SCOSS

FinELib, the consortium for Finnish universities, will fund DOAJ for a 3-year period based on the SCOSS model

PRESS RELEASE

FinELib logoFinELib, the Finnish consortium for universities, research institutions and universities of applied sciences, has agreed to provide funding to DOAJ over a 3-year period.

The consortium has promised funds to DOAJ in recognition of the valuable contribution that DOAJ makes to open access and scholarly publishing. The move follows hot on the heels of Finland publishing its policy on open science and open research earlier this year, a move which was welcomed by Finland’s academia.

The amount of funding promised to DOAJ by FinELib is €31,500 per year for three years. This is at the level of “sustainable” funding and allows DOAJ to retain its focus on its goals for the current strategic period, one of which is to attract more non-English language journals into the Directory, especially within social sciences and humanities.

Arja Tuuliniemi, Head of FinELib, said: “DOAJ is a valuable open access service for Finnish research institutions. We are pleased that FinELib can take part in providing sustainable funding for DOAJ.”

In fact, the funding comes after the successful implementation of a joint project between DOAJ and TSV, Federation of Finnish Societies, to train journal representatives on the DOAJ criteria and help them submit a complete and proper application to DOAJ. The goal of the project is to increase the number of Finnish journals in DOAJ.

Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director and Founder of DOAJ, said: “We are very pleased that FinELib has facilitated that 15 of the member institutions have signed up for significant support over a three year period. The support will help us continue developing DOAJ with special focus on non-English language journals.“

The funding comes at the end of what has turned out to be a very successful SCOSS funding drive for DOAJ. The period ran from 2018 to 2020. The effect that sustainable funding has had on DOAJ can be seen in various blog posts.

For more information on funding DOAJ, contact Lars Bjørnshauge: lars@doaj.org.

A PDF version of this press release is here.

DOAJ reaches its SCOSS funding target within 18 months and sets its sights on new work

(Repost from the SCOSS website.)

We are delighted to announce that the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has reached its funding target to cover its operational costs as were outlined in its SCOSS application. Eight consortia and 175 institutions/organisations from 18 different countries have committed support to DOAJ. “We’d like to thank our supporters. That this many organisations stand behind this initiative and promised this amount of funding shows how important sustaining open access infrastructure is,” said Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Managing Director.

There are organisations that have already made the decision to help fund DOAJ, but are still deliberating over the details of their financial commitment. Though the funding goal has now been met, these organisations may still commit financial support. Furthermore, the SCOSS Board has allowed DOAJ to present a new work package, both to these organisations and any additional organisations that come forward in 2019. The package describes additional activities that DOAJ would like to pursue with the extra funding, should it be granted.

The Board has supported the second work package on the conditions that DOAJ reports on progress made in a progress report on the activities delineated in the SCOSS application form, and that DOAJ describes the new work package in detail and includes a budget for the amount of funding needed. For details see the financial overview and the new work package.

SCOSS endorses this plan through the end of 2019.

All University of California campuses commit to DOAJ

Ten institutions from the University of California – all ten campuses – commit €90,000 to DOAJ, the largest US consortium to support DOAJ via the SCOSS initiative so far.

DOAJ is very pleased for the support received from the University of California towards a sustainable funding model promoted by SCOSS.

Swiss consortium pledges 216,000 Eur to DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO

We are delighted to announce that the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries, comprising sixteen libraries and the Swiss National Science Foundation, is the third national consortium to commit to the SCOSS initiative.

swissuniversities, the Rectors’ Conference of Swiss Higher Education Institutions, contributes approximately 50% of the total costs in the framework of the Swiss National Strategy for Open Access.

Thank you very much for your support!

