This paper examines Open Access (OA) self archiving policies of different Open Access Repositories (OARs) affiliated to COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) as partner institutes. After presenting the methodology for analysing policy documents, key findings have been identified and highlighted. OARs are in a critical situation when policy matters are concerned. Aligning repository networks and mandates is likely to be crucial in determining future repository development. A best practice benchmark has been suggested for popularizing and strengthening OARs as national research systems.

Hybrid journals are playing an important role in the OA process. However, visibility and discoverability of OA content in hybrid journals can be problematic. The solution proposed by the JEMO Project is to include CC license information in journal’s APIs and TOC RSS feeds .

Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research. The team behind this initiative wants to ensure that this is as useful as possible to researchers, librarians and others around the world. The short survey about your experiences with Think. Check. Submit. will be open until 28 September 2018.

In January 2017, the UGC (University Grants Commission), a government body that regulates higher education, collated a white list of journals with the help of universities. This white list was later found to contain predatory journals. Consequently, in May 2018, the UGC reviewed it and deleted 4,305 journals. Academics suggest that besides creating a white list, the Indian government should sanction academics who publish in these journals, and change  regulations regarding government incentives to publish.

On 4 September 2018, 11 national research funding organisation, with the support of the European Commission including the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of a statement and 10 principles.

In recent years open access (OA) publishing agreements have left a lasting impact on several aspects of the research life cycle, and on the manner in which institutions work with publishers and researchers to support the transition to OA. This article examines the Vienna University Library’s hands-on experience with OA agreements. It describes existing workflows, reviews the benefits of the various systems in place and identifies areas for improvement. Items for discussion are also proposed for organizations when negotiating OA agreements with publishers, and potential pitfalls to be avoided are highlighted.

In 2018, the SciELO Program will celebrate 20 years of operation, in full alignment with the advances of open science.

The SciELO Program has consolidated itself as one of the most important programs for international cooperation in support of Open Access Scholarly Communication. The SciELO Network, a cooperative network under the SciELO Program and which spans 15 countries, indexes and publishes close to one thousand peer reviewed open access journals as national collections. This anniversary constitutes an important landmark in SciELO’s evolution, and an exceptional moment to promote the advancement of an inclusive, global approach to scholarly communication and to the open access movement. Check the programme.

OASPA Board Members are appointed via an annual election process and serve for a term of three years, playing a vital role in OASPA’s work to support and represent the interests of Open Access journal and book publishers globally. In the third of a series of posts highlighting the important contributions of the Board, OASPA’s Leyla Williams talked to Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director of the DOAJ. The other two posts in the series were an interview with eLife’s Mark Patterson, and with PeerJ’s Pete Binfield.

Joe McArthur (Director of Open Access Button) shows how tools like Open Access Button and Unpaywall work, and how open access (OA) resources can be used in inter-library loan (ILL) systems, link resolvers and library searches. The tools are open source – free and  community-owned.

On June 7^th , 2018, Sciences Po Paris, the French Institute of Political Studies, organised a one-day workshop on OA repositories for university and research institutions. Speakers elaborated on the roles of OA repositories within the organisation and the development and challenges of OA repositories.

The program and the presentations are online.