”Öppen vetenskap är det nya normala” – Stockholms universitetsbibliotek

“As part of the work towards an open scientific system, Stockholm University has been involved in developing a publishing platform together with the company SciFree, where the aim is to offer an alternative way for publishing instead of via the commercial publishers. A lunchtime seminar about the platform was recently held.

– Our mission at the university is to build infrastructures and services to help researchers make the cultural change. That is why we are now testing a platform like Dynamica, says Wilhelm Widmark, head librarian and chancellor’s advisor for open science at Stockholm University.

– We believe that open science is the new normal….”

Stockholm University’s publishing platform | recording of September 2022 interviews with developers

“Soon Stockholm University is to launch its own publishing platform where researchers can publish articles with open peer review and with an open license. A pilot of the platform will be released during Open Access Week 2022, where 50 researchers affiliated with Stockholm University will participate and try the tool for a few months, before it is made available to others as well. Interviewed in this video clip is Wilhelm Widmark, Senior Advisor to the President with operational responsibility for Open Science at Stockholm University, and Abeni Wickham, founder of SciFree and developer of the platform. The interview was originally published in the staff web cast Panorama in September 2022, led by Stefan Nyman at the Communication Team at Stockholm University….”

Skenande kostnader för öppen tillgång – Biblioteksbladet

From Google’s English:  “In 2020, Swedish higher education institutions paid SEK 709 million for scientific literature and openly available articles. This is an increase of SEK 205 million from the previous year.

Almost three quarters of the increased expenditure, 145 million, can be explained by a newly signed agreement with Elsevier, which is one of the largest scientific publishers….

The big difference in expenses between 2019 and 2020 is due to the fact that we did not have an agreement with Elsevier for a year and a half, because we terminated it when we did not want to accept their terms. When we then entered into a new agreement after the termination, the cost came back, explains Wilhelm Widmark, chief librarian at Stockholm University and vice chairman of the Bibsam Consortium, which is the association of Swedish universities, colleges, authorities and research institutes that sign agreements with various publishers….

The goal is for a large part of that transformation to have taken place in 2024, when new agreements take over and the transformative agreements will hopefully be phased out.

– But many publishers probably want to permanent the transformative agreements. If they can continue to publish behind paywalls, they will make more money…”

Malmö University Press – projekt med mål att starta förlag | Medarbetarwebben

From Google’s English:  “On Monday, Rector Kerstin Tham decided on a project directive for her own publishing house at Malmö University. The project’s goal is to create a clear channel for publishing dissertations, monographs, anthologies and journals.

– There is a lot in place already to build on, says Malmö University’s library manager Sara Kjellberg. The important thing now is that Malmö University becomes a clearer publisher and takes responsibility in the development of scientific communication and what happens around open science….”

”Vi vill få ner kostnaderna för publiceringar” | Tidningen Curie

From Google’s English:  “One hundred percent open publishing, lower costs and a transparent pricing model. It is SUHF’s goal for the agreements between Swedish universities and scientific publishers that will replace the current ones that expire in 2024. A newly appointed inquiry will develop the strategy to get there….

We are afraid that the publishers want to permanently have the agreements we have today that we do not consider to be beneficial for the higher education institutions in the long term. If we get caught up in this, we are left to pay both to read and to publish articles and there will be hybrids, where some articles are open and others are not. We want a change in how publications are financed, says Wilhelm Widmark, who is chief librarian at Stockholm University Library and is part of the investigation group….”

Humtank Prize 2020 to the Royal Library – Humtank

From Google’s English:  “Society needs humanistic knowledge. The humanities need to reach out to society. Therefore, for the sixth year in a row, the think tank Humtank awards the Humtank Prize to academics or institutions that have made a meritorious contribution to important humanities perspectives in society. This year’s winner is the Royal Library, and this is the motivation:

 

The Royal Library (KB) has, by opening up its entire digitized newspaper archive on the internet during the corona pandemic, paved the way into the future. In a time marked by copyright and commercial tunnel events, KB gave everyone the opportunity to explore almost 400 years of Swedish news reporting and history – regardless of where they are in the country. A temporary copyright agreement meant that the entire archive could only be accessed freely for a few months, but through the initiative, the library has opened a wide window, which no researcher or good citizen wants to see closed anymore. In a far-sighted and meritorious way, KB has thus shown a genuinely digitized future, where history is free and accessible for everyone to explore.”

