What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing globally General News Landscape Analysis and Roadmap for Action: 2021 update
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has released an updated 2021 version of its Roadmap to include new issues and concerns about:
– rising market concentration
– increased bundling
– further divergence in the interests of academic institutions and vendors
– increased lobbying to protect “inclusive access” practices that limit student choices
– the widening use of monitoring technologies with little transparency
– broader participation in surveillance activities that raise serious concerns for academic freedom and the safety of individuals.
Download the report here
SPARC has also developed resources to support a Negotiation Community of Practice
 BOAI preparing for 20th anniversary
The 20th anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative will be next February and the committee is calling on OA advocates from around the world to assist with the framing of a new set of recommendations, based on the BOAI Principles. The questions can be found here, and responses are needed before 22 October.
Publishers questioned over eBooks policies
In the US, two politicians including the Senate Finance committee Chair have presented a wide-ranging set of questions to the Big Five book publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster) regarding their practices in the library e-book market. Referring to “the exorbitant costs and burdensome restrictions” the politicians contend “are draining resources from many local libraries,” and “forcing [libraries] to make difficult choices to try and provide a consistent level of service” to their communities. The letter requests responses from each of the publishers by October 7. Read more. Science and the UNESCO initiative
The International Science Council has welcomed the draft UNESCO recommendation on Open Science strongly. UNESCO has engaged with the scientific community over the last year to generate a list of draft recommendations including: for open access to the published record of science, open data, open educational resources, open-source software and code, open hardware and infrastructures, and open engagement with society.
UNESCO supports the launch of new version of the Global Open Access Portal
GOAP.info is a collaborative effort of UNESCO, Redalyc, Indian Statistical Institute and AmeliCA. It is not clear yet where all their information is coming from. Open Access Australasia will work with them to update the entries from this region. See more
Wikimedia’s future secure with $100million endowment
The long term future of the Wikimedia movement is secure with the endowment goal of US$100million achieved earlier than expected. Endowment donors have provided the money to protect and support the growth of the movement into the future five years before the 2026 target. Read more.
Declaration of research rights from FORCE11
Over the past year, this community of scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers and research funders has been working to create a set of fundamental researcher rights in scholarly communication. The Declaration of Researcher Rights in Negotiating the Future of Scholarly Communications has been written for authors to use in negotiations with publishers. Read more.  Publisher pledge to stop parachuting
Journal publisher PLOS has announced a new policy to prevent parachute or helicopter research in low-income countries with the aim of improving inclusion and transparency in the reporting of global research. The policy has been developed in collaboration with researchers from South Africa, New Zealand, USA and Kenya. Read more.
Frontiers JISC agreement success
Two years into a three-year agreement between OA publisher Frontiers and JISC they have announced an “overwhelmingly positive response” from the 28 universities who are participating. The programme offers a simplified & streamlined route to open access publishing and discounts for APCs. Read more.
ResearchGate removes 200,000 papers
Researcher community platform ResearchGate has removed 200,000 files after publisher complaints. It says while it will “continue to fight the good fight, striving for greater access to scientific knowledge for all” and has told all authors affected by the takedown notices to comply with any license terms or restrictions in uploading their content. Read more.
PreprintsSCOSS names new beneficiariesThe Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services ( SCOSS) has launched its 3rd pledging round, choosing three new organisations it will support in raising funds to sustain their future. The evaluation process required each group to do a two-minute pitch – here are the winners’ pitches: arXiv, Redalyc/AmeliCA, and DSpace. SSRN preprints to be available in ScopusElsevier will now make preprints from SSRN available through Scopus, Elsevier’s abstract and citation database. This follows preprints from arXiv, ChemRxiv, bioRxiv and medRxiv being indexed in Scopus earlier this year. Read more. Reports  OASPA report on workshopsDeveloping a healthy and diverse OA market has been a priority for the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association this year and after two workshops with key stakeholders, it’s released this report which is a summary of the discussions, conclusions and reflections: Co-creating a healthy and diverse Open Access Market | 
