Shifting into fourth gear: SCOSS launches 4th pledging round
The time has come! SCOSS is shifting into fourth gear, announcing our 4th SCOSS pledging round with 3 new Open Science Infrastructure services partnering with us and needing your help creating a sustainable future for them. We hope that you will consider contributing to one, two, or all three of these carefully chosen Open Science Infrastructures.
Let’s work together to build a healthy Open Science ecosystem! Help us drive the success of these Open Science Infrastructures by pledging today! Watch the videos at the links below to learn more about each infrastructure.
Preliminary findings Project Retain: Rights Retention, Licensing & Copyright
Did you know that over 60 European higher education institutions have policies covering the copyright of research publications and almost 45 institutions either have or will soon have rights retention policies in place? This highlights just how important this topic is right now and how crucial it is to continue to address rights retention — now and in the future.
As part of Project Retain — a one-year project led by SPARC Europe that forms part of the KR21 Project — we carried out research to garner more information about rights retention, licensing, and copyright.
In November 2022, we ran a survey asking higher education institutions about their policies in four areas.
Copyright of Scientific Publications
Author Rights Retention
Open Licensing
Reuse of Scientific Publications
Over 225 responses were garnered from across Europe.
Vanessa Proudman, Director of SPARC Europe, and Jon Treadway from Great North Wood Consulting presented these interim findings at the MUNIN Conference on Scholarly Communications in November 2022.
Listen to the webinar recording hereor read more about the key preliminary findings from Project Retain here.
European National Open Science Coordinator Views on Reforming Research Assessment
On the 3rd of November, as part of the CoNOSC Members Meeting, CoNOSC brought together over 20 national Open Science policymakers to discuss research assessment reform: in line with the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and in light of the approaching launch of CoARA, The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment.
Towards Sustainable Funding Models for the European Open Science Cloud —EOSC Financial Sustainability Task Force Report
In the last year, SPARC Europe has been regularly working in the EOSC Financial Sustainability Task Force to flesh out some of the challenges in funding EOSC before considering concrete scenarios and solutions. A report published in November sets out where we have got to as of now.
In short, the Task Force has scoped and defined the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Exchange and Data Federation in the context of financial sustainability, identified barriers and boundary conditions, and has proposed several initial financial scenarios for the EOSC Core, Exchange and Data Federation, which address the period from 2027 onwards.
Our Taskforce looks forward to opening this up for public consultation soon. Please explore our thoughts and proposals by reading the report.
In Case You Missed It — Report on OE/OER in European Libraries of Higher Education 2022
Take a look at our recently published report, Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education: Implementing the UNESCO OER Recommendation.
The report presents the findings of the third edition of our annual survey of European academic libraries on the topic of Open Education (OE) and Open Educational Resources (OER). It explores the work being done byEuropean academic librarians to implement the UNESCO OER Recommendation, almost three years on from its initial publication in November 2019.
The report is structured on the five areas of action/objectives of the UNESCO OER Recommendation and includes detailed recommendations for each objective.
Read the report and recommendations here. For a summarised version, you can also take download the SKIM here.
Open Education Updates
New webinar series 'Pass the OE baton on' just launched
On the 21st of November, the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) hosted a webinar with Glenda Cox and Bianca Masuku from Cape Town University (South Africa). They shared their experience with Open Textbook creation: transforming a funded project into an institutional, sustainable line of development in their university. The webinar recording is soon available in a new playlist, 'Pass the OE baton' on the ENOEL YouTube Channel.
'Under the Spotlight' webinar series - new recording available
On the ENOEL for Open YouTube channel, find Kris Meen's "Under the Spotlight" speech to follow the critical turning points of his career as an Open Education Librarian at the University of Galway (Ireland) and as a key active member of the ENOEL community. Watch the recording here.
Ongoing OE working groups activities
Members of the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) are working on a range of OE topics, which will soon help us share more outputs. These include a new episode in the Open Mic podcast related to Action Area 3 of the Unesco OER Recommendation, "Encouraging effective, inclusive and equitable access to quality OER"; a new OE Café with OE Champions on the same topic or work on sharing lessons learnt between OS and OE advocates. We are also exploring how to work together next year to build capacity in Open textbook creation and curation by building on some of the excellence in the network. Stay tuned - a lot is planned for next year.
Outcome of SPARC Europe Board Elections
A big thank you to SPARC Europe Members for voting in our latest SPARC Europe Board Elections.
Charlotte Wien, Professor of Scholarly Communication at the University of Southern Denmark, has been re-elected and will serve for a second term — a big congratulations to Charlotte and we thank her for her continued dedication to SPARC Europe!
Mr. William Nixon, Assistant Director (Academic Engagement and Digital Library) at the University of Glasgow Library, is stepping down from the board after three years. He will join RLUK as its new Deputy Executive Director. We greatly thank him for his dedication to the organisation over the last three years.
Mr. Nixon had this to say about the withdrawal of his candidacy: "With regret, I must withdraw my candidacy for a new term on the SPARC Europe Board. In the new year, I will be moving from the University of Glasgow to join Research Libraries UK as its Deputy Executive Director. I want to thank everyone who voted for me as well as Vanessa Proudman, Ignasi Labastida i Juan, and my Board colleagues for their leadership. I look forward to new opportunities in my new role to work with SPARC Europe.”
Past Events
The MUNIN Conference 2022
We returned to the very north of Norway to the MUNIN Conference on Scholarly Publishing on the 29th of November – 1st of December 2022 to present a session titled, ‘Rights retention, open licensing and copyright - reforming the policy landscape.’ The presentation was held by Jon Treadway.
SCOSS 4th Pledging Round — Meet the People Behind SCOSS.
We're excited to announce our upcoming SCOSS webinar taking place in early 2023. In this webinar, you'll be introduced to three representatives from Dryad, La Referencia, and ROR — our three open infrastructures to which you can make a pledge. Keep posted on the SCOSS Twitter account for the exact date and further details.
This news brief was compiled and distributed by SPARC Europe staff. Any questions or comments can be directed to Elizabeth Joss-Bethlehem, SPARC Europe Communications.
