Transparenz in der Wissenschaft: Strategien für offene Informationsversorgung

Abstract:  Both the Open Access strategy of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Commission's recommendations on OA to the EU member states call on scientific institutions to increase the transparency of contractual agreements with publishers. The Alliance of German Science Organizations also addresses this issue. In practice, however, with a few exceptions (e.g., the disclosure of DEAL contracts), this demand has not been implemented. While the OpenAPC initiative has created an internationally recognized approach to the disclosure of funds in the area of publication fees, there is still no such initiative for subscription costs, for example. Against this background, the DFG project Transform2Open is striving for a national transparency initiative that addresses subscription as well as transformation and OA contracts. Of particular interest are the handling of non-disclosure agreements and current obstacles to transparency efforts. Practical procedures for the disclosure of costs are also an important topic. Efforts to open up research information, e.g. as part of the “Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information” initiative, also open up new possibilities for combining data on publications and their costs. Under the motto “Shared infrastructures for open science”, a World Café workshop was held at the 25. annual conference of the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI) on September 19, 2024 in Potsdam to discuss which aspects and institutions should initially be focused on for a prototype implementation of a transparency initiative. Implementation challenges were jointly identified in order to prepare for practical implementation. The workshop was offered jointly by the DFG projects Transform2Open and OA Datenpraxis. OA Datenpraxis supports the formation of structures for open access transformation at national level. Close cooperation with stakeholders from the DEAL project, OpenAPC, openCost and the OA Monitor exists or will be further expanded.