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In 2017, Switzerland has developed its National Open Access Strategy. The vision is that by 2024, at latest, publications originating from public funding should be available in Open Access. With the help of an action plan and various measures, this goal is to be achieved. The following action lines have been developed:

• National monitoring
• Communication and awareness raising
• Reform of research evaluation
• Negotiations with publishers
• Bundling of services and infrastructures
• Regulatory framework/OA self-archiving
• Participation in international initiatives and infrastructures
• Alternative forms of publication

Accordingly, achieving the goal of 100% Open Access should follow a combined approach. In the meantime, some measures have already been implemented: f. ex. Read&Publish contracts have been concluded, an Open Access monitor has been launched at UZH and one is currently being planned at the national level, the range of information on Open Access has been expanded, and much more.

The UZH offering of HOPE fits into the latter action line “alternative forms of publication”. HOPE stands for Hauptbibliothek Open Publishing Environment.

HOPE provides a platform to researchers of the University of Zurich for publishing in Open Access journals. This service is offered by the Main Library of the University of Zurich based on the infrastructure of the Zentrale Informatik. For management and publication of scientific journals, the open-source software Open Journal Systems (OJS) is used.

By publishing Open Access journals by researchers, the overall Open Access share should be increased, missing Open Access journals in certain disciplines can be covered and the dependency on the big publishers and their pricing can be minimized.

In addition to many other functionalities, journals can be configured according to individual requirements in the OJS backend.

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There are now 10 Platinum Open Access journals from various disciplines in different designs published on HOPE.

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The OJS publication system allows submitted articles to be navigated intuitively through the system. Reviewers can be contacted directly from the system and copy-edited final articles can be posted online with a few clicks at the end of the publication process. The articles are provided with all relevant metadata such as DOI, Creative Commons licenses, they are searchable by search engines and can be easily exchanged via various interfaces. The highest possible visibility of the articles is achieved, which also increases the probability of being cited.

Why should you consider publishing your own journal and use alternative forms of publication?

• There is currently no suitable OA journal in your scientific discipline
• The cost of publishing (APCs) in OA journals is too high with commercial publishers
• If you want to increase the overall OA share
• If you want to flip your existing journal to OA
• If you want to be independent from big publishers – why not starting your own journal?

Contact us if you have further questions: oai@hbz.uzh.ch and www.hope.uzh.ch