COVID-19: Commentary and Policy
UNESCO has convened a call for open science for pandemic related research.
Science Advisers, including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, have called for free Access to COVID-19 Research. Read more.
IARLA has put out the IARLA Statement on Access to Digital Content for Education and Research during the Period of COVID-19 Response
COAR has published a call to support "bibliodiversity" - ie the the need to have a diverse, open ecosystem
LIBER has put out a call for urgent copyright law action in the EU to support distance Learning & research during the Coronavirus pandemic
IFLA has led the development of a letter to WIPO on Intellectual Property and COVID-19
France has outlined its response for OA to research at this time
Creative Commons are part of a group of organisations promoting the Open COVID Pledge and Open COVID Licenses.
COVID-19: New Resources
The United Nations has a page on its response to the pandemic and resources.
Evidence AID is collecting together and curating and, in some cases, translating evidence about COVID-19
preLights is a new site maintained by a team of scientists who regularly review & highlight preprints, with a current focus on COV-19
SPARC Europe have put together a page of resources
CSIRO is compiling a list of research data resources relevant to Coronavirus
General News
South African Universities' approach to OA is reported here
Malta is the latest country to put out its national approach to OA.
Frontiers and The Norwegian Institute of Health have signed an OA publishing agreement. Read more.
Open Access Button's latest initiative from is shareyourpaper.org It allows researcher to find an OA copy of their paper that can be deposited in a repository and also will have an API for library integrations
Think Check Submit has added books to its set of resources
The Royal Library in Sweden is developing a national platform for open scientific journals.
Plan S
'Diamond' journal & platform study
cOAlition S has just published a call for a study containing an analysis and overview of collaborative non-commercial (aka “Diamond”) publishing journals and platforms. The study is financially supported by Science Europe.
New criterial for transformative journals
cOAlition S has published updated criteria for Transformative Journals. These are not substantial changes, and it does seem clear any support for hybrid will have a hard end by 2024
These are the key changes (from the website)
- "changed the threshold when a journal must flip to full Open Access from 50% of to 75% and removed the commitment to flip by December 2024. In making these changes, however, we have stressed that publishers must explicitly state their commitment to transition to full Open Access and that our support for this model (in terms of paying for publishing services in subscription journals) will cease at the end of 2024;
- reduced the annual growth target for the proportion of content which must be published in Open Access from 8% to at least 5% in absolute terms and at least 15% in relative terms, year-on-year;
Other criteria which a Transformative Journal must adhere to include:
- implementing transparent pricing for the OA content published under this model and ensure that institutions purchasing a subscription to a TJ will pay only for remaining subscription content and
- agreeing to provide an annual public report to cOAlition S, reporting on progress and demonstrating compliance with the requirements for TJs. This report must provide information on the usage – including downloads, citations, altmetric data – of OA articles compared with the subscription content."
Springer Nature has put out its response to Plan S and its support for the transformative journals guidelines
REPORTS
Spinger Nature report on ACPs
A few key points from this report
- APC funding is complex. Authors use a wide range of funding sources, often in combination.
- Monitoring is a challenge as many APCs are still 'in the wild', particularly for fully OA journals.
- To support the OA transition institutions need a more comprehensive view of APC funding sources.
- Authors’ use of funds from outside of the library budget (other institutional funds or from research funders) demonstrates the opportunity for publisher OA agreements to consolidate multiple sources, as has been the case for some existing Springer Nature agreements.
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