OA Switchboard Update

"Dealing with Open Access publications, where there are multiple authors, affiliated institutions, research funders, business models, policies, mandates, requirements and agreements involved, is complex and administratively burdensome. Funders, institutions and publishers are faced with a myriad of systems, portals and processes when dealing with Open Access publication-level arrangements. This hampers the transition to Open Access, the realisation of policies and agreements, and progress in developing new business models. From a researcher perspective, this landscape is at best confusing and at worst impenetrable. (see visual 1)

These challenges are in no way unique to the open access publishing landscape and are in fact relatively common in marketplaces that have an increasingly complex web of interactions between buyers and sellers (see OA Switchboard introductory blog, 2019). The introduction of a central intermediary is often the easiest way to reduce complexity on all sides, but a payment component doesn’t come without challenges and risks. If one leaves out the payment component, there is still complexity around information and data exchange in our ecosystem. Other industries have already tackled similar problems successfully a long time ago. (Think of SWIFT, the global financial messaging service:  they have developed a common language across banks worldwide, serving their community for over 40 years now). The inspiration for the OA Switchboard has come also from examples of community-governed scholarly infrastructure (such as Crossref), which have successfully brought together a large and diverse community of stakeholders to address complex challenges.​..."