The following people have been nominated by their organisations to stand in the OASPA elections for 2020:
Juan Pablo Alperin, Public Knowledge Project (PKP)
Biography
Dr. Juan Pablo Alperin is the Associate Director of Research for the Public Knowledge Project, where he has worked on open source solutions for scholarly publishing for over 10 years. He is also an Assistant Professor at the School of Publishing at Simon Fraser University, where he co-directs the Scholarly Communications Lab. He is a multi-disciplinary scholar, with training in computer science (BMath, University of Waterloo), social science(MA Geography, University of Waterloo), and education (PhD, Stanford University), with interests in a broad range of issues in scholarly publishing, technological and social, but has paid special attention to open access, the public’s use of scholarly work, social media metrics, and academic career incentives, with a special focus on Latin America. Dr. Alperin believes that research, especially when it is made openly available, has the potential to make meaningful and direct contributions to society.
Statement of Interest
I am interested in serving on the board of OASPA in my capacity as an Associate Director of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), whose open source software is used by an estimated 10,000 open access journals around the world. PKP has supported this growing number of open access for over 20 years and is increasingly being called upon to serve as a voice for this diverse and disparate group of primarily
non-commercial and scholar located in the Global South. I believe that I can serve as an interlocutor between this community of
and an organization that shares their commitment to high quality open access publishing. Doing so would not only help to ensure OASPA’s activities support the work of small scholar , it would also provide a platform from which I would be able to articulate the value and relevance of OASPA membership to this community.
I have extensive experience building software for scholarly publishing, which gives me an understanding of the technical challenges open access face. Second, I have travelled extensively speaking to those involved with the research community at all levels, which gives me an understanding of the socio-cultural challenges that publisher’s constituents (i.e. researchers) face. Finally, I am a well-established researcher on scholarly communications, which gives me a unique understanding “as a practice and subject matter” of how science is communicated.
Brian Cody, Scholastica
Biography
Statement of Interest
As Co-Founder and CEO of Scholastica, Brian has spent the last eight years working to help lower technological barriers to publishing high-quality scholarly journals for academy-led publishing programs of all sizes, with a focus on facilitating sustainable open access publishing. Brian is an active member of the OA publishing community and has contributed to many OA forums and educational initiatives. Most recently, he presented an overview of how to apply for inclusion in the full-text biomedical and life sciences archive PubMed Central at the 2020 Library Publishing Forum conference based on his experience supporting Scholastica journals in their indexing efforts. Brian would bring his commitment to advancing OA publishing technology, initiatives, and education to the OASPA board and would be an active board member helping to further OASPA’s mission and activities. As a self-taught software developer, Brian would also bring a unique perspective to the board and could help to facilitate discussions and initiatives around the role of technology in sustainable open access.
Frederick Fenter, Frontiers
Biography
Frederick Fenter is the Executive Editor of Frontiers, the open-access publishing house based in Lausanne Switzerland. He studied chemistry (Ph.D. Harvard, 1990) and conducted research in atmospheric science for a number of years (h=16) before moving into scientific publishing with an appointment as manager of the Inorganic Chemistry Program at Elsevier Science, Lausanne (1997). Since then founded a start-up in publishing technology (FontisMedia SA, Lausanne); advised on the launch of an institutional document repository (InfoScience); and acted as publisher of an English-language University Press (EPFL Press, Lausanne). In 2013 he moved full time to Frontiers, which he had previously advised as a consultant.
As Executive Editor at Frontiers, Fred oversees the editorial boards and operations of 80 open-access journals, covering nearly 900 specialty areas. He also leads Frontiers program in public affairs, including organization of meetings and workshops, and he directs innovative content projects with external third parties.
Fred is a well-known advocate for open science, and is frequently invited to talk about his experiences and perspectives, or to act as a moderator.
Statement of Interest
As the principle forum that brings together the full diversity of voices in open-access publishing, our community will be looking to OASPA for much-needed guidance in the months to come.
For example, publishing business models are adjusting at a rapid pace to new external constraints – such as those proposed by Coalition S. And will have to work more closely and collaboratively with those institutions that seek to better manage publication budgets in an evolving landscape. OASPA can bring collective common sense and order to these developments.
