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Open Access organisations and developments – National and international
Sandra Fry
The concept of having Open Access (OA) to research outputs has been a part of the scholarly publishing landscape for more than two decades. From its inception as a movement – supporting researchers who wanted to use the internet to make their work open for others to see – it has, through the organisations below, and many more individual advocates, spread around the world.
Through the creation of OA repositories, OA journals, preprint archives, OA policies & initiatives, and International Open Access Week in October, the organisations below are supporting open research and championing the OA cause in both Australia and beyond.
Getting Started
AustralAsIAN Organisations
Open Access Australasia
Open Access Australasia is the region’s peak advocacy body for Open Access. It began as the Australian Open Access support group in 2013 then joined with New Zealand advocates to become the the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group in 2015. It became Open Access Australasia in 2021. It supports all models of open access, and the principles of the F.A.I.R. Access Policy Statement and aims for all Australian and New Zealand research to be part of the global research ecosystem. It is committed to advocating for and raising awareness of open access through collaboration regionally and internationally and to building capacity and expertise within this region.
The group holds regular community of practice meetings with research professionals from across the region, as well as hosting webinars, creating resources and training workshops for practitioners, assisting with policy creation, and organising activities for International Open Access Week in the region. It is also active in contributing to the public discourse on access to knowledge and research in Australia & New Zealand.
Exercise: Look through the list of events on the Open Access Australasia webpage and attend an event or join a community of practice.
To understand more about what OA organisations are advocating for, watch this video created by the Knowledge Network for College Libraries
This is where the term Open Access became synonymous with the global movement for unrestricted, free access to publicly funded scholarly research, starting with the 2002 BOAI declaration. Recommendations at that meeting were developed by champions of the movement who had spent the preceding years working towards a common goal to make research free and available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. With a goal of open access to peer-reviewed journal literature through self archiving and a new generation of open access journals, the group issued new guidelines that could usher in huge advances in the sciences, medicine, and health. More recommendations were made at in 2012 at the BOAI10 meeting, and at BOAI15 Jean-Claude Guédon, one of the original BOAI drafters wrote a reflection – it covers the history of the movement and offers an insight into its future, it concludes:
“In no case should economic interests be allowed to interfere with the full potential of a free communicating system designed and destined to help humanity – the whole of humanity – grow knowledge. Unleashing the full power of the distributed system of human intelligence remains the fundamental objective. “
In September 2018 an international consortium of research funding and research providing organisations (mostly in the European Union) backed by the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), launched Plan S, an initiative for Open Access publishing. The plan initially requires that from 2021, scientific publications resulting from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. cOAlition S continues to work to ensure issues such as authors rights and publisher agreements are aligned to the principles of the plan. Plan S has been supported by research funders globally, and has come under criticism from many of the big publishers – its 10 principles were devised as a starting point for making full and immediate Open Access a reality. cOAlition S funders (a group of national research funders, European and international organisations and charitable foundations) have agreed to implement the plan in a coordinated way, together with the European Commission. It has a created a Journal Checker Tool for researchers to check whether a journal they want to publish in is compliant with the Plan S Principles and Repository Checker tool for repository staff to see if their repository is in compliance with Plan S requirements.
“With effect from 2021*, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.” *For funders agreeing after January 2020 to implement Plan S in their policies, the start date will be one year from that agreement
In addition:
Authors or their institutions retain copyright to their publications. All publications must be published under an open licence, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY), in order to fulfil the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration;
The Funders will develop robust criteria and requirements for the services that high-quality Open Access journals, Open Access platforms, and Open Access repositories must provide;
In cases where high-quality Open Access journals or platforms do not yet exist, the Funders will, in a coordinated way, provide incentives to establish and support them when appropriate; support will also be provided for Open Access infrastructures where necessary;
Where applicable, Open Access publication fees are covered by the Funders or research institutions, not by individual researchers; it is acknowledged that all researchers should be able to publish their work Open Access;
The Funders support the diversity of business models for Open Access journals and platforms. When Open Access publication fees are applied, they must be commensurate with the publication services delivered and the structure of such fees must be transparent to inform the market and funders potential standardisation and capping of payments of fees;
The Funders encourage governments, universities, research organisations, libraries, academies, and learned societies to align their strategies, policies, and practices, notably to ensure transparency.
The above principles shall apply to all types of scholarly publications, but it is understood that the timeline to achieve Open Access for monographs and book chapters will be longer and requires a separate and due process;
The Funders do not support the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing. However, as a transitional pathway towards full Open Access within a clearly defined timeframe, and only as part of transformative arrangements, Funders may contribute to financially supporting such arrangements;
The Funders will monitor compliance and sanction non-compliant beneficiaries/grantees;
The Funders commit that when assessing research outputs during funding decisions they will value the intrinsic merit of the work and not consider the publication channel, its impact factor (or other journal metrics), or the publisher.
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an alliance of academic and research libraries working to make knowledge accessible to everyone, to enable open sharing of research and education materials to accelerate discovery and increase the return on investment in research and education. SPARC collaborates with authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers and the public, promoting the culture and infrastructure changes often necessary to make open the default for research and education. It has more than 240 member institutions in North America, three global affiliates (SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, and SPARC Africa) and four major library associations. It also contributes to public policy in this space.
To assist university libraries in negotiations with publishers , SPARC has developed the Big Deal Knowledge Base which contains details of pricing data for journal subscription packages.
Since 2008, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) has represented the interests of Open Access globally in all scientific, technical and scholarly disciplines by exchanging information, setting standards, advancing models, advocacy, education, and the promotion of innovation. It is a non-profit trade association representing the interests of open access journal publishers globally in all scientific, technical and scholarly disciplines. OASPA holds an international conference each year addressing timely and fundamental topics relating to open scholarly communication.
The Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) works to assist universities (primarily from the US) to develop Open Access policies. It provides a roadmap for best practice for inspiring, promoting and implementing open access. Members agree to a set of principles that guide COAPI’s education and advocacy efforts.
Watch this introduction to OA policies video from COAPI
The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) is an international association of repositories and repository networks which act as a global voice for the repository community. Its vision is to enhance the visibility and application of research outputs through collaboration across the global repository network. It has more than 150 members and partners across five continents representing libraries, universities, research institutions, and government funders. COAR has four Australian members.
This is just a snapshot of some of the many Open Access organisations worldwide.
Challenge me
Exercise: Using the Journal Checker Tool check whether your favourite journal is compliant with PlanS with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Attribution
Content in this chapter has been developed by QUT Library, including content derived from:
Guédon, J. (2015). Open Access: Toward the Internet of the Mind. https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai15-1
All information correct at time of publication, 26 August 2021.
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