OASPA believes that working together with applicants to our organization is the best way to raise standards and build relationships with new open access publishers emerging in the scholarly publishing community. The route of entry into the organization, the membership application stage, remains key to the success of all activities that OASPA carries out and is conducted as rigorously as possible. The annual conference and members meeting provide an environment where and other allied organizations can share their experiences and often set out ways to continue to build on the developments made by their colleagues.
As detailed in previous posts, each individual application to join OASPA is reviewed by a membership committee and board members to ensure that all of the membership criteria are met by the organization. Additional background research is also carried out where appropriate and this may involve a deeper investigation of the background of the organization, or contacting editors or authors. We continue to foster good relationships with other organizations that have a similar review procedure to ourselves.
The following table shows a breakdown of membership applications from 22nd October 2012 to 31st March 2013, since the last OASPA post regarding membership procedures.
| Actual | % | |
| Publishers | 28 | 85 |
| Non-Publishing Organisations | 5 | 15 |
| TOTAL | 33 |
Following the review process, recommendations are often made to applicants to help them to meet the membership criteria. A good deal of time is invested into advising the applicant, tackling individual problems they may have and assisting them with technical queries relating to open access publishing. In the case of smaller organizations who often lack a professional support team, this guidance can often be invaluable and difficult for them to obtain elsewhere, particularly for applicants from developing countries.
The recommendations are made regardless of whether the organization ultimately becomes a member and are aimed to assist the publisher in maintaining high standards in terms of processes and practices as well as the professionalism of the presentation and website.
This table below shows how many applicants have needed to revise processes or information on their websites before formally being admitted to OASPA between 22nd October 2012 and 31st March 2013.
| Actual | % | |
| Modifications made by applicant prior to acceptance | 6 | 55 |
| No changes required | 5 | 45 |
| TOTAL | 11 |
Still the most frequent requirement for modification relates to licensing and how this information is displayed. For smaller publishers and individuals especially, this can be an area that leads to much discussion. OASPA recently published some frequently asked questions on licensing to help applicants negotiate this issue. It may be that a different license needs to be adopted, or it needs to be added to published material or guidelines on the website. Most often applicants are willing to make modifications to their website or reconsider their policies, but some applicants do choose not to resubmit their application, indicated as ‘Dropped’ in the following table, and a smaller number of applications are declined for the time being.
| Actual | % | |
| Rejected | 2 | 12 |
| Accepted | 11 | 64 |
| Dropped | 4 | 24 |
| TOTAL | 17 |
This data above is for all applications received, again from 22nd October 2012 to March 31st 2013, where a final decision has now been made. Currently, there are an additional 34 applications undergoing review by OASPA. Applications show a broad geographic spread and a mix of large and small publishers, individuals/scholar and non-publishing organisations.
Ongoing membership is conditional on continuing to adhere to our code of conduct and members are reviewed periodically to ensure that they still meet the criteria. The criteria themselves and assessment process are also under continual review to ensure that they meet the needs of the growing open access scholarly publishing community.
OASPA has a complaints procedure that will be followed should the activity of an OASPA member organization not be in line with the code of conduct. Anyone with any concerns should contact us directly.
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