se modelos de negócios adotados para subsidiar as atividades editoriais e para as publicações abertas: financiamento institucional, subsídios cruzados, concessão de financiamento de pesquisa e/ou bolsas, infraestrutura compartilhada, parcerias com bibliotecas universitárias, doações financeiras, taxa de processamento de livro, liberação, híbrido e período de embargo.

Conclusão:

A pesquisa aponta que, ao aderirem-se ao movimento da ciência aberta e acesso aberto para a publicação de livros, as EUB adotam práticas editoriais inovadoras, mas enfrentam desafios no que tange à sua sustentabilidade financeira.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Acesso aberto; Editoras universitárias brasileiras; Livros eletrônicos; Modelos de Negócio

1 INTRODUCTION

Open access to all types and formats of scientific literature is one of the main pillars of Open Science, referring to the wide availability of scientific research results on the internet without access costs, research that is often financed with public funds. In this way, researchers, professors, students and any interested person can read, download, print, distribute, search, (re)use to promote other research, translate, carry out text mining, migration to new media, long-term archiving, among other operations with such publications without financial barriers or restrictive licenses (BOAI, 2002; SUBER, 2012SUBER, P. Open access. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012. 255 p. Disponível em: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/26065. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.... ). Open access, then, creates conditions for researchers to seek, access and (re)use the information resources necessary in the course of the investigations undertaken, in addition to guaranteeing conditions for the rapid circulation of results among researchers around the world (LEITE; COSTA, 2016LEITE, F. C. L.; COSTA, S. M. S. Modelo genérico de gestão da informação científica para instituições de pesquisa na perspectiva da comunicação científica e do acesso aberto. Investigación Bibliotecológica, Cidade do México, v. 30, n. 69, p. 43-73, 2016. Disponível em: https://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/9753. Acesso em: 19 dez. 2021.
https://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/... ).

Brazilian university presses/publishers (BUPs) are important agents in the dissemination of intellectual - scientific and artistic - output by researchers and writers, focussing especially on the publication of books and book collections. These publishers are inserted in the context of the national educational and scientific system, affiliated to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) which are mostly maintained with public resources. They have committees generally made up of academics from the HEI in question, and they incorporate the institution´s mission and values, signalling their commitment to teaching, scientific-technological, artistic-cultural output and outreach, through publications that dialogue with the areas of knowledge relevant to the HEIs, focussing on the Institution's internal and external public (BUFREM, 2015BUFREM, L. S. Editoras universitárias no Brasil: uma crítica para a reformulação da prática. 2. ed. São Paulo: Edusp, 2015.).

The publication of academic and scientific books plays a vital role in building academic careers, as it provides a space for the development of sophisticated structures of reflection with the possibility of expanding the authors’ writing skills (EVE, 2014EVE, M. P. Open Access and the humanities: contexts, controversies and the future. Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Disponível em: https://bit.ly/3Hbgh0H. Acesso em: 24 mar. 2022.
https://bit.ly/3Hbgh0H... ; HILL, 2020HILL, T. Four reports on the OA monograph: Review. Learned Publishing, Nova Jersey, v. 33, n. 1, p. 345-347, 2020.). This is particularly the case for the areas of Social Sciences and Humanities in which the book, unlike the journal article, is seen as a more significant publication format in which the extensive writing process constitutes the means of developing the research itself, and not merely the means of communicating it (MEADOWS, 2009).

Editing and publishing books incur costs for publishers since the production chain involves different human and technological resources in the publishing process. The services provided by publishers generally include the selection of manuscripts for possible publication, management of the peer review process, editorial support which in turn includes editing, revision, graphic design, output of editions in several formats, registration, authority and metadata production, marketing and book promotion, distribution for sale and to libraries, archiving, providing usage and impact metrics (THATCHER, 2007THATCHER, S. The challenge of open access for university presses. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 20, n. 3, p. 165-172, 2007.; WITHEY et al., 2011WITHEY, L. et al. Sustaining scholarly publishing: new business models for university presses. Nova Iorque: The Association of American University Presses, 2011. Disponível em: https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/aaupbusinessmodels2011.pdf. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads... ; OAPEN, 2021). Thatcher (2007THATCHER, S. The challenge of open access for university presses. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 20, n. 3, p. 165-172, 2007.) emphasizes that all these steps are expensive, especially when performed to attain the level of excellence in scientific publishing usually associated with university presses.

