Emerald Publishing Joins Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA)

NISO Member News

Emerald Publishing has joined the Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA), a cross-publisher initiative whereby scholarly publishers open the abstracts of their publications to allow for unrestricted availability of abstracts to boost the discovery of research. I4OA is also supported by a large number of research funders, libraries and library associations, infrastructure providers, and open science organisations.

As part of the initiative, Emerald will distribute the abstracts of scholarly publications, with a focus on journal articles and book chapters through Crossref, in order to facilitate large-scale access, and promote discovery of critical research. This will allow greater discoverability both in terms of human search as well as via Crossref that has the capacity to bring abstracts together in a common format in one global, cross-disciplinary repository.

Tony Roche, Publishing & Strategic Relations Director at Emerald Publishing, spoke of why joining the initiative was key to furthering the discoverability of research saying, “We already make our abstracts freely accessible and distribute them via Crossref, so joining I4OA reinforces our commitment to promoting dissemination and discovery of content for the widest possible audience. Making abstracts as open as possible leads to more views, which can ultimately contribute towards greater impact. Abstracts being freely accessible from many publishers, across multiple disciplines, will save scholars time in finding the content they need. We are committed to finding new ways to make publishing and accessing research simpler, more accessible and discoverable, to help move the needle in the journey towards creating real impact in society and people’s lives.  Collaborations such as I4OA help us to do just that.”

Ludo Waltman, Coordinator of I4OA, says “We welcome Emerald Publishing as a supporter of I4OA. Before the launch of our initiative, Emerald had already started to make abstracts openly available. Large numbers of abstracts of research articles published by Emerald are openly available in Crossref. We are very pleased that Emerald now formalises its support for openness of abstracts. By joining I4OA, Emerald puts into practice its commitment to be a responsible business that aims to deliver real impact.”