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Guidelines for funding open access book publications
Version dated 25.06.2019
The Regulations on the funding of Open Access publications form the basis for the submission ofapplications for the funding of open access book publications. These guidelines provide applicants
and publishers with additional information on selected issues relating to the open access publication process.
You can also find detailed information on funding for open access book publications on the SNSF's
open access website.

Contents1.

Funded publications22.

Financing via modular BPCs

2

3.

Quality control (peer review)

3

4.

Publishing details

4

5.

DOI

4

6.

Metadata

5

Appendix – sample publishing information

7

1.

Funded publications

SNSF grants to cover book processing charges (BPCs) are awarded for the open access publicationof monographs and anthologies.
Monographs are comprehensive, peer-reviewed scientific works in accordance with Article 3 of theRegulations on the funding of open access publications. At the SNSF, this publication category
includes dissertations and habilitations - if processed by a publisher with a view to publication inbook form - as well as legal commentaries and editions.

2.

Financing via modular BPCs

The costs of open access book publication are reimbursed in the form of modular book processing
charges (BPCs) and cover the following publishing services:•Quality assurance:
Manuscript selection and peer review procedure, expert editing and/or proofreading•

Creating the digital version:
Typesetting, layout and cover, image processing and image reproduction rights, digitisation•Distribution:
Marketing, publication of the open access publication on the publisher's website and distribution via additional platforms, provision of the conventional, digital and open access-specificmetadata specified by the SNSF (see section 5)

The SNSF will reimburse book processing charges (BPC) up to a maximum of the actual costs
incurred (Article 10 of the Regulations on the funding of Open Access publications). It expects publishers to provide a transparent range of open access book publications on their website and reserves the right to ask for evidence of the sums requested where appropriate.

The modular BPCs are structured as follows:•Base module: Up to CHF 15,000 for an open access book publication of up to 750,000 characters (including spaces).
Please provide a link to the publisher’s open access range on mySNF.

•Supplementary module “higher number of characters”:•An additional lump sum of CHF 3,000 for up to 250,000 additional characters; or•An additional lump sum of CHF 5,000 more than 1 million characters.
No proof of costs (e.g. quotation or costings) is required when applying for these two modules.
Please specify the number of characters in the publication on mySNF (“Financial requirement”
data container). The SNSF reserves the right to verify that the costs are reasonable.

•Supplementary module “layout and image rights”: An additional sum of up to CHF 5,000
in the case of demonstrably increased costs for layout and image rights.
Evidence should be provided for the increased layout costs (e.g. due to design or the incorporation of numerous graphics, special characters, margins or similar) and/or image rights inthe form of the publisher’s quotation or an invoice for the individual image purchases.

Swiss National Science Foundation | 2•Supplementary module “enriched e-book”: An additional sum of up to CHF 5,000.
The SNSF considers an “enriched e-book” to be a digital book publication that offers additional
functionality compared with a conventional PDF or ePUB (with a link to the table of contents
and footnotes), such as audio or video files, links to external websites or lexicons and interactive elements. This additional functionality must also be available in the open access version.
When applying for this additional module, the SNSF stipulates that the features of the digitalbook publication or the special functionality be described and its programming demonstrated
in the form of a quotation.

•Supplementary module “foreign language proofreading”: An additional sum of up to CHF
5,000.
When applying for this additional module, evidence must be provided that the publication is
not in the author’s native language and that the publication's visibility and the reception of its
research findings are thereby increased.

The SNSF does not make any contributions towards the printing costs of monographs and anthologies. If the publication is also issued in printed form, the SNSF's BPC grants must be used
exclusively for the digital version (first digital copy).

3.

Quality control (peer review)

Quality assurance for monographs and anthologies is the publishers’ responsibility. They areobliged to conduct a peer review and document it (Article 9 of the Regulations on the funding ofOpen Access publications). Applications may only be submitted once the peer review procedure iscomplete and the documentation is available.
The documentation for the peer review procedure, which must be submitted to the SNSF alongwith the application as one document, contains the following documents:•At least one independent, external and meaningful review in written form,•A response to any critical points in the review and a statement by the publisher regarding theextent to which the manuscript was revised on the basis of these criticisms.

The revised manuscript is to be submitted to the SNSF as part of the application.

The peer review procedure must meet the following SNSF requirements:•

The reviewer must work in the specialist field addressed by the publication.

•

The reviewer must be considered to be independent and external. In other words, they are not
involved in the publisher's selection of manuscripts or the creation of the publication (e.g.
series editor), nor must they have any conflict of interests with any of the people involved inthe publication (editor and/or author).
A potential conflict of interests exists if the reviewer and the writer
owork or will work in the same institution;ohave close family connections or are in a close personal relationship (relatives,spouses/partners, close friends);oare, have recently been or will in the foreseeable future be in a professionally dependent
or competitive relationship;ohave published jointly within the last five years as a result of close collaboration; orSwiss National Science Foundation | 3

oif the reviewer could be biased in their assessment of the publication's quality for otherreasons.

•The review must be meaningful and investigate the scientific quality of the publication accordingly. The reviewer must have access to the complete manuscript for the purposes of the review. Reviews of book concepts (“proposals”) will not be accepted.

•In the case of anthologies, the review will cover each individual contribution. If it is thematically appropriate, the individual contributions in the anthology may be checked by different
reviewers. The anthology must also be assessed as an overall publication in terms of its homogeneity and cohesion.