It is because of such high costs of the book publishing process, along with the need to remain a financially viable business to cover them (including for paying staff salaries when these are outsourced), that university presses have not managed to be as expeditious in embracing open access book publishing when compared to scientific journals. In fact, in the first ten years of the open access movement, there was almost exclusive mention of the “two routes” to attain open access to scientific articles: the green route (repositories) and the gold one (open access journals), being that the repositories were generally seen as the places to deposit preprints of articles submitted to a journal or articles already published, possibly after an embargo period stipulated by the journal.

Suber (2012SUBER, P. Open access. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012. 255 p. Disponível em: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/26065. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.... ) recognized that the OA movement has focused on journal articles because journals do not pay authors for their articles, but that book authors can earn royalties, even though these for most academic monographs range between zero and a meagre amount. In this sense, continues Suber (2012), the authors of these books have little to lose in financial terms, and much to gain in terms of their expanded reach and impact if they are published in open access. Evidently, there is a large corpus of literature in book format, in the public domain, and which, therefore, do not need permission (from authors and publishers) to digitize them and make them available online, as witnessed by projects such as Project Gutenberg and on the Public Domain website of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Suber (2015, p.111) states that, even though digitizing these books is a “titanic technical undertaking”, it is a minor problem compared to the resistance faced by editors, journal publishers and even authors to obtain permission to make scientific articles available in open access.

As of 2006, the portion of open access academic books available online surpassed the printed portion available in university libraries (SUBER, 2015), and today, the ecosystem of publishers, platforms, repositories and digital libraries that provide access to books in open access is healthily diverse. Among the components of this ecosystem, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) stands out. Sister database to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), DOAB provides access to 66,000 open access books that have gone through the peer review process, plus metadata records in Dublin Core. Also worth mentioning is the open software for publishing open monographs - OMP - from the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). In addition to these, there is a plethora of open access book publishers around the world, including: SciELO Books, Open Book Publishers, Bloomsbury Publishing, MDPI Books, IntechOpen, OpenEdition Books and De Gruyter. DOAB is maintained by Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) which also operates two other platforms: OAPEN Library, which hosts and disseminates open books, and the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit, a set of resources on open access book publishing for authors. It is important to recognize that today, many traditional commercial publishers also offer services for publishing books in open access, for example: Springer Open, Palgrave Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis.

By facilitating the findability of research, the benefits of open access even extend to increased transparency, integrity, and scientific rigor; encourages innovation and promotes public involvement, improving the efficiency of the scientific research process (TICKELL, 2016TICKELL, A. Open access to research publications: independent advice. Reino Unido: Departament for Business, Innovation & Skills, 2016. Disponível em: https://bit.ly/3MQvHuH. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2022.
https://bit.ly/3MQvHuH... ). Other benefits of open access books relate to the reach of books that, when published through the traditional publishing model, are accessible exclusively to readers of institutions whose libraries manage to obtain a copy of the book: by guaranteeing equity of access, an open access title extends its reach to readers, for example, in less developed countries. Consequently, it will receive a greater number of traditional and social network citations (DOS SANTOS RIBEIRO, 2018DOS SANTOS RIBEIRO, D. A aplicação das métricas alternativas em livros científicos de acesso aberto. Cadernos BAD, Portugal, n. 1, p. 139-145, 2018. Disponível em: https://l1nq.com/vxezG. Acesso em: 18 mar. 2021.
https://l1nq.com/vxezG... ).

Open access to books refers to the ample availability of e-books (the term for electronic book, understood in this work as synonymous) which are electronic files inscribed in binary codes, displayable through reading software and readable by electronic machines, such as desktop computers, notebooks, smartphones, iPads, tablets or e-readers. At the same time that open access discards conventional business models that entail a financial investment from the reader, it offers opportunities to rethink the ways of financing the dissemination of knowledge in book format.

