Transformative agreements and their practical impact: a librarian perspective – Insights

Abstract:  This case study aims at describing how transformative agreements (TAs) have affected our profession with new tasks and workflows at two university libraries in Sweden, namely Karolinska Institutet University Library and Södertörn University Library. TAs are one of the mechanisms by which scientific publications are made open access; they involve moving libraries’ contracts with publishers from payment to read toward payment to publish. We will summarize the status and progress of open access in Sweden, in particular the significant growth of TAs over a short time span. We will then focus on describing how TAs have affected our everyday work and what new tasks they have imposed. We will share our experiences and point out things we find challenging, for example, we will explore questions about eligibility, the verification process, publication types and title changes during the contract period. We will also give some recommendations on how we would prefer the workflows surrounding the TAs to be. Finally, we will share our conclusions and comments about the impact of TAs on the publishing landscape and speculate about what will happen next.

 

We accelerate the transition to Open Science | EOSC Association

“How to accelerate the transition to Open Science? Join us!

Join us for an upcoming event at the Nordic House in Brussels, on June 12th.

As part of the build-up to the Swedish Presidency conference on “The Potential of Research Data”, the EOSC Association, alongside its esteemed Swedish members, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the Swedish Research Council (VR), will be hosting a remarkable joint session on Accelerating the Transition to Open Science: the possible pathways for impact to accelerate the transition to Open Science as the norm for scientific publishing.

This highly anticipated gathering will take place after work on Monday, 12 June, at 17:30, and is hosted at the EOSC Association headquarters located at Rue du Luxembourg 3 in Brussels….”

Open Science – From Policy to Practice | 16–17 May 2023, Stockholm

“The “Open Science – From Policy to Practice” conference will highlight different perspectives of shaping, implementing and embedding Open Science. The aim is to exchange knowledge, share best practices and to discuss how Open Science can contribute to strengthening sustainable futures and democracies in and beyond the European Union. The event will take place in Stockholm on 16–17 May 2023 and will be streamed to facilitate online participation. Access to, and sharing of research results and data. The understanding of, and engagement in research. Direct involvement of stakeholders and citizens in the research process. …Join policy makers and other stakeholders from across Europe to discuss ways to embed and transfer Open Science policies into practice at different levels and sectors….”

How to publish in SU Dynamica – YouTube

“This video is an introduction to the publishing platform SU Dynamica and how to use it, made by PhD Abeni Wickham, founder of Scifree and creator of SU Dynamica.

Read also the article published at Stockholm University Library, which is a summation of a seminar held 14 March, 2023….”

Lunch seminar: The new publishing platform Dynamica – Staff

“Do you want your research to be published open access, peer-reviewed and shared with others at one place – without charges or middle hands? Join a seminar about Dynamica, a new publishing platform developed by Stockholm University and SciFree, where researchers themselves are in charge of their work.

Open science is practice at Stockholm University, in line with government goals and recommendations from the European Union as well as financiers. Even though a lot of work has been done, with high numbers of articles being published in open access journals, Stockholm University is now taking another step forward towards an even more transparent and economically sustainable system for academic publishing.

What is Dynamica?

In Dynamica, researchers at Stockholm University can publish articles open access with a CC BY license. The articles are peer-reviewed openly in the same platform. The aim is to offer an alternative publishing route instead of via the commercial publishers. Now, the developing team are looking for researchers at Stockholm University who wish to contribute to the development of the platform, by submitting articles and give feedback for improvement….”

Opportunities, shortcomings and challenges of open science | GOV.SI

“In the area of research infrastructures, the Swedish presidency proposed that ministers focus on the issue of data-driven research infrastructures as a basis for enabling and facilitating both the research process and the transfer into practice of the knowledge generated. In addition to the necessary investment in data capacity, the challenge is to create a system where research data can be found, accessed, reused and made interoperable between different systems, the so-called Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principle. Coordination between EU Member States, the European Commission and stakeholders in this area is mainly through the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

Among the framework conditions to be achieved for the realisation of open science, the most frequently mentioned by EU Member States were:

 reforming the system of research assessment to foster a research culture of open science;
creating incentives for data sharing;
integrating research infrastructures, including data infrastructures, into the European Open Science Cloud and coordinating EU Member States through the Cloud;
training researchers to implement the FAIR principle in their work;
developing appropriate data management plans as well as a framework (indicators) to monitor success in achieving these objectives….”

Briefing document on strengthening high-quality, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing

“To increase the quality and impact of research, research results need to be timely disseminated and easily reused, both within the scientific community and to society in general….

Research results made open access immediately upon publication leads to more researchers being able to validate and build on previous results, which contributes to maintaining and promoting a high quality of research, and to strengthen trust in research. Open access to research results also strengthens the use and impact of research in society at large, e.g. for industry and the public sector…. 

The potential of the digital revolution for scholarly publishing has not yet been fully realized, notably in relation to the expanding range of increasingly important research outcomes such as datasets and software….”

Briefing document on strengthening high-quality, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing

“To increase the quality and impact of research, research results need to be timely disseminated and easily reused, both within the scientific community and to society in general….

Research results made open access immediately upon publication leads to more researchers being able to validate and build on previous results, which contributes to maintaining and promoting a high quality of research, and to strengthen trust in research. Open access to research results also strengthens the use and impact of research in society at large, e.g. for industry and the public sector…. 

The potential of the digital revolution for scholarly publishing has not yet been fully realized, notably in relation to the expanding range of increasingly important research outcomes such as datasets and software….”

RDA 20th Plenary Meeting – Gothenburg (Hybrid) | RDA

“The Research Data Alliance will celebrate its 10th Anniversary Plenary Meