Background: open access in the humanities and social sciences
- Most humanities and social sciences research output is in the form of monographs, whereas the sciences mainly show their output in the form of journal articles.
Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash
- A monograph and a journal article are very different, and therefore have different ‘needs’ in terms of open access.
- Journal articles are usually written quite quickly and have a particular structure; they are written to fulfil a specific objective and are seen as a means to an end.
- However, in the humanities the book (monograph) is the principle research output. These are written over a longer period of time and are longer and less structured.
- The production of the book is the end in itself – its objective is to start a dialogue, not necessarily to provide answers.
The Wellcome Trust is the only UK grant awarding body to have made open access mandatory for monographs.