With regard to open access, the removal of costs focuses exclusively on access to the text for the readers - the knowledge demand side - as they do not need to pay to use the open access text that is freely available on the internet. Open access is an alternative way to distribute access to books that would not necessarily be published for commercial sale by publishers (SNIJDER, 2009SNIJDER, R. The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of open access publishing. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 23, p. 293-301, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1087/20100403.
https://doi.org/10.1087/20100403.... ). But the costs of book production - the supply side in the circulation of knowledge - are basically the same for the publisher, except for the need for printing because they are electronic books, born digital texts.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) defines open access as a “concept, movement and business model” (IFLA, 2011). Willinsky (2006WILLINSKY, J. The access principle: the case for open access to research and scholarship. Boston: MIT Press, 2006.) described the “ten flavours or models of open access” based mainly on how each model is funded and the related type of access it provides to the publication. And Collins, Milloy and Stone (2015COLLINS, E.; MILLOY, C.; STONE, G. Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers. Londres: AHRC/Jisc Collections, 2015. Disponível em: https://bit.ly/3N5rkwb. Acesso em: 16 abr. 2022.
https://bit.ly/3N5rkwb... , p.7) define the green and golden paths of open access as the “[...] underlying business models that support an academic work to become open access.” The concept of business model can be defined as the set of decisions and actions taken by publishers for the production and commercialization of their books (PENIER; EVE; GRADY, 2021). Massa and Tucci (2013, p. 9 apud RITTER; LETTL 2018RITTER, T.; LETTL, C. The wider implications of business-model research. Long Range Planning, Reino Unido, v. 51 n. 1, p. 1-8, 2018., p.32) observe that business models constitute the “systemic and holistic understanding of how an organization orchestrates its system of activities to create value.”

It follows that analyzing business models for university presses related to open access scientific and cultural publishing requires attention to editorial policy, structure of invested costs and revenue streams. Thatcher (2007THATCHER, S. The challenge of open access for university presses. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 20, n. 3, p. 165-172, 2007.) points out that university presses must be aware of the fact that making books available online in open access requires some potentially costly specific digital tools and, in order to maintain quality, requires the same editorial production used for printed books. Thus, any business model and form of financing must be carefully tested to verify its efficiency and sustainability before long-term changes are undertaken.

In light of the above, the objective of this work is to describe the business models used for the publication of academic and scientific e-books in open access by Brazilian university presses. It is recognized that, in the existing informational ecosystem, such texts constitute important components for the consolidation of Open Science. Given that the intention here is to broaden the discussion on business models that promote the financial sustainability of open access book publishing by university presses in Brazil, the next section of the article presents a brief review of the literature on the business models, before moving on to the presentation of the adopted method, followed by the results and discussion.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Based on the literature identified from the LISTA and Scopus databases in the CAPES Journals Portal, and in Google Scholar, the following authors and texts were identified that specifically address open access book publishing business models: Withey (2011WITHEY, L. et al. Sustaining scholarly publishing: new business models for university presses. Nova Iorque: The Association of American University Presses, 2011. Disponível em: https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/aaupbusinessmodels2011.pdf. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads... ), Eve (2014EVE, M. P. Open Access and the humanities: contexts, controversies and the future. Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Disponível em: https://bit.ly/3Hbgh0H. Acesso em: 24 mar. 2022.
https://bit.ly/3Hbgh0H... ) , Frosio (2014FROSIO, G. Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review. Reino Unido: CREATe Working Paper, 2014. Disponível em: 10.5281/zenodo.8381. Acesso em: 11 mar. 2022.), Bufrem (2015BUFREM, L. S. Editoras universitárias no Brasil: uma crítica para a reformulação da prática. 2. ed. São Paulo: Edusp, 2015.), Collins, Milloy and Stone (2015COLLINS, E.; MILLOY, C.; STONE, G. Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers. Londres: AHRC/Jisc Collections, 2015. Disponível em: https://bit.ly/3N5rkwb. Acesso em: 16 abr. 2022.
https://bit.ly/3N5rkwb... ), Ferwerda, Pinter and Stern (2017FERWERDA, E.; PINTER, F.; STERN, N. A landscape study on open access and monographs: policies, funding and publishing in eight European countries. Europa: Knowledge Exchange, 2017. Disponível em: https://zenodo.org/record/815932#.YiXxoXrMKUk. Acesso em: 07 mar. 2022.
https://zenodo.org/record/815932#.YiXxoX... ), Hill (2020HILL, T. Four reports on the OA monograph: Review. Learned Publishing, Nova Jersey, v. 33, n. 1, p. 345-347, 2020.), Penier, Eve and Grady (2021), Speicher et al. (2018SPEICHER, L. et al. Open access business models white paper. 2018. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1323708. Acesso em: 19 jun. 2023.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1323708... ), Snijder (2019SNIJDER, R. The deliverance of open access books. Examining usage and dissemination. Leiden: OAPEN, 2019. Disponível em: http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25287; Acesso em 12 set. 2022.
http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.1... ) and Roncevic (2023RONCEVIC, M. Characteristics of European universities that participate in library crowdfunding initiatives for open access monographs. Publications, Suíça, v.11, n.1, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11010009
https://doi.org/10.3390/publications1101... ). Based on these texts, a brief description of these business models follows.