On a higher level, the current pandemic has suddenly made it clear to us all that our message about Open Science is more important than ever, providing OASPA with an exceptional opportunity to lead. The emergency has laid bare the fact that health-related or environmental emergencies can only be effectively addressed if the complete foundation of knowledge – validated results of research and FAIR data – is made available to all researchers and experts.
The Association provides a needed channel for dialogue that allows to discuss innovations and explore best practices, and it has a leading role to play as we, together as a community, develop consensus on how best to move forward. Over the past 25 years, I have seen publishing from many angles and would be honored to bring my experience to this dialogue as an OASPA board member.
Sarah Greaves, Hindawi
Biography
Sarah started out in publishing back in 1999 following a post-doctoral position at NIMR, London and a PhD in Cambridge (Laboratory of Molecular Biology) on cancer genetics. She later undertook a postdoctoral fellowship with the MRC National Institute of Medical Research in London and lectured at Queen Mary University of London. Her desire to communicate science, but to not ‘do science’, lead her to Nature, where she worked as an Associate and then Senior Editor on Nature Cell Biology before moving to Nature Communications, successfully launching the first Nature title to offer Open Access. Following this, she led the strategic proposal and launch of Scientific Reports and developed Open Access spin-off titles for society publications.
For over five years, Sarah served as the Publisher of Nature, and NatureNews, notably leading the first open peer review trial, as well as launching the inaugural Women in Science awards.
After 18 years at Nature Sarah was keen to move to fully open access publishing because of the opportunities this brings for researchers in sharing their work more easily and with a global audience, enabling greater visibility and faster research communication. She joined Hindawi as the Chief Publishing Officer. At Hindawi Sarah works directly with the academic community to move Open Science forward, not just open access. During her time in this role she has focussed on putting the researcher at the heart of everything, relaunched titles with new editorial models and launched numerous initiatives which adhere to Hindawi’s Open Science philosophy.
Sarah is committed to encouraging a wider interest in science through volunteer work with InToUniversity and as a STEM Ambassador. She hopes that her talks and mentoring might inspire secondary school children to consider studying science and to demonstrate the jobs and opportunities a science background can lead to, as well as inspiring them to think about the impact of science on their everyday lives.
Statement of Interest
Throughout my career one thing has remained constant since 1999: my passion for science dissemination, my desire to provide the best possible publishing experience for authors, and my drive for working with the research community to drive change in scholarly communications. A clear example of this was the recent launch of the COVID-19 cross publisher rapid review initiative – led by myself to speed up the publication of COVID-19 papers at this time and starting the first cross publisher transfer of peer reviewer reports.
Open Access has been part of my career since 2005. Moving towards 2021 with the momentum gained through Plan S, this is a crucial time to be involved with and represent fully OA on the OASPA board. There are critical issues facing all of us in OA publishing but those of us who work for organisations which have been OA for many years are often not represented during an era of transformative agreements and transition policies. As someone who has heard a transition to full OA is only five years away for the last 14 years I would relish the chance to be involved with OASPA at the moment this finally comes to fruition.
As an OASPA board member I would aim to represent fully OA (as I have done recently on the Plan S transparent pricing steering group) and all those working within Open Science to drive forward their communities. I am keenly aware of the need to do more with preprint servers, enforce FAIR data, support open abstracts and do whatever we can to increase openness in a way that ultimately serves the academic, our journals and our industry.
Researchers remain the heart of our entire industry and we must never forget what publishing in any of our titles means for them, their research and their careers. During this unprecedented time, the key issues they are facing regarding faster publication, transferable peer reviewer reports, use of preprint servers and the publication of negative and null results will challenge our industry in new and exciting ways. By being of service to them we will ultimately create a more flexible, transparent and dynamic industry, fully equipped to advance science and make a long-lasting impact for future generations.
