Promoting Open Access in Research-Performing Organizations: Spheres of Activity, Challenges, and Future Action Areas

Author : Heinz Pampel

Open access (OA) has become a critical issue in science policy and affects a wide range of activities in universities and research labs. Research-performing organizations (RPOs), defined as publicly funded universities and research institutions, face significant challenges in shaping the OA transformation.

This article examines the spheres of activity available to RPOs for shaping the OA transformation, using a categorization of 22 spheres of activity related to OA. These spheres of activity include strategy and communication, services and infrastructures, business relationships with publishers, and collaborations.

Current challenges and future action areas in promoting OA are also described, providing support for RPOs in handling OA and highlighting key issues. The categorization can serve as a tool for systematically assessing OA activities at RPOs and shows that OA is a cross-cutting issue in these organizations.

Collaboration on OA activities, both within and beyond organizations, presents a challenge. To effectively promote OA, it is crucial to strengthen the interaction between funding agencies and RPOs. Libraries are critical stakeholders, playing a vital role in advancing OA at the local, national, and international levels in partnership with RPO management and other partners in faculty, administration, and information technology.

URL : Promoting Open Access in Research-Performing Organizations: Spheres of Activity, Challenges, and Future Action Areas

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11030044

From library budget to information budget: fostering transparency in the transformation towards open access

Author: Heinz Pampel

The discussion on the transformation of scholarly journals to open access (OA) increasingly concerns financial aspects. Considering the variety of funding strategies for article processing charge (APCs), the array of cost types for scientific information and the need for data monitoring to promote cost transparency, an integrated view of the financial dimension of the OA transition is needed.

This commentary describes the need for implementing an information budget that looks beyond just the library budget and comprehensively targets all financial flows from universities and other research performing organizations to publishers.

An information budget promotes an integrated perspective on the distributed costs at a given institution. This centralized approach of assessing financial flows can be used to strengthen the position of research institutions when negotiating with publishers.

URL : From library budget to information budget: fostering transparency in the transformation towards open access

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.576

The Landscape of Research Data Repositories in 2015: A re3data Analysis

Authors : Maxi Kindling, Heinz Pampel, Stephanie van de Sandt, Jessika Rücknagel, Paul Vierkant, Gabriele Kloska, Michael Witt, Peter Schirmbacher, Roland Bertelmann, Frank Scholze

This article provides a comprehensive descriptive and statistical analysis of metadata information on 1,381 research data repositories worldwide and across all research disciplines.

The analyzed metadata is derived from the re3data database, enabling search and browse functionalities for the global registry of research data repositories. The analysis focuses mainly on institutions that operate research data repositories, types and subjects of research data repositories (RDR), access conditions as well as services provided by the research data repositories.

RDR differ in terms of the service levels they offer, languages they support or standards they comply with. These statements are commonly acknowledged by saying the RDR landscape is heterogeneous.

As expected, we found a heterogeneous RDR landscape that is mostly influenced by the repositories’ disciplinary background for which they offer services.

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march17/kindling/03kindling.html