November 2023 Newsletter

What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing in Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand
What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing globally
Recent writing & resources on OA
Upcoming events in OA & scholarly publishing

Forward

We’ve had an extremely successful Open Access week 2023 and are excited to be able to share (below) the recordings of our four wonderful panels. If you missed it you can read our wrap up blog.

We’ve also got everything you need to know about Plan S’s new proposal & consultation plan & the latest news from Australia’s Chief Scientist.

Contributions to the newsletter or the blog, especially notice of upcoming events, are welcome. Contact us here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like to receive it directly, please sign up.

What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing in Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand

Research assessment system “not fit for purpose”: Chief Scientist

Releasing the Research Assessment in Australia: Evidence for Modernisation report

Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley said “the current system for assessing research careers for hiring, promotion and funding is not fit for purpose.” The report, commissioned by her office, was prepared by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) to report on how current research assessment practices impact on research careers, and alternatives, including international initiatives. Read Dr Foley’s media statement. Read the ACOLA report. See related The Conversation article

EOIs for AuSCCoP Co-Convenors closes Fri 24 Nov

We welcome submissions from all members for the following roles:

Co-Convenors of the Australian Scholarly Communications Community of Practice
Co-Convenors of the new AuSCCoP subgroup Repositories [this subgroup will replace the CAUL Research Support CoP/CAIRRS group]
Co-Convenors of the new AuSCCoP subgroup Diamond Journal Publishing

Please complete this form to apply: Call for EOIs for the AuSCCoP Co-Convenors

If you attended any of our sessions, we would really appreciate any feedback you have via this short survey.

Call for WG members for accelerating adoption of Open Science

Organisers of the “Accelerating the Adoption of Open Science” Summit, CERN & NASA, have released a closing statement committing to work collaboratively and contextually to accelerate the adoption of open science at scale. The work includes the creation of four working groups facilitated by the Open Research Funders Group, to focus on these topics:

Sustainable & Interoperable Open Infrastructure
Incentives
Equitable Open Science
Evidence-Based Open Research Policy

If you are interested in joining a working group, use this form. The working groups are open to all interested participants, no matter their affiliation or geographic location. More information.

Swedish Institutions strategize on publisher negotiations

The ‘Beyond transformative agreements’ working group convened in 2021 by the Association of Swedish Higher Education has released its report proposing a strategy for transitioning from transformative agreements to a financially sustainable system that stimulates the ongoing transition to a fully open publishing system.

The report Charting Sweden’s Path Beyond Transformative Agreements – Analysis and proposals for strategic direction advises that from 2026 at the latest, institutions should stay away from read and publish agreements in hybrid journals, instead only signing agreements for publication in fully open access journals. Read more.

New UK Open Publishing CoP

The Open Institutional Publishing Association (OIPA) is a new Community of Practice focussing on connecting and encouraging a diverse range of small to medium-sized UK university presses and university-affiliated publishing operations who are striving for open access. It has a vision of a community-based scholarly communication system fit for open access that empowers scholars to share the full range of their research outputs and to participate in new quality control mechanisms and evaluation standards to ensure rapid, transparent dissemination of high-quality scientific knowledge. Members include JISC & LSE press.

Why scholarly communication needs to change graphic with four images & statements: The dominant publishing models are highly inequitable; the sharing of research outputs is needlessly delayed; the full potential of peer review is not realised; the coupling of editorial gatekeeping with academic career incentives is damaging science

Towards Responsible Publishing Image (2023) reproduced here under CC-BY with credit to creators: Stern, B., Ancion, Z., Björke, A., Farley, A., Qvenild, M., Rieck, K., Sondervan, J., Rooryck, J., Kiley, R., Karatzia, M., & Papp, N

UKRI OA policy extends beyond journal articles

From 1 January 2024, the UK’s research infrastructure organisation’s (UKRI) open access policy will apply to monographs, book chapters and edited collections that need to acknowledge UKRI funding. The policy aims to ensure that all research funded with public money can be freely accessed. The policy also seeks to support wider community development of open access for long-form research publications and is providing a £3.5 million dedicated fund to support OA costs for long-form publications within the scope of the policy. Read more.

A (new) proposal from Plan S

Five years since the principles for making full & immediate open access a reality were released, Plan S has launched a new proposal seeking input from the research community to establish a community-based scholarly communication system. While there have been advances in OA globally, Plan S has identified a disconnect in publishing practices which threatens the goal of universal OA. The 9-page Towards responsible publishing: A proposal from cOAlition S aims to address that disconnect and is calling for input from the global community to establish a system fit for open science in the 21st century. More info here or read this one page summary or blog post.

5th anniversary webinar recording

cOAlition S hosted a webinar to mark the 5th anniversary of Plan S bringing together funders, researchers, and experts from the scholarly communication field to discuss how Plan S has developed and what’s on the horizon into the future.

Reports

Latest State of Open Data report

The State of Open Data is the longest-running longitudinal study into researchers’ attitudes towards open data. Now in its eighth year, the 2023 survey saw over 6000 respondents. In its 8th year, the State of Open Data 2023 report provides insights into how researchers are sharing their data, their motivation, challenges faced and considers different geographies, career stages and subject areas of expertise. Read report.