about

Overview

AOSIS Scholarly Books maximises opportunities for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to support research and development through publishing scholarly books, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. In this way we also assist HEIs to take advantage of potential subsidy income from the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) related to research output.

Coverage

The humanities and social sciences, in particular religious studies, business science, sociology, education and psychology. Other scientific areas of interest are agricultural sciences and nature conservation.

Humanities areas include:

  • ancient and modern languages
  • literature
  • philosophy
  • religion
  • visual and performing art
  • history
  • area studies
  • cultural studies
  • anthropology
  • communication studies and law.

Social sciences include:

  • business science and economics
  • psychology
  • sociology
  • anthropology

Book proposals welcomed

  • Monographs – a standalone work of original research or in-depth literature review by one or more authors.
  • Collected works – a standalone work assembled by one or more scholars in a field or related fields, often as a supplement to a scholarly journal.
  • Collective works – a standalone work assembled by one or more scholars in several related fields and collectively reviewed.
  • Books series – a collection of volumes on a subject/field of study. Volumes can be a monograph by one or two authors, or a collected/collective work by various authors. Book series usually produce one volume per year in an ongoing process.
  • PhD dissertations - a standalone work based on a recent PhD thesis, with substantial reworking (>50%) and new research additions.
  • Conference proceedings - a collection of shorter academic papers published in the context of an academic conference.

In order to be considered for publication, a book must meet the following criteria:

  • Disseminate original research and new development within a specific discipline, subdiscipline or field of study;
  • Target field specialists; and
  • Be at least 60 pages when publishing in A5 format, excluding references, bibliography, index and appendices.

If a book is based on a dissertation or thesis it must be clearly identified as such, and there must be evidence of substantial reworking (at least 50%) and additional research having been carried out.

Services

Our publishing services include:

  • Assistance with obtaining subsidy funding from the DHET
  • Peer review
  • Copyediting
  • Proofreading
  • Layouts in several digital formats
  • Print on demand
  • Marketing
  • Distribution
  • Indexing.

Distribution

Our books are published in open access, mostly under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. Downloadable text in electronic formats is freely available on our website; print and ePUB versions can be ordered for a fee.

Financial model

All our readers and authors enjoy the benefits of open access to our scholarly books, which we believe promotes accessibility and uptake worldwide, serving the best interests of the professional and scientific community and the public at large.

Since no fees are charged for access, AOSIS offsets the publication expenses – including those of peer review management, book production and online hosting and archiving – by charging an upfront  publication fee to authors, institutions or funders.

AOSIS and its Chief Editor of Scholarly Books assist the author/book editor to obtain funding from the DHET once the manuscript has been approved through the peer review process.

Authors may benefit through royalties on all copy sales (ePUB and print).

Funding body agreements

AOSIS complies with the requirements of funding bodies such as the Welcome Trust and the National Research Foundation, to help authors comply with their open access terms.

Disclaimer

The publisher/licensee and its agents accept no liability for any real or perceived loss, cost, claim or damage sustained from reliance upon any information, statement, or opinion contained in this work. Any information or content should be independently verified before reliance upon it. Links to third-party websites are provided in good faith and the publisher/licensee and its agents disclaim any responsibility for the information and materials contained in any such third-party website referenced in this work. Read the full Terms of Use.

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