Stephanie Orphan, Portico
Biography
Stephanie Orphan is the Director of Publisher Relations at Portico, a not-for-profit digital preservation service supported by the academic library and scholarly publishing community. She is responsible for maintaining and expanding publisher participation in the Portico preservation service to ensure ongoing growth and sustainability of the Portico archive. Stephanie’s work to ensure preservation of a broad swath of content expands beyond large-scale traditional to include large and small Open Access , organizations developing new business models for publishing scholarly content, and content creators within academic communities; she was instrumental in introducing an Open Access trigger event model at Portico. Stephanie joined Portico in 2007 as publisher content coordinator prior to which she was editor-in-chief of College and Research Libraries News and web services manager at the Association of College and Research Libraries. She has been a member of OASPA’s board of directors since 2017.
Statement of Interest
It’s an exciting time for OASPA, with initiatives, such as Plan S, driving change in the scholarly publishing space and the organization itself maturing and strategically planning for the future. Now, perhaps more than ever, the OA community needs a place to call home and an association it can rely on for leadership and expertise during these quickly changing times. I see a future of great opportunity for OASPA and the community it supports. OASPA has accomplished so much since its inception, which spans a period during which OA and openness, in general, has come to the fore. Coming from a preservation organization with insight into the publishing practices of a broad range of organizations—as well as activities surrounding open data and open science–I bring a unique perspective to the OASPA board while also expanding my knowledge and understanding of the OA space through my work with OASPA. It has been a pleasure to serve on the board for the past two and half years and to have played a small role in keeping things moving forward. I would be delighted to continue to work as a member of the OASPA board and further contribute to shaping the future of the organization.
Lara Speicher, UCL Press
Biography
Lara’s current role, which she has held for seven years, is Head of Publishing at UCL Press. With senior colleagues at UCL (University College London), Lara set the Press up from scratch as the first fully open access university press in the UK. UCL Press has gone on to publish nearly 150 open access scholarly monographs, build a portfolio of 15 journals, and achieve over 3 million downloads around the world since launching in 2015. Lara has spent her entire career in book publishing, in trade non-fiction and scholarly publishing, and previously held editorial roles at BBC Books and British Library Publishing.
Statement of Interest
I would be very interested in joining the OASPA Board in order to contribute to the development of open access publishing for books and for the arts, humanities and social sciences in particular. I believe that these areas are not as well understood as STEM publishing, and would benefit from having stronger representation in international OA policy development. With the UKRI mandate for open access soon to extend to monographs, and Plan S signalling its intention to extend its policy to books in future, open access for books is rising on the agenda. I would like to be able to contribute the experience I have gained to supporting book and those publishing predominantly in AHSS with their OA activity.
During the last five years, I have been involved in a number of open access initiatives and studies, and have provided consultancy to several institutions from around the world interested in setting up their own OA press. I have also given presentations at numerous international conferences about UCL Press’s open access publishing model.
- I was a member of the UUK (Universities UK) OA Monographs Working Group between 2017-19 and contributed to two of its resulting publications. The work of this group has fed into the development of UKRI’s OA review.
- UCL Press is a member of OPERAS (an organisation based in France, representing the interests of OA publishing throughout Europe) and is involved in its special interest group for OA business models as well as pilots for its Horizon 2020 funded HIRMEOS project.
- I am a member of the AUP (Association of University Presses) OA Working Group, which is predominantly made up of university presses in the USA.
- I sit on the advisory board for University of London Press
- I organised the programme for the 2018 University Press Redux conference, in association with ALPSP, an international conference dedicated to university press publishing
In all of these activities I have worked closely with both well-established who are taking steps to transition to OA, and smaller start-up OA presses, as well as the platforms, funders and services that support their activity. I have therefore gained a strong understanding of the challenges facing a wide range of both commercial and non-commercial in different countries. I hope that my experience would be useful to OASPA.
Vincent WJ van Gerven Oei, punctum books
Biography
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei studied composition at the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, linguistics at Leiden University and UMass Amherst (MA, 2005), and ArtScience at the Royal Art Academy, The Hague (MMus, 2007). He holds a PhD in Media and Communications from the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee (2011, summa cum laude), and a PhD in Modern Thought from the University of Aberdeen (2017). In 2011, he founded publishing house Uitgeverij, and in 2016 he joined punctum books as co-director and Chief Financial Officer.
