Cooperation agreements, Science policy

Hannover, 8 February 2021 – Free access to scientific publications (open access) is a prerequisite for rapid scientific progress. Most researchers, academic institutions and also funders agree that open access is desirable as a default mode of academic publishing. However, the change in the publication landscape is associated with various difficulties. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) aims to advance this process by funding projects to accelerate the transition to open access. Three projects submitted by TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology will be funded under this programme over the next two years.

The B!SON project, conducted jointly with SLUB Dresden, implements a recommender system for quality-assured open access journals. The recommender system will filter a list sorted by relevance from the large number of available open access journals. For this purpose, in addition to common bibliometric methods of similarity determination, machine learning methods will be used to determine the semantic similarity between user inputs (especially abstract and cited literature of the article to be published). The partners cooperate with OpenCitations and the Directory of Open Access Journals and strive for a close exchange with institutions that advise authors. While open access publishing requirements are steadily increasing and there are a growing number of open access journals, authors often lack knowledge of relevant, quality-assured open access journals that would be suitable for publishing their own research. A freely accessible tool that can be linked to local support structures will help to make the transition to open access successful. https://projects.tib.eu/bison/en

In the KOALA project, consortial solutions for financing open access are being established. Collaborative funding of open access journals and book series by academic libraries is an alternative to the dominant APC model (article processing charges), where articles are paid for individually by authors or their institutions. During the project period, the TIB will work with the Communication, Information and Media Centre (KIM) of the University of Konstanz to establish at least one corresponding consortium as a funding partner for open access periodicals. Within this framework, further analyses will be carried out and conversions of periodicals to open access will be accompanied. In addition, a central helpdesk for editors who need help with the transition to open access or with finding sustainable funding will be created. The infrastructure created by KOALA enables fair and sustainable financing of quality-assured open access publications. It contributes to removing financial hurdles for authors and thus facilitates participation in open access publications. https://projects.tib.eu/koala/en

The OPTIMETA project is dedicated to strengthening the open access publishing system by integrating open citations and spatio-temporal metadata from open access journals with openly accessible data sources. Together with the Spatio-temporal Modelling Lab at the Institute for Geoinformatics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU), a contribution is being made to the metadata omnichannel by extending Open Journal Systems (OJS). OJS is the most widely used open source software for scientific journals, with functionalities for the collection and distribution of open metadata. In OPTIMETA, these metadata is extended with geodata and citation information. The combination of open source and open data enables journals to link articles in a semantically meaningful way and thereby offer scientific communities new ways to connect research outputs, and enables publishers to offer innovative services and to contribute to relevant and open data sources. These new features improve the visibility and thus the discoverability of publications in various ways, which in turn increases the attractiveness of the respective open access journals as publication venues. The technical implementation of the project is carried out in two OJS plug-ins. https://projects.tib.eu/optimeta/en

All three projects will make important contributions to accelerating the transition to open access. Dr. Irina Sens, Deputy Director of TIB, emphasises: "TIB has clearly committed itself to open access in its strategy. These new projects will help to build innovative open access services. We look forward to engaging in this together with our partners and in exchange with national and international specialist communities."

References and contacts:
- https://projects.tib.eu/bison/en
- https://projects.tib.eu/koala/en
- https://projects.tib.eu/optimeta/en

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Weitere Informationen:
https://www.tib.eu/en – More information about the TIB – German National Library of Science and Technology
https://projects.tib.eu/bison/en
https://projects.tib.eu/koala/en
https://projects.tib.eu/optimeta/en