Collaboration between the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) and Taylor & Francis (T&F) to make more books in Education open access catapulted readership six-fold in the partnership’s first year.
The NCME Applications of Educational Measurement and Assessment series, available here, provides definitive research, theory, and applied insights in educational measurement, assessment, testing, and psychometrics. Topics addressed include validation, fairness, accountability, technology, natural language processing, and beyond.
Ten edited volumes have been published since the partnership between NCME and T&F commenced in 2011, and the series will continue to follow key advancements in the subject area. In 2022, NCME agreed to provide open access funding for all books in the series, allowing each title to be read in full, at no cost to the reader.
“Taylor & Francis is inspired by collaborating with progressive, scholarly organizations like NCME to increase impact, reach and readership of trusted knowledge globally with open access books,” said Jeremy North, Managing Director, Advanced Learning, Taylor & Francis. “Taylor & Francis is a leader in open books across humanities, social sciences, STEM, and behavioral sciences. We also continue expansion in open books for professional audiences, in addition to research audiences.”
“NCME is committed to bringing leading scholarship to the widest possible audience, and publishing our Applications of Educational Measurement and Assessment book series under open access with Taylor & Francis has allowed us to advance this goal,” said NCME President Michael Walker.
Making these works available open access allows for this research to be read by a broader reading public. Scholars, academic faculty, and graduate students specializing in educational measurement, assessment, and psychometrics, alongside test development professionals, are among the primary readers of the NCME series.
Within the collection, a standout volume is Classroom Assessment and Educational Measurement, edited by Susan M. Brookhart and James H. McMillan. For this title, which addresses a critical area of emerging scholarship and innovative practice, usage jumped from 2,329 in 2021 to 9,989 views and downloads in 2022 and has surpassed previous years at 13,000 already in the current year. Similarly, the book received more than nine times the average number of citations for publications in the same field, according to Dimensions data.
Between 2021 to 2022, the average number of countries accessing each series title increased by more than 200 percent, from seven to 21 countries. In the United States alone, average usage increased over 60% in 2022, compared to the year before. Similarly, the average number of institutions accessing the content more than doubled per title from 2021 to 2022.
Authors and their funders can publish open access single- or co-authored books, edited collections and individual chapters with the Taylor & Francis OA books program. Upon publication, OA content is made available in digital format to read and download freely under a Creative Commons license.
T&F is making great strides in open books. Open access book publishing began a decade ago and with the publication of Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism earlier this year, T&F reached the milestone of 1,500 open access books. In addition, Education is the largest publishing list for Advanced Learning, the book division at T&F. Advanced Learning’s U.S. and global presence in Education continue to expand and diversify to provide a greater range and depth of knowledge for its customers.
About the National Council on Measurement in Education
The National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) is the nation’s foremost professional organization for scholars and practitioners involved in assessment, evaluation, testing, and other aspects of educational measurement. Service to communities and ensuring that assessment is fair and equitable for all students are essential elements of NCME’s mission and purposes. Learn more at NCME.org.
About Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis supports diverse communities of experts, researchers and knowledge makers around the world to accelerate and maximize the impact of their work. We are a leader in our field, publish across all disciplines and have one of the largest Humanities and Social Sciences portfolios. Our expertise, built on an academic publishing heritage of over 200 years, advances trusted knowledge that fosters human progress.
Our 2,650 people, based in a global network of offices in 17 countries, use their skills and the latest technology to curate, validate and share impactful advanced, emergent and applied knowledge. Under the Taylor & Francis, Routledge and F1000 imprints, we publish 2,700 journals, 8,000 new books each year and partner with more than 700 scholarly societies.
Taylor & Francis is proud to be a Global Certified Accessible™ publisher and to have achieved CarbonNeutral® certification for our operations and print publications in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol