Guest post by Tracy Creagh

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Tracy Creagh is Journal Manager for Academic Journals in Queensland University of Technology’s Office for Scholarly Communication, managing a small number of Diamond open access, scholarly journals. As well, she is Managing Editor of the Student Success Journal, a Diamond journal now supported by the University of Southern Queensland Library. She currently co-convenes the Australian Diamond Journal Publishing Community of Practice.

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Early in 2024, the sparkling new Australian Scholarly Communications Community of Practice Diamond Journal Publishing subgroup was launched – and it could not have come sooner.

Diamond Open Access (OA) refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. Generally publishing costs are facilitated by academic institutions, community groups or governments.

In the last decade there has been increased interest in the value of this publishing model with a number of new diamond OA initiatives, principally in Europe (including CRAFT-OA projects, Plan for Diamond Open Access). In 2020 the most significant survey of international diamond OA journals was conducted by Science Europe and cOAlition S with a final report released in 2021 and an action plan released in 2022. 2023 saw the inaugural Global Summit on Diamond OA bringing together 700 international delegates who presented a set of pledges for furthering diamond OA. And this year DIAMAS soft-launched the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) aimed at coordinating and aligning the activities of Diamond OA in Europe.

But to-date, there are no specific activities or initiatives that comprehensively address Diamond OA in Australia. A snapshot of open access practice in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (from universities, health, government and non-profit research institutions) was captured in a 2022 Open Access Australasia report (Catterall & Barbour). The report indicated that 31 of the 56 universities published easily discoverable open journals. While all these journals may not necessarily fall under the Diamond model, it seemed timely to bring together those practitioners working with Diamond journals, or those exploring the value of publishing in this mode. 

We also know that only a few of these Australian journals are indexed by DOAJ, which has 142 journals from Australia – 78 are Diamond.  Efforts to index more Australian Diamond journals are crucial.  Last year I was pleased to share the benefits of indexing in DOAJ and detail my own experience with Diamond OA to discuss one of the journals I am lucky to work with and the value of OA publishing – The story behind the journal: Student Success

In Australia, we are fortunate to have the Australian Scholarly Communications Community of Practice an initiative of Open Access Australasia, the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), and Creative Commons Australia. The monthly CoP focuses on scholarly communication, including innovative approaches, open access, open science, especially related to developments in this region. It ties together those of us working in this space, allows for the sharing of information, exchange of ideas and, importantly, provides avenues and platforms for advocacy in open access.

During 2023 Open Access Week, Open Access Australasia ran a panel session and workshop, Shine on Diamond journals: Making sure they’re forever which included Diamond journal practitioners Arianna Becerril García (Redalyc, Network of Diamond Open Access Journals), Sean Ulm (URC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories), Johan Rooryck (cOAlition S) and Donna Coventry (Auckland University of Technology).

The session was run as a satellite meeting aligned to the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access being held in Mexico that week, and collected a set of feedback from all participants on key themes associated with sustaining Diamond journals like discoverability, infrastructure and credibility. The event and discussion duplicated the very same themes, issues and challenges those of use working in Diamond publishing in Australia are dealing with. There was a definite sense from our Australian colleagues that we were well overdue for some local collaborative activity and the takeaway from this session was the desire for a regional community of practice. The following month the Australian Scholarly Communications Community of Practice proposed a Diamond Journal Publishing subgroup and an expression of interest for convenors – this desire for a formal community finally became a reality.

And so – here we are.  

The new subgroup seeks to provide members with a participatory and engaging community for helping each other with everyday practice, as well as opportunities for discussion, development, and dissemination of best practices and strategies. The group anticipates the community will become  a central body to advocate for inclusive, equitable, sustainable, community-controlled OA publishing.

Image:  AuSCCoP Diamond Journal Publishing Co-convenors

In the first meeting we used a Jamboard session (digital interactive whiteboard) to ask members what the key issues for Diamond publishing in Australia were – and what specific topics or questions they wanted to explore in the subgroup. Unsurprisingly, the key themes fell under the shared concern of sustainability and included funding, discoverability, platforms and software, indexing, editorial and peer review issues, repositories, and collaboration and advocacy. The first meeting also included a webinar from Joanna Ball, Managing Director of DOAJ and Ikhwan Arief, Managing Editor and Ambassador for Indonesia, DOAJ.  This was a valuable opportunity to understand the importance of best practice in OA publishing and inclusion in the Directory.

This year the subgroup has met on a bi-monthly basis and focused on those key themes identified early by the community. Members have participated in both small group (in breakout rooms) and large group activities, such as:        

  • Discussion of recent developments, activities and practices
  • Lightning talks, e.g. a community member offers a short presentation related to progressing the diamond OA agenda or a show-and-tell related to their everyday work related to Diamond OA or how their institution supports Diamond OA.
  • Professional development opportunities, e.g., guest speakers or watch-alongs plus discussion  

The CoP is so far quite small, community-led, and relatively informal and we also treat it as a ‘safe space’ to discuss issues and raise questions. We have interest from Aotearoa New Zealand people who have been regularly attending, because they do not yet have their own national community in this space – and as you might recognise, our issues are similar.

This year we also participated in a panel session as part of International Open Access Week (21-25 October) for Open Access Australasia:  Communities in Action: Cutting through the rough with diamond journals and open knowledge. It was our first opportunity to showcase the community activity to-date. As well, we were able to discuss Diamond journal publishing in Australia and New Zealand more generally as part of a presentation for the OEGlobal Conference (13-15 November) Diamonds – everyone’s best friend: Using diamond open access to increase inclusivity.

But while the CoP is so far a ‘place’ for sharing and discourse, we hope it becomes a starting point for further advocacy and support for Diamond journal publishing in Australia.  We are nowhere near any level of activity and advocacy around Diamond OA as some of our international colleagues – but we all have to start somewhere.

More information: AuSCCoP Diamond Journal Publishing subgroup webpage

Reference:

Catterall, J., & Barbour, V. (2023) Open access initiatives by research active institutions in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: A snapshot of the landscape in 2022. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8081167

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