Open Book Environment (OBE) Dashboard
Open Book Environment (OBE) Dashboard is a joint initiative from the Universities of Derby and Vermont, designed as a response to the myriad challenges faced by the scholarly community at large. It is a transparency dashboard about publishers, aimed at authors (and their funders) focussing on author fees, licensing, their policies on self-archiving, waiver and discount information, and any stated price justification.
OBE is intended to help reduce researcher burden and to bring about more transparency around open book publishing practices. It also aims to fill a gap by providing information on a range of different publishers categorized by how transparent the information is on OA books on their websites relating to pricing for BPCs, clarity on editorial quality, retrospective OA options, fee waivers and more.
Although a recent resource (2023), its longevity is unclear because it is a Google sheet maintained by two volunteer contributors (Publication Practice Librarian, Holly Limbert, University of Derby and Library Associate Professor Dan DeSanto, University of Vermont). However, OBE is designed to be a living resource and inventory which will grow. Amendments and additions can be suggested by submitting a request via this form.