La Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) y el consorcio del proyecto DIAMAS publican el Estándar de calidad para Acceso Abierto Diamante (Diamond OA Standard (DOAS), basado en el Estándar Extensible para la Edición Institucional (EQSIP). Este estándar guía la edición de revistas académicas sin cobrar tarifas a autores ni lectores. Más de 300 expertos participaron en su desarrollo, buscando una publicación sostenible y accesible. DOAS abarca siete componentes clave: financiación, propiedad legal, ciencia abierta, gestión editorial, eficiencia técnica, visibilidad, y equidad. Además, incluye una herramienta de autoevaluación (Self-assessment tool) para editores.

Japan is expanding its Open Access policy. Since 2013, Open Access has been regularly discussed at a policy level, especially in relation to innovation. But policies have been less restrictive and slower than in other countries, like the USA. However, by 2025, it will be required that articles resulting from nationally funded research in Japan must be made Open Access immediately on publication.

MDPI outlines the history of the Japanese government’s mandates and its current policies here.

In the US, the pace of transition to OA is accelerating. An increasing number of libraries are signing transformative agreements (TAs) that support authors to publish OA, while maintaining access to subscription content. In this case study, three US organizations reflect on their OA agreements with Springer Nature and provide insights into how this has helped them to transition to OA, the impact the agreements have had on their working practices as well as the advice they would give others looking to take the next step in their OA journey.

Gates Foundation grantees find themselves once again facing a new Open Access Policy that increases their compliance burden. And, though the compliance burden increases, financial support for open access and other publication-related fees, which functioned to smooth pathways for compliance under the previous 2015 and 2021 policies, is eliminated. This essay explains and compares the 2021 and 2025 policies, argues that the rollout of the new policy led to misunderstandings, and details possible implications for grantees, readers, and publishers.

In October 2023, the cOAlition S group of funders commissioned a study by scidecode science consulting to assess the impact of Plan S. The study investigates various aspects of where this initiative may have had an influence on the global scholarly communications landscape. This webinar organized by OASPA on 9 April 2024 offered an opportunity for the early results of this work to be presented and discussed with the OASPA network. As well as the recording, please find responses to unanswered questions and panelists slides – Ashley Farley (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Pablo de Castro (scidecode and University of Strathclyde), Wolfgang Benedikt Schmal (scidecode and the Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg) and Emma Wilson (Royal Society of Chemistry).

DOAJ wishes to learn from their users community their opinion about DOAJ’s journal metadata, their indexation policy, the DOAJ Seal, and more. They have published a survey available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. PDF versions of the questions in each language are available for download. All global stakeholders and users of DOAJ, regardless of location, are encouraged to participate in the survey. The survey will close on Friday, 6 May 2024.

As Article Processing Charges (APC) has been a growing concern in academia and policy making, the need for a model where both authors and readers do not pay – the so-called Diamond, or non-APC model – is regularly called for. However, this call is often combined with questions about its sustainability, particularly in financial terms. To answer this concern, this article explores the practical conditions to implement a direct funding mechanism to Diamond open access journals, that is recurrent money provided by funders to support the publication process.

If 2023 was a year of consolidation for OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association)– thinking about connections with OASPA members and stakeholders, reviewing areas of focus and streamlining  internal structures and operations – 2024 is planned to be a year of action and intention. Claire Redhead, Executive Director, provides an overview of OASPA’s vision, priorities and activities planned for the coming year.

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access (OA) publishing, which requires that from 2021 scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant OA journals or platforms. This annual review provides an overview of Plan S activities in 2023, along with the latest advancements in their policies. The review sheds light also on specific actions taken by cOAlition S funders in the realm of scholarly communication.

View the review as a pdf version.