Université de Lorraine, the first French institution to provide sustainable funding based on SCOSS recommendations

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is logo-universite-de-lorraine1.png
We are very happy to be able to announce Université de Lorraine as the first French institution to join our growing list of institutions who have committed to provide sustainable funding to DOAJ for a period of three years as recommended by SCOSS.
Frédéric Villiéras, vice-provost for research at Université de Lorraine says: “We are delighted to strengthen our support to the DOAJ. This choice is in line with other financial supports towards open platforms that were decided earlier this year. We are fully committed to supporting open science infrastructures such as the DOAJ and we hope that other french research institutions and libraries will follow. “
Please, contact lars@doaj.org for further information.

Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science (SCOSS) hits half-million Euro funding mark

Thanks to dozens of quick-acting universities and institutions in Australia, Europe & North America, a new effort to secure Open Science infrastructure is off to a strong start. More than 680 000 Euros have been pledged to support DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO already.

In a press release issued by SPARC Europe on 14th August 2018, Vannessa Proudman, Director of SPARC Europe, said:

“This being a new concept, we are very encouraged by the response of the community at this point. We’re taking this as an early indication that we will, in time, reach our full three-year funding goals for both the DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO, two truly vital services. But for this to happen, we will need to continue to see growth in support; far more institutions committing to funding.”

Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director and Founder of DOAJ, said: “We are very pleased to see that many of the long standing members of DOAJ have decided to increase their financial support, based on the fees recommended by SCOSS and for the next three years. We are looking forward to welcoming even more members and support shortly. We will do our very best to live up to the ever-changing expectations from the community.”

And “the ever-changing expectations from the community” are, in a nutshell, why SCOSS and sustainable funding models are so important to DOAJ, SHERPA/RoMEO and open access in general. Open access is still a relatively young publishing model and is growing rapidly. New markets are opening up to open access publishing, each of them bringing new challenges with them, and technology is creating new opportunities and functionality in publishing. DOAJ must remain at the forefront of these developments and that means having a stable financial foundation upon which work can continue.

If you’d like to know more about SCOSS please go to http://scoss.org/ and if you would like to make a financial contribution using the SCOSS model, or indeed, any amount at all, please contact Lars: lars@doaj.org.

 

The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and the Council of New Zealand University Librarians sign up as sustainable funders promoted by SCOSS

CAUL
NZunis
DOAJ is very pleased for the support received from CAUL and the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) towards a sustainable funding model promoted by SCOSS. These two new additions enlarge the list of institutions who have committed funds to support DOAJ and Open Access.
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) is pleased to be a founding member of the Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS). At least thirteen CAUL member university libraries and one Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) member library have pledged  €42,000 to date in support of the SCOSS crowd-funding program to improve the ongoing sustainability of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This demonstrates the perception of value provided by DOAJ to Australian and New Zealand universities. I would like to encourage university librarians from around the world to consider contributing to the SCOSS appeal for DOAJ.
Martin Borchert, University Librarian, UNSW Sydney and Chair of the SCOSS Board

 

About CAUL

CAUL is the peak leadership organisation for university libraries in Australia.  Members are the lead library executive of the institutions that have representation on Universities Australia.

About CONZUL

The Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) is a Committee of Universities New Zealand – Te Pōkai Tara. CONZUL’s objective is to act collectively to improve the access for students and staff of New Zealand universities, to the information resources required to advance teaching, learning and research. The objectives are embodied in CONZUL’s statement on Open Access.

About SCOSS
The formation of the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services(SCOSS) represents a community-led effort to help maintain, and ultimately secure, vital infrastructure. This recognition of the cruciality of such infrastructure, and of securing it, is what led to the formation of SCOSS. Groundwork for the coalition was laid by the Knowledge Exchange, which presented many of the foundational ideas for it in its 2016 report Putting Down Roots, Securing the Future of Open Access Policies.

SILVER SPONSOR DANISH AGENCY FOR SCIENCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION ANSWERS OUR QUESTIONS ON OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING AND DOAJ

Lotte Faurbæk and Hanne-Louise Kirkegaard from the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education (Styrelsen for Forskning og Uddannelse) answer our questions.