•In the case of doctoral theses and habilitations, reviews undertaken by the university for thepurposes of academic qualification may be used. However, a separate statement must be submitted, outlining the extent to which criticisms in the publication's review have been considered for the final publication.

4.

Publishing details

The publishing details for open access book publications must contain the following information(Article 17 of the Regulations on the funding of Open Access publications):•Year of publication•ISBN number(s): If a printed book or a paid-for digital version are being published in addition
to the open access version supported by the SNSF, a separate ISBN number must be assignedfor each version.

•Digital Object Identifier: The Digital Object Identifier is a unique, permanent digital identifier
for physical, digital or abstract objects. The DOI number is assigned by the publisher (seeSection 4).

•Creative Commons licence: Monographs and anthologies financed by the SNSF should bemade accessible at least by means of the CC BY-NC-ND (creative commons: created by, noncommercial, no derivative) licence. The SNSF, and also the Open Access Scholarly Publisher
Association (OASPA), recommends using the CC-BY licence. You can find more informationon the different CC licences and how they are issued at www.creativecommons.ch, www.creativecommons.org and oaspa.org/why-cc-by/
The publishing details of the open access publication should only specify the CC licence, since
this adequately governs the use of the publication. Citing the publisher's traditional copyright,
according to which all rights are reserved to it, contradicts the CC licence. Sample publishingdetails can be found in the appendix.

•5.

Comment on the SNSF’s funding of the publication: The SNSF funding should be mentioned
in the publishing details, e.g. in the following form: “Published with the support of the Swiss
National Science Foundation”. The SNSF logo does not have to be included in the publishingdetails.

DOI

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) perform three basic functions:•Unique identifier for a publication•
Permanent link to the full text of this publication

Swiss National Science Foundation | 4•Extended metadata for this publication

There are several agencies with which publishers can register DOIs. The following three agencies
are relevant for publications:•Crossref•
DataCite•mEDRAThe SNSF recommends that publishers register DOIs via Crossref. Crossref now offers a greatly
expanded metadata schema and various services for scientific publications. Publishers who aremembers of the OAPEN Library can also have DOIs for their publications registered through thisbody (via Crossref). Customers of mEDRA can forward DOI metadata to Crossref by means of anadditional agreement. The DOI Desk at ETH Zurich can also offer support in assigning DOIs (viaDatacite).
Metadata schemas•
Crossref Metadata•
Data Cite Metadata Schema•mEDRA Schema
When assigning DOIs, please ensure that the primary URL stored leads to the book announcement
page on the publisher’s website, not directly to the PDF. This makes it possible to view additional
information on the publication. The option to download the open access publication must be clearlyvisible on the book announcement page. The download must not involve registering on the publisher’s website.

6.

Metadata

To enable the BPCs awarded to be paid out to the publisher, the SNSF stipulates that metadataon the publication be provided as part of the contribution approval process (Art. 15 of the Regulations on the funding of Open Access publications). For anthologies, this metadata must be provided
for each individual contribution.
The first stage of the contribution approval process involves supplying the DOI:
•If the DOI exists and is active (i.e. the contribution has already been published), the metadataassigned to the DOI will automatically be transferred in the output data. Applicants then only
need to use mySNF to add any metadata that has not already been stored.

•If the DOI exists but is not active, the output data must be supplied in full.

•Likewise, if the DOI does not exist, the output data must be supplied in full.

Swiss National Science Foundation | 5

The following metadata is required in the output data for continued storage in the SNSF’s P3 research database, the OAPEN library and the Swiss National Library:
Conventional metadata•

Type of publication*

Default is “scientific publication – peer reviewed”•Publication format*

Selection:Book
Editorial board (anthology)•Title*•Editor* (for anthologies)•Authors*•

Series title•

Volume number•

Publisher*•

Place of publication*•Status*•Publication date*•ISBN*•

Series ISSN•

Language of publication*•Business Identifier Code*•

Keywords* (in English)•

Abstract* (in English)•Funding organisation•

Contribution numberSelection:
Accepted/In press/Published

The SNSF expects the funding organisation and thecontribution number to be specified in themetadata passed to the DOI agency.
- Instructions for Crossref- SNSF Funding Data Identifier (formerly FundrefID): 10.13039/501100001711- The contribution number should be supplied infull(e.g.: B-0010_177117)

Digital metadata
•

DOI*

•

ORCID (if available)

The SNSF expects the ORCID to be specified in themetadata passed to the DOI agency.
- Please refer to: ORCID in Publication Workflows:
A Step-by-Step Guide for Publishers

Open access-specific metadata•Licence

The SNSF expects the licence to be specified in themetadata passed to the DOI agency.
- Instructions for Crossref

The SNSF also recommends that the references in the bibliography be supplied to Crossref in amachine-readable format. See https://i4oc.org.

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Appendix – sample publishing information

Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation

Published bySample Publications
24 Sample Street
2004 Sampletown
www.sample-publications.ch
Text © The author 2018
Cover illustration: Sampling the heavens
Editors: Anna and Hubert Sample, Sample Publications
Overall production: Sample Publications, Sampletown
ISBN (Hardback): 978-x-xxxxxx-xx-x
ISBN (PDF): 978-x-xxxxxx-xx-x
ISBN (EPUB): 978-x-xxxxxx-xx-x
ISBN (Mobile/Kindle): 978-x-xxxxxx-xx-x
DOI: https://doi.org/xx.xxxx/xThis work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

Swiss National Science Foundation | 7