Penier, Eve and Grady (2021) draw attention to the difficulty of a single business model being able to support all the publication of open access books by a press, and therefore, advise the combination of models.

3 METHOD

Descriptive in nature, the aim of the research was to describe the characteristics of the editorial policies and business models of Brazilian University Presses (BUPs) of public HEIs for the publication of books in open access. The nature and analysis of the data performed is quantitative and qualitative (GONSALVES, 2007GONSALVES, E. P. Conversas sobre iniciação à pesquisa científica. 4. ed. Campinas: Editora Alínea, 2007.). Data were collected from documentary research on the presses’ institutional websites and from the application of an online questionnaire at the BUPs.

First, the website of the Associação Brasileira de Editoras Universitárias (ABEU - The Brazilian Association of University Presses) was consulted in order to identify the group of Brazilian university publishers to participate in the research. A total of 92 presses belonging to federal, state and municipal universities, federal education institutes, research institutes, official state presses, museums and archives were identified. On each website of the 92 identified presses, we searched for documents that made up the editorial policies, such as regulations, statutes, manuals for authors and other available texts. The search for this variety of documents was necessary because many publishers do not have a single document that explains their editorial policy. From these documents, information was extracted on the business models and funding sources for publication in general (not just open access publication). All data collected in these first two steps were tabulated in a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel®.

Next, functionaries responsible for the 92 university presses were invited, by e-mail, to answer an online questionnaire (developed in Google Forms®) consisting of eight structured and thirteen open questions about the publication of books in open access as practiced by the publisher.

A total of 36 publishers contributed with responses, which represents 39.1% of the total universe of 92 publishers initially identified. The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of São Carlos, protocol number 39955220.2.0000.5504 and all stages took place between July and September 2021.

4 RESULTS

The results presented in this section point to the business models adopted and/or foreseen in the editorial policies of the presses that took part in the research and referring to open access publication. Table 1 shows the percentage of the 92 BUPs participating in the research that adopt one or more models identified in the literature and documents collected on the BUP websites. Note that in 30% of the researched BUPs, no explicit information about the business models was found during the document research stage on the websites.

The book processing charge model, which consists of charging the authors (or their research funding agency) a fee that will cover the expenses of publishing an open access book, is used by 15.2% of the BUPs surveyed. Of these, 28.6% transfer to authors only the fee for issuing the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), which currently costs R$ 22.00. Among the researched BUPs that use this model are the Editora UFFS, EDUR and Editora UEMS.

