OASPA was launched just over a year ago, on Open Access Day, 14 October 2008. Last month we celebrated Open Access Week once again, together with our own one-year anniversary.
Since its launch, OASPA has become a visible and active member of the scholarly publishing community, as evidenced by two events that were hosted this fall: the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing (COASP) and the Open Access Week Webinar: A Q&A session with five publishers working with Open Access publishing. Both events were quite successful and attracted a broad range of individuals and organizations from across the globe. Of the 40 or so persons that gave me their feedback after the COASP, for example, the word that was most used to describe the conference was “energizing”. Given the work we have ahead of us, I can think of no better compliment!
The conference and webinar accomplished many things. First, they have revealed OASPA’s core values and what the organization stands for. Second, they have contributed to bringing together the open access publishing community, initiating discourse and sharing of information. Finally, they have provided a great deal of feedback and input to OASPA that will help the Board define priorities as we move forward during our second year.
Core Values
Despite rumors, OASPA is not an anti-subscription lobby. Indeed, OASPA is not an anti-anything. OASPA is a positive organization that is FOR supporting open access publishers globally across all disciplines. By “open access publisher”, we refer to any individual, group or organization that is publishing at least one libre one open access journal. This means that we welcome all those who are seriously investigating open access models, including mixed model publishers, to join our discussions and contribute to building best practices. By bringing together the entire community we can share experiences and knowledge to the benefit of the entire publishing arena and the scholarly communities we serve.
We are open and inclusive. But we are also critical. Peter Suber stated in his key note address at COASP: “The launch of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) is a mark of movement maturity and a promise of mutual support, wisdom-sharing, and self-regulation for OA journals and OA publishers.” We agree. OASPA aims to become the stamp of quality for open access publishing.
As economic models to support open access begin to prove themselves, there will be those who seek to take advantage of a market opportunity. As well, Open Access remains new for many groups who may not be knowledgeable of the standards that have already become widespread and expected, such as the application of a Creative Commons License. To address these issues, the founders created a Code of Conduct and established membership criteria against which each applicant to the organization is scrutinized. We work with publishers to alter their practices to align with our criteria to the benefit of the publisher and the research community. Publishers can be assured that they are meeting industry standards through their membership, while the scholarly community can feel secure in their publishing choices when they select to publish with our members.
Sharing experiences and best practices
One of the most important outcomes of bringing together the publishing community interested in open access publishing is that dialogue will be stimulated that will lead to sharing of best practices and useful information. At this stage we have much more to win by sharing than by hiding our good ideas. We are building a new arena within publishing that will only grow and prosper through our exchanges with one another. What is working, what is not? What are the main issues to be resolved to move OA publishing forward?
At this week’s webinar we consciously invited panelists that represented very different publishing perspectives in order to capture a breadth of experimentation and best practices. For-profit and non-profit publishers, publishing organizations and library presses, scholar publishers, Europeans and Africans, and even a mixed model publisher were represented. The recording of this event is available here . Unfortunately some technical issues were encountered at the end of the webinar, but overall the session was successful and OASPA looks to follow up this first webinar with new sessions in the future.
COASP was a real catalyst for sharing knowledge. An important outcome of the conference was the need to prioritize the establishment of sub-groups within OASPA. While all open access publishers face the ten challenges outlined by Peter Suber in his key note address, different types of publishers, different regions and different disciplines face more specific challenges and opportunities. In response, OASPA has established a sub-group for mixed model publishers headed by David Ross from SAGE Publications. A sub-group for scholar publishers is also being established, building upon the energy and dialogue established amongst this group at COASP. The need to address open access books publishing was also clearly expressed and OASPA will support the establishment of a sub-group within the organization. We expect proposals for other sub-groups over the next year.
Because an exchange of information should also extend beyond our own membership, OASPA has also established groups in LinkedIn and on Facebook. One need not be an official member of OASPA to join these forums, they are open to anyone. We invite the community to post topics, links to examples and research, etc.
The OASPA blog will also be an important forum for exchanging information. Occasionally blog posts will be from OASPA, but more often blogs will be posted by invited guests to present new activities they are engaged in, etc. Paul Peters of Hindawi Publishing Corporation will edit and coordinate the blog. If you’d like to share something new that your organization or group is working with, let us know.
Looking Ahead
During the next month the OASPA board will hold a special board meeting to discuss the establishment of a sub-committee focused on the financing of open access publishing. In a breakout session at COASP librarians and administrators called upon publishers to aggregate their pre-payment and membership programs, and to possibly work through library consortia to negotiate centralized Open Access funding sources. Professional publishing organizations arrived at a similar suggestion during their session, and this common view of the situation by these two stakeholder groups lends hope to the possibility of creating sustainable funding sources to centrally support Open Access publishing at an institutional, consortial, or possibly even national level.
OASPA members can also expect to see new membership benefits added. A contract has been negotiated with CrossRef to provide scholar publisher members with DOIs through OASPA. This contract will be signed once OASPA is officially registered later this year. A sub-committee is working to define the practicalities of issuing DOIs and we will share information as soon as details are in place. Knowledge Exchange has also offered a discounted rate for OASPA members, and we look to establishing additional arrangements with other organizations supporting OA publishing.
As the newly elected President of OASPA I am excited by the fact that OASPA is taking an active and positive role in the broader community and I look forward to expanding our work in the year to come. On behalf of the Board, I thank all of you who have shown your support during this first year and who will help us move forward into our second year. A special thank you to SPARC Europe for supporting the launch and administration of OASPA.
Caroline Sutton
President, OASPA