In many scholarly disciplines, books - not articles - are the norm. As print runs become smaller, the question arises whether publishing monographs in open access helps to make their contents globally accessible. To answer this question, the results of multiple studies on the usage of open access books are presented. The research focuses on three areas: economic viability; optimization of open access monographs infrastructure and measuring the effects of open access in terms of scholarly impact and societal influence. Each chapter reviews a different aspect: book sales, digital dissemination, open licenses, user communities, measuring usage, developing countries and the effects on citations and social media.

Despite the advance of the Open Access (OA) movement, most scholarly production can only be accessed through a paywall. We conduct an international survey among researchers (N  =  3304) to measure the willingness and motivations to use (or not use) scholarly piracy sites, and other alternatives to overcome a paywall such as paying with their own money, institutional loans, just reading the abstract, asking the corresponding author for a copy of the document, asking a colleague to get the document for them, or searching for an OA version of the paper. We also explore differences in terms of age, professional position, country income level, discipline, and commitment to OA. The results show that researchers most frequently look for OA versions of the documents. However, more than 50% of the participants have used a scholarly piracy site at least once. This is less common in high-income countries, and among older and better-established scholars. Regarding disciplines, such services were less used in Life & Health Sciences and Social Sciences. Those who have never used a pirate library highlighted ethical and legal objections or pointed out that they were not aware of the existence of such libraries.

The author analyzes various aspects of the digitization and copyright issues of concern today.

The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) was one of the first campus-based open access (OA) funds to be established in North America and one of the most active, distributing more than $244,000 to support University of California (UC) Berkeley authors. In April 2015, we conducted a qualitative study of 138 individuals who had received BRII funding to survey their opinions about the benefits and funding of open access. Most respondents believe their articles had a greater impact as open access, expect to tap multiple sources to fund open access fees, and support the UC Open Access Policy and its goal of making research public and accessible. Results of the survey and a discussion of their impact on the BRII program follow.

Affordability is considered a key predictor of college enrollment and academic success, yet higher education costs continue to rise. Over the past three decades, textbooks and course materials alone have increased almost three times the rate of inflation (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016 ). To identify the extent to which course material costs create barriers for community college students, and whether these costs foster inequities for students in traditionally underserved and underrepresented populations, a cross-sectional survey research study was conducted fall 2019 amongst students enrolled in community colleges across the Tennessee Board of Regents system (N = 88,946, n = 1,912). The survey covered course material purchase behaviors, decisions, and experiences related to academic achievement and progress to graduation. Results showed nearly two-thirds of students (68.6%) have delayed purchasing a textbook due to cost. Almost half (41.3%) reported not purchasing required materials, 15.8% reported earning poor grades, and 3.3% reported having failed a course because they could not afford the materials. Logistic regressions were employed to determine whether these extents were disproportionately experienced by non-White, low income, and/or Adult Learners over age 25. Statistically significant differences in academic achievement barriers were found for low income students, alongside significant progress to graduation barriers for non-Adult Learners, suggesting younger learners are more susceptible to the consequences of course material costs. These findings inform policy efforts by helping educational leaders better understand the impacts of course material costs on the ability of community college students to achieve in coursework and progress to graduation.

Objective: This research study examined textbook costs and student success rates at one community college in the Southwest United States.
Method: Descriptive statistics were used in the study to identify the mean textbook costs and student success rates over five semesters. Chi-square tests for independence were used to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between textbook costs and student success rates based on course level of lower or upper-level courses.
Results: The chi-square tests of independence found a statistically significant relationship between textbook costs and student success rates in lower and upper-level courses. Contributions: Research shows college students often opt not to purchase commercial textbooks due to costs, thus resulting in higher D, F, and W rates. The results of this study support numerous recent research studies on the
impact of textbook costs and student success.

Open textbooks are free, online resources that can replace traditional textbooks and save students money. The costs of traditional textbooks continue to increase, and this can particularly affect at-risk, low-income students. Few studies have analyzed student perceptions of open textbooks and how they influence academic achievement, but the emerging trend is positive. In the present study, I assessed student perceptions of an open textbook and calculated the subsequent cost savings. Although there were some limitations to my study, such as a low sample size, my results closely mirror previous studies in that most students had favorable opinions of the open textbook and would prefer to use them over traditional textbooks. The average cost savings per student was $81 for one course, determined using a novel method that does not assume all students buy new textbooks. These savings were likely important to the students, the majority of whom worked five hours or more and have received Pell Grants or other tuition waivers.