In addition to his work for punctum, Vincent has hands-on experience in the Dutch non-profit landscape, having served on the board of several cultural institutions, including the Leiden Linguistics Student Association TWIST and Stichting Zeebelt (The Hague), while also serving on the Committee for Creative Development of the Municipality of The Hague.
Founded in 2011, punctum books is a fully OA publisher which charges no author-facing fees. Over the years, punctum books has been a prominent voice in the scholarly publishing and scholarly communications landscape, both in terms of its advocacy for public access to publicly funded knowledge, and through its emphasis on the importance of community-owned open infrastructure for the transition to a more fully OA scholarly publishing landscape. Therefore, punctum books is engaged in multiple partnerships focused on building open infrastructures, such as with the Coko Foundation who are developing open-source book publishing software (Editoria), and we are also one of the main partners in the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project funded by Research England and the Arcadia Foundation.
Vincent plays a central role in these partnerships, as well in punctum books’ unique partnership with University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) Library, centered around open books in the humanities and social sciences, and modelling new modes of collaboration in scholarly communications between and academic libraries. He also actively contributes to public debates around scholarly publishing and open access (see, for example, his recent piece “Viral Open Access in the Times of a Global Pandemic”: https://punctumbooks.pubpub.org/pub/viral-open-access-global-pandemic-covid-19-corona/).
Statement of Interest
The platform that I propose for my candidacy to the OASPA board is based on three principles: publicly funded knowledge ought to be freely accessible; open access requires open infrastructure; without the inclusion of non-Western scholcomm perspectives, open access cannot be equitable.
OASPA represents the interests of open access in a scholarly communications landscape that is rapidly evolving, through the introduction of initiatives such as Plan S, the cancellation of package deals with commercial publishing conglomerates, and the rise of transformative agreements. All of these developments have both led to a broadening and diversification of the open access debate and business models, as testified by the proliferation of “open” solutions, variants, and colors, but has also obfuscated the basic ethical imperative that provides the foundation of open access: publicly funded research ought to be freely available to the public. Leadership in the scholarly publishing field means to actively promote this as the core tenet of open access publishing, as a horizon of equity.
It is becoming increasingly clear that without a commitment and further development of open scholarly infrastructure, open access publishing will continue to be vulnerable to form of commercial capture that open access was intended to resist and change. The OA Switchboard, initiated by OASPA, is an example of such infrastructure that should provide a durable foundation for open access publishing models to thrive in the long term. At the same time, outreach to and active collaboration with open source development communities that are working on different aspects of scholarly communications could further enhance the future prospects of open access and facilitate further innovation in the field.
Finally, it is clear that the membership of OASPA is still primarily centered around Western academic publishing, whereas the Global South both has extensive and useful experience with OA infrastructure (for example in South America), and is most in need of access to scholarly literature. Open access will not be equitable as long as those voices are not given significantly more prominence within the open access debate, both within OASPA and within the wider scholarly publishing community.
Franck Vazquez, MDPI
Biography
Franck graduated with a Ph.D. in Life and Health Sciences in 2004 from the University of Lille. After completing two post-docs at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research and at the University of Basel, he led his own research group for more than 4 years. During his research career he published 30 peer-reviewed articles, which have been cited more than 4000 times.
Franck shifted career and joined MDPI in 2014 to have a broad impact on Science by contributing to make Open Access to scientific knowledge a reality. As Chief Scientific Officer, his mission is to serve science, to ensure that the latest research is available quickly, without barriers and to serve rapidly-evolving needs of the scientific communities through various initiatives and new projects.
Statement of Interest
Open Science which includes open access to scholarly research communication, to research data (open data), open science tools, or open source codes, is part of a global sustainability transformation taking place worldwide.
My goal is to contribute to accelerate the sustainable transformation of the academic landscape, including publishing, data sharing, reproducibility and the important topic of researchers’ evaluation.
OASPA will certainly play a role in accelerating this transformation by supporting the development of necessary frameworks and structures.
OASPA will continue to greatly influence the publishing landscape, by directly listening to and cooperating with scholars, their universities, institutions and libraries. By joining the board of OASPA I aim to contribute to these major efforts and contribute to promote scholarly openness and scientific knowledge dissemination.