Underteckna deklarationen för öppen vetenskap och forskning 2020–2025 | Avoin tiede

“The Declaration for Open Science and Research is the common vision of the Finnish research community. According to the vision, open science and research should be part of the researchers’ everyday lives, and transparency should support both the impact of the various end products that the research results in and the quality of the research. The Finnish research community will also be an international pioneer in open science and research.

The path to realizing the vision is described in the mission of open science and research. The mission is to:

promote openness as a fundamental value in the entire research community’s activities;
strengthen the level of education and innovation in society and 
improve the quality of scientific and artistic research and the teaching materials based on it, and the smooth exchange and impact of research output throughout society, between researchers and research groups, between research areas, between research and education, between researchers and companies, the public sector and third sector and between researchers and community decision-makers as well as citizens. …”

Plan S riskerar forskningens kvalitet | Tidningen Curie

From Google’s English: “Openly available research promotes knowledge exchange and is an important building block in democratic society. But an overly quick transition to open access in accordance with Plan S risks undermining both the quality of research and the opportunities for Swedish researchers for collaboration and impact internationally. It writes 133 social scientists and humanists at the Swedish universities in an open letter about Plan S.”

[Survey on consequences of Swedish cancellation of Elsevier journals]

As you may be aware, Swedish universities and government agencies through the National Library of Sweden and the Bibsam Consortium (the Swedish library consortium) cancelled their agreement with Elsevier 30 June 2018 (https://openaccess.blogg.kb.se/bibsamkonsortiet/qa-about-the-cancellation-of-the-agreement-with-elsevier-commencing-1-july/). Elsevier has not been able to meet the demands of the Bibsam Consortium:

  • immediate open access to all articles published in Elsevier’s journals by researchers affiliated to one of the consortium’s participating organisations;
  • reading access to Elsevier’s 1 900 journals for participating organisations, and
  • a sustainable price model which makes a transition to open access possible.

How has this affected you?…”

Open Access och Big Business Hur Open Access blev en del av de stora förlagen

English title: Open Access and Big Business: How Open Access Became a Part of Big Publishing

Article in Swedish with this English abstract: This study explores the Open Access phenomenon from the perspective of the commercial scientific publishing industry. Open Access has been appropriated by commercial publishers, once sceptical opponents of the concept, as a means among others of distributing scholarly publications. The aim of this study is to highlight a possible explanation as to how this has come about by looking at the internal and external communication of two of the main scholarly publishing industry organizations, the STM Association and the PSP division of the AAP. Via a thematic analysis of documents from these organizations, the dissertation aims to explore how the publishers’ communication regarding Open Access has changed over time. Furthermore, the study takes on how these questions are interlinked with notions of power and legitimacy within the system of scholarly communication. The analysis shows two main themes, one that represents a coercive course of restoring legitimacy, where publishers’ value-adding is stressed and at the same time warning of dangerous consequences of Open Access. The other theme represents a collaborative course of action that stresses the importance of building alliances and reaching consensus. Results show that there has been a slight change in how the publishing industry answers to public policies that enforce Open Access. One conclusion is that this is due to the changing nature of said policies. 

Högskolan Dalarna inför tvångspublicering: nytt Open Access-krav strider mot upphovsrätten »

From Google’s English: “At Dalarna University teachers and researchers no longer entitled to decide for themselves where their articles and books published. According to a new administrative system, researchers must deposit all their scientific works in full text version of the public database DiVA Open Access publishing. ARW estimates that the regulations means an intervention in the researchers’ copyright and academic freedom. Dalarna University are given a deadline of three weeks to conduct self-regulation….”

Tillit till vetenskaplig forskning, till granskning av vetenskapliga artiklar och tillit till Open Access-publikationer | Det Digitala Samhället

From Google’s English: “One of the issues we deal with in DigiTrust project – our specialization in issues related to trust in the digital context – is the issue of trust in knowledge organizations, how this confidence is established; but also, what happens when institutions linked to the creation of knowledge is questioned? …”