In the Summer of 2022, cOAlition S will launch the Journal Comparison Service (JCS), a secure online platform that will help registered users from the research community better understand if the publishing fees they pay are commensurate with the services delivered, and to gain better insight into the elements of those services. Ahead of this date, publishers will be invited to register with the JCS, sign the participation agreement and share their 2021 price and service data through the platform.

Publisher applications will be accepted until the 31st October 2022.

UK universities have reached a three-year agreement with Elsevier providing both unlimited open access publishing and access to paywalled journal articles for a significant reduction on current institutional spend.

Knowledge Unlatched (KU), the central platform for Open Access (OA) financing models recently acquired by Wiley, is pleased to announce the results of the 2021 pledging round, which ended in December 2021 and saw hundreds of libraries worldwide support KU’s initiatives, including 34 institutions pledging for the first time and several new publishing partners joining the KU community. Over 670 institutions worldwide have supported KU initiatives to date. By the end of this year, KU’s total impact will number around 3,500 unlatched books — a significant jump from last year’s 2,700 — and over 60 journals flipped to OA.

Some publishers’ practices still cause difficulties for authors who wish to exercise their right to make their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) open access immediately on publication using the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy. cOAlition S requests that publishers make their policies and contracts more transparent at the outset of the submission process. The request outlined in the letter that was sent to a large number of publishers is intended to make publisher submission workflows and processes as clear and straightforward as possible for authors and to help them meet their pre-existing grant conditions.

The incredible progress made in the past five years shows the potential of open access strategies that incorporate multiple open access routes, demonstrating that all roads, together, lead to making open the default in scholarly communication. Building on this insight, LIBER’s Urgent Recommendations for Open Access Negotiations with Publishers outline four priorities to bolster and integrate library Open Access strategies. Each recommendation comes with suggested actions to put the recommendation immediately into practice and links to additional resources that illustrate the good practice of LIBER member libraries and their partners.

In 2008 Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted unanimously to adopt a ground-breaking open access policy. Since then, over 70 other institutions, including other Harvard faculties, Stanford and MIT, have adopted similar policies based on the Harvard model. In 2021 the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) adopted an Open Access policy that came into force on 1^st January 2022. UiT members tell us about the process of creating and implementing their policy.

European University Association (EUA) has signed up to the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access which aims to promote a sustainable, community-driven Diamond Open Access (OA) scholarly communication ecosystem. Published on 2 March 2022, the document is an initiative of Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS and the French National Research Agency (ANR).

The Action Plan has four priority areas: efficiency, quality standards, capacity building and sustainability, following the recommendations presented in the Open Access Diamond Journals Study. EUA and other stakeholders attended a dedicated online workshop on 2 February 2022 to discuss the draft proposal and provide input to the final Action Plan.

The Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD) of France and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) have announced their formal collaboration to launch a directory of open access preprint repositories. The directory will build on the outcomes of a project undertaken by the French Committee for Open Science (Preprints Platforms Project). COAR will develop a database and user interface and will host the preprint directory; CCSD will be curating the metadata records ensuring the registry remains up-to-date. The directory will be publicly available for all, and, as much as possible, will align with other related directories, such as OpenDOAR and the ASAPbio list of preprint servers.

Voir l’annonce en français

The creation of institutional repositories (IRs) which became common among research organisations during the first decade of the 21st century was in part a response to excessive cost increases of scientific journal subscriptions. A common aspiration was that as a key part of the open access (OA) movement, institutions would use repositories to take back ownership of their published output and provide access to those unable to afford these exorbitant subscriptions. And because journal subscriptions are mostly handled by libraries, the campus library was often a central sponsor of the IR. Nevertheless, institutional repositories have not evolved in the way they were first intended.

GDC Difusión Científica has partnered with open research publisher F1000 to create a dedicated open research publishing hub, GDC Open Research in Latin America. This Gateway will enable researchers to amplify the impact of their work and promote the principles of open research throughout Latin America and beyond.