A much-cited model in the context of open access is the stipulation of an embargo period, whereby the publisher sets a certain time, or number of copies of a given title to be sold, to later make it available in open access. Of the BUPs surveyed, 6.5% adopt this model for an average period of six months, but it can reach two years, depending on the contract signed between publisher and author. It is possible to forecast and measure the volume of sales of the title (when compared to the hybrid model in which forecasting is not possible), in addition to enabling the sale of the printed and electronic versions. If availability is anticipated, sales may decrease dramatically; the period that a work remains closed can affect its relevance in areas that use books more as sources of information. It should be noted that some development agencies may not agree with the stipulated embargo period when allocating resources to the publisher (PENIER; EVE; GRADY, 2021). The testimony of one research participant (answering an open question in the questionnaire) exposed the situation of declining sales due to the availability of the e-book in open access after a period as a printed book:

Our press’s main experience with open access has been negative. There were five titles published in print, two of which sold very well. These titles were placed in open access on SciELO Books and from then on, sales dropped to practically zero. It was a strategic mistake that led us to understand that open access and print run do not mix, contrary to some hypotheses that open access would boost print sales. (A Brazilian University Press survey respondent).

Hybrid publishing is a business model in which a given work is published in the printed version, either for commercialization or free distribution, and in the e-book version for open access. It is possible that the publisher will continue to produce print copies of a title after publication in open access, exclusively on demand (print on demand - POD). A total of 7.6% of BUPs surveyed adopt this model. EdUFES and EdUFERSA are among the researched BUPs that work with this model.

A total of 14.1% of BUPs surveyed adopt the release business model, whereby the decision is made to publish some titles in open access that will not be reprinted or reissued in print form. Longer-established presses on the market have more published works, which makes it easier to adopt the release model. EDUEM and EDUSP are examples of these cases, the latter using the USP Portal de Livros Abertos for this.

The business model called cross subsidies / selective open access is present in 39.1% of university press editorial policies, including Editora UNESP, EdUFRN and Editora da UFSC. In this model, the publisher subsidizes the publication of titles in open access with the other commercial activities it carries out. The predominance of this business model (which occurs as the second most adopted model by the surveyed BUPs) seems to signal that the BUPs have a growing interest in publishing books in open access, an interest possibly arising from the growing diffusion of Open Science principles and the materialization of such principles in open access publication.

Around 20.7% of the BUPs use financial donations as a source of funds for publishing open books. Of these, 57.9% are limited to receiving resources from legal entities; 42.1% from individuals; and 21.1% did not specify the source. It should be noted that books financed through the donation model are not exempt from peer review and approval by university editorial boards. Presses that propose to work with this model put some instructions to be followed in order to make the process more effective. We can cite the example of Editora UFPR, which requires the proponent/author to pledge the amounts by contracting external revision/editing and/or printing services or transfer the entire amount to the press to pay for the printing process.

The shared infrastructure or co-editing business model consists of the division of resources, costs and infrastructure by two entities (BUFREM, 2015BUFREM, L. S. Editoras universitárias no Brasil: uma crítica para a reformulação da prática. 2. ed. São Paulo: Edusp, 2015.) and is adopted by a quarter of the BUPs surveyed. An example of co-edition of a book in open access would be the title Introduction to robotics, by Maja Mataric, co-edited by Editora UNESP and Editora Blucher. Another detail about this model was explicated in the data collected from the questionnaire. From the question: “For open access publications, does the Press carry out (or has already carried out) partnerships with which other types of institutions?”, it was possible to obtain information about partnerships for co-editions already published, although a third of the BUPs did not have sufficient information to be able to answer the question. Table 2 shows the partnerships already established by the BUPs for the publication of open access books.

An example of a partnership between a university press and a university library is the UnB Book Portal. SciELO Books is another partnership that offers advantages to university presses, as the books available on the platform are widely found through search engines, consequently are more accessed by users, thus bringing a lot of visibility to editorial production in open access. It is important to note that for each book made available by SciELO Books, the publisher bears a single cost at the beginning of the process.

