From: Paul Harwood <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 10:05 AM

Dear colleagues,

*With Apologies for Cross Posting*

News Release

Jisc Collections and Open Access Key to collaborate on UK Gold OA
article payments pilot

London 23 January 2013: Jisc Collections, the UK academic community's
shared service for content licensing and administration, has entered
into an agreement with Open Access Key (OAK), the online payment
platform for open access publishing, to run a 12 month pilot project,
Jisc APC, to test its role in managing and processing Gold OA article
payment charges made by its member institutions.

Lorraine Estelle, CEO of Jisc Collections said: "We are very pleased
to be partnering with OAK which will test the efficiencies that a
trusted third party can bring to the processing of Gold OA payments
for both institutions and publishers. We hope that this extension of
our established activity in the area of subscription-based resources
will help all relevant stakeholders move forward during this
transition phase in scholarly publishing."

The new Jisc APC service will seek to reduce the administrative burden
on the various parties involved in making an article available. The
combined offering brings together OAK's innovation in this new area
and the trusted status of Jisc Collections in processing and managing
payments on behalf of UK institutions and publishers.  An invitation
to participate will shortly be issued by Jisc Collections to UK
Institutions interested in joining the project. Discussions with
publishers will commence at the same time. The pilot will be overseen
by a Steering Group comprising stakeholders and funders from across
the education and research sector.

Simon Thomson, CEO of Open Access Key said: "Jisc Collections has
shown tremendous initiative with this project to provide leadership
and structure for the academic and publishing community following the
Finch Report recommendations. We in turn are delighted that OAK has
been selected to provide the financial and administrative workflow
platform. We have worked closely with individual academics,
universities, research funders and publishers to create a time and
cost efficient service with user friendly functionality. We are
excited to continue this development working for Jisc Collections and
the stakeholders in the project."

The pilot commences officially on 2 April 2013 and is in response to
the publication of the Finch Report in the UK and the subsequent
announcements from RCUK.  The report recommended a balanced programme
of action to enable more people to read and use the publications
arising from research, and to accelerate the progress towards a fully
open access environment. The report also made a clear policy direction
towards the support for Gold OA publishing in the UK, where publishers
receive their revenues from authors rather than readers, and so
research articles become freely accessible to everyone immediately
upon publication.

To find out more please contact Paul Harwood
Jisc Collections deputy CEO
[log in to unmask]

Ends

Notes to Editors:

About Jisc:

Jisc is an independent education charity, owned by AoC, GuildHE and
UUK. It provides UK higher education, further education and skills
sectors support on the use of digital technologies. It provides advice
and guidance through Jisc Advance and owns a subsidiary company, Jisc
Collections and Janet Ltd, which provides an academic
telecommunications network and content services for over 18 million
users across the UK.

Jisc's vision is to make the UK the most digitally advanced education
and research nation in the world. Jisc's mission is to enable the
education sector in the UK to perform at the forefront of
international practice by exploiting fully the possibilities of modern
digital empowerment, content and connectivity.

For media queries please contact the Jisc press office on 0117 331
0657 or [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

About Open Access Key:

Open Access Key (OAK) provides global workflow solutions to the
academic publishing community to save time and cost and drive
efficiencies. OAK offers clearing house management services
specifically designed to facilitate the handling of publication
charges (APCs). The web-based system tracks and records research
output and expenditure while reducing the burden of administration for
academic authors, research institutions, publishers and funders.

Functionality includes consolidated payments, the ability to split
APCs fairly and aiding compliance with repository submission policies.

Paul Harwood
Deputy CEO
JISC Collections

E: [log in to unmask]
W: www.jisc-collections.ac.uk