Webinar: Towards a Transparent Transition to Open Access: The Current Data Landscape. Sept 03, 2024, 2pm CEST | LIBER Europe

LIBER’s Open Access Working Group invites you to this webinar to learn about the findings from two recent studies published on financial aspects of transitioning to open access and to have a discussion roundtable on implications in libraries’ open access strategies moving forward. 

The webinar will be facilitated by Dr. Birgit Schmidt, Head of Knowledge Commons at the Göttingen State and University Library

Please register and join us to find out about these studies from the authors and bring your perspective to the discussions.

Background

Many research libraries are in the process of reconsidering their open access strategy, including moving away from big deals. In these discussions, empirical information on current investments in open access and effects on the publishing landscape can provide useful input for libraries considering how they support open access, both in negotiations with publishers and through other forms of support e.g. for diamond open access.

Both studies are based entirely on open data, highlighting the potential of open research information for transparent analysis of developments in scholarly publishing, and for informing library decisions. Taken together, these two talks also show gaps in monitoring the open access transition.

Speakers

Bianca Kramer, Independent Research Analyst at Sesame Open Science. Her work focuses on open science, open metadata and open infrastructure. 

Scientific publishing in Europe – development, diversity, and transparency of costs.  

This report, which was commissioned by the European Commision, investigates the (lack of) information about financial aspects of open access, including the nature and transparency of ‘transformative agreements’ with publishers. It also includes an analysis of publication patterns in 27 EU countries (+ UK, Norway and Switzerland), with a special focus on diamond open access and publishing in open access journals not included in DOAJ, and contains targeted recommendations for member states, institutions and libraries to increase transparency (and to encourage publishers to do so).

Najko Jahn, Data Analyst at the State and University Library Göttingen, University of Göttingen. His work focuses on scholarly communication analytics.

How open are hybrid journals included in transformative agreements?  

This preprint provides an analysis of the development of open access via hybrid journals – and the limitations of this development. Based on data on transformative agreements covering 12,000 hybrid journals, it shows the varying uptake across publishers and countries. Although some European countries have been able to substantially increase their share of OA through these agreements, current levels of implementation do not indicate a large-scale transition from subscription-based publishing to full OA.