Institutional financing is the business model adopted by 66.3% of the BUPs that participated in the survey. This majority is due, in the first place, to the research sample focus on presses linked to public HEIs. Secondly, this result is explained by the fact that the Brazilian research system is mainly supported by public funding and takes place in public institutions. Although only the aforementioned percentage places institutional funding as a source of funds explicitly in their policy documents found online, it is possible to generalize that all BUPs, to some extent, fit this model, as they have a physical space within the HEIs, often with salaried public functionaries assigned to the press, with the direction and coordination carried out by a member of the teaching staff or a technical-administrative staff member. For example, sometimes it is possible to use financial resources from postgraduate programs that can be used in various activities to disseminate research carried out by research teaching staff and students.

In a similar vein, another model foreseen in the editorial policies is the partnership between presses and university libraries in which financial, human and technological infrastructure resources are shared, to make the publication widely available. However, in the case of the BUPs researched here, this type of partnership is adopted by only 1.1% of the research participants, pointing to the incipient partnerships between the BUPs and the libraries of their parent institutions. An example of this business model is the partnership signed between Editora UnB and the Central Library of UnB to build the UnB Book Portal.

With regard to the source of institutional funding, 64.1% of the BUPs surveyed are maintained with federal funding and 34.8% with state funding, which reflects the proportions of the types of universities and their respective presses in the survey sample. Within the researched HEIs, the origin of funding for the BUPs had the distribution shown in Table 3 below:

The open access publishing business model incorporated into research proposals is on the list of financing options for publishing open access books for almost 33% of the BUPs surveyed. This model becomes a possibility for the publisher to finance the publication of open access books, as it will be the researcher, holder of funding from the research support agency, who will approach the publisher, offering the funds to fund the publication of the book, if the publisher accepts the manuscript after peer review. For example, the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) finances “the publication of books in Brazil that communicate original and unpublished research results” (FAPESP, 2023) of research supported by FAPESP, and with the co-financing of the publishing company/university press. An example of an open access book funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and published by the Academic Culture press at UNESP is the book Users of information and diversity organized by Professor Helen de Castro Silva Casarin (2021).

5 DISCUSSION

At the beginning of the movement for open access to the scientific literature, activists focused their attention on the release of scientific articles from journals, with books being comparatively absent from these initial discussions. For Suber (2012SUBER, P. Open access. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012. 255 p. Disponível em: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/26065. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.... ), removing access barriers to books may be easier than opening up journals. This happens when considering the traditional low profits obtained from the sale of scientific books; thus, the decision would be up to the author to expand its impact or receive little or no remuneration from sales.

In cases where the author has already conceded the rights to publishers, the decision to publish - or even to publish in open access those scientific and academic books already published - rests with publishers when analyzing market trends. Suber (2012SUBER, P. Open access. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012. 255 p. Disponível em: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/26065. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.... ) suggests examples to publishers who feel insecure about releasing a book in open access, such as applying an embargo period of six months to one year on publications before opening them up or making available in open access, titles in their catalogue that they have already decided will not be reissued and reprinted.

Thatcher (2007THATCHER, S. The challenge of open access for university presses. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 20, n. 3, p. 165-172, 2007.) argues for the importance of understanding exactly what risks and dangers are involved in moving to open access business models. “We publishers believe it's important to keep an open mind about what constitutes open access, not least because not all approaches that might deserve the name need be inconsistent with a market-based model.” (THATCHER, 2007THATCHER, S. The challenge of open access for university presses. Learned Publishing, Reino Unido, v. 20, n. 3, p. 165-172, 2007., p. 167). However, maintaining two business models can be complex since editorial teams will have to reconcile what has already been done with new tasks. This situation is quite challenging for Brazilian university presses, bearing in mind the small teams that, when accumulating functions for which they are not trained, can take more time, produce an editorial object of inferior quality, impacting the end user-client, in addition to higher costs for the institution.