-Your organisation has been supporting DOAJ for some years now. Why is it important for the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education to support DOAJ?

Logo_SFU_UK_Sort_72_DPI_Web

We regard DOAJ as an authoritative data source on Open Access Journals. We use DOAJ in the Danish Research Indicator to verify the data quality of the journals in our database, which consists of over 300,000 journals (both Opens Access and toll). Additionally, whenever we get a suggestion to accept a new journal to our list of publication channels that should generate points in the indicator, we check the status in DOAJ, to make sure it lives up to the criteria for acceptance. DOAJ is also an important part of the project called “Nordic lists”, which is a project supported by NordForsk, where the Nordic countries with research indicators collaborate to enhance the data quality of their national lists of publication channels.

-What is the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education doing to support that development? Do you have any exciting projects underway?

In 2014, the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science adopted a national strategy for Open Access to research articles from publicly funded institutions. The strategy The strategy has an ambitious goal, stating that already in 2022, 100% of the articles should be freely available via the Internet. Though, the Danish Open Access Indicator showed that only 36 percent of scientific publications produced at Danish universities were Open Access in April 2018. So, we are far from reaching the ambitious target, and a revision of the strategy – including scaling down the Open Access targets – is under way.

-What are your personal views on the future of Open Access publishing?

I think it is an irreversible trend. Though, the transition towards 100 pct. Open Access will happen at a slower pace than aimed for in the EU. In the EU Council Conclusions on Open Science the OA target is 100 pct. OA in 2020. Full OA will probably not happen at the speed desired due to a lot of reasons. Some of the reasons are: different Open Access approaches in EU member states and third countries – green, hybrid, green etc. -, the current lack of merit of OA compliance, the reluctance among publishers towards green Open Access, including big publishers imposing extraordinary long embargoes on scientific articles – 24 months or more.

– What do you think that the scholarly community could do to better support the continued development of the Open Access movement in the near future?

·         The rationale behind Open Science/Open Access must be communicated better to the public, and OA should be a political priority – both at national and institutional level.

·         National and institutional policies on Open Access must be adopted, implemented, monitored and enforced.

·         Change of culture among researchers towards openness is needed and could be supported by a change of the current merit system

·         Research funders must mandate and monitor OA

·         Universities must unite and collectively negotiate economically sustainable subscription deals – including OA – with the publishers (bargaining power).

– Much has been said recently about whether open access is succeeding or failing, particularly in terms of the original vision laid out by the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002. Do you think that open access has fallen short of this vision, or has it surpassed expectations?

I think we are under way, but not as fast as one could hope. More needs to be done, as we said in the previous question.

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft signs up as a sustainable funder

dfgDOAJ is extremely pleased to welcome Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to the growing list of organisations who have committed funds, via SCOSS, to support DOAJ on its way to a sustainable form of funding and future. DFG has demonstrated a commitment to open access for years and as such, we are very proud to receive their support.
Angela Holzer said of the commitment that DFG “considers the sustainability of vital infrastructures for open access crucial for the future. DOAJ has proven to be a very valuable tool not only for researchers and libraries, but also for funders and infrastructure providers. We welcome a transparent and sustainable development of DOAJ in the public interest”.
About DFG
The DFG is the self-governing organisation for science and research in Germany. It serves all branches of science and the humanities. In organisational terms, the DFG is an association under private law. Its membership consists of German research universities, non-university research institutions, scientific associations and the Academies of Science and the Humanities. (http://www.dfg.de/en/dfg_profile/mission/index.html)
About SCOSS
The formation of the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) represents a community-led effort to help maintain, and ultimately secure, vital infrastructure. This recognition of the cruciality of such infrastructure, and of securing it, is what led to the formation of SCOSS. Groundwork for the coalition was laid by the Knowledge Exchange, which presented many of the foundational ideas for it in its 2016 report Putting Down Roots, Securing the Future of Open Access Policies.