Withey et al. (2011WITHEY, L. et al. Sustaining scholarly publishing: new business models for university presses. Nova Iorque: The Association of American University Presses, 2011. Disponível em: https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/aaupbusinessmodels2011.pdf. Acesso em: 11 set. 2022.
https://aupresses.org/wp-content/uploads... ) propose some characteristics of business models for university presses. These should be seen as part of scientific communication, considering the entire ecosystem of interdependence in academic communities. The models also need to cover the various types of content and genres that are part of the publisher's publication catalogue. They must also coexist well with other business models, as no model can support an entire publishing house. Revenues must be used for the improvement of operational technologies. The publisher must anticipate revisions or successions to the models, in view of the rapid technological and social changes in the way researchers work. The effectiveness of the model must be measurable in order to support meaningful resource allocation decisions across the editorial system.

University presses face institutionalization challenges, dealing with tensions between academic commitment and market determinations; high value attributed to journals for scientific communication and the financial, bureaucratic and structural conditions of publishers; conciliation between modes of production and technological advances in the aforementioned conditions (BUFREM; GARCIA, 2014BUFREM, L. S.; GARCIA, T. M. B. A editora universitária e o compromisso da universidade com as práticas de divulgação do conhecimento produzido. Em Questão, Porto Alegre, v. 20, p. 151-164, 2014. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/EmQuestao/article/view/40816. Acesso em: 18 nov. 2021.
https://seer.ufrgs.br/EmQuestao/article/... ).

Noting the decline in sales of academic books, OAPEN (2021) advocates the adoption of publishing books in open access. As they are widely available on the internet, they can reach a wider, more diverse readership, for example academics from other disciplines, independent researchers, policy makers, industry and the general public, potentially resulting in increased usage and citations of the work.

From experiences with publishers that publish in open access, Penier, Eve and Grady (2021) found other variations of business models used in this context, among which:

It is therefore recommended that publishers experiment with other open access models, in addition to exchanging experiences with other university presses. The effectiveness of the model must be measurable in order to guide financial decisions throughout the publishing system. In strategic planning, revisions or successions must be included for the models adopted, in view of the rapid technological and social changes in the scientific field.

6 CONCLUSION

The discussion on open access academic and scientific books is important for the consolidation of Open Science in Brazil, considering the Brazilian research system being based in public institutions and research carried out predominantly with public funding. In this way, budgets must be used efficiently, effectively and transparently, with a view to limiting amounts received annually and being accountable to the State and citizens regarding how public funds were used. In addition, one must consider the social inequality present in Brazil, which implies the high cost of acquiring books, especially scientific ones by the end user-reader.

The covid-19 pandemic resumed and centralized questions about the importance of rapidly disseminating discoveries made around the world, as a way of understanding the situation experienced and dealing with the state of calamity created by the coronavirus. In the pandemic context, we experienced the closure of educational institutions at all levels and the adoption of distance or remote learning, making access to academic books in open access online one of the most democratic ways to continue study and research activities. University presses are fundamental agents in the science communication system for their purposes and values. However, a certain lack of studies of these institutions and their relationship with open access to academic and scientific books in the Brazilian context is noted, and especially those that focus on their editorial policies and business models.

Open access practices are justified by proposing that scientific publications are widely available free of charge, online and free of restrictive licenses; findable and retrievable by researchers, students and any interested citizen for reuse in their research, long-term archiving, text mining and countless other forms of scientific development. With the adoption of e-book open access publishing, Brazilian university presses are aligned with the precepts of Open Science. As presented in this text, the BUPs already demonstrate some experiences with open models that can be expanded through the experimentation of other business models or the exchange of experience between university presses affiliated to public HEIs. It is important to point out that business models must be explicitly registered in editorial policies and duly disclosed, noting the high rate of university presses that do not make this information available.

Business models are fundamental parts and must integrate the editorial policies of a university press whose main function is institutional organization or the creation and development of its own identity. Based on a detailed analysis of university philosophy, geographic and structural issues, historical factors, local needs and particularities, in addition to financial resources and how to raise them, other factors of impact on political-administrative decisions are considered. More specifically, editorial policies define issues such as the themes focused on editorial production, the services provided with detailed descriptions, the target audience, publication formats, editorial flow, tools used in production and the opening up, or not, of publications.

Recognition

Not applicable.

REFERÊNCIAS

Edited by

Editor:

Data availability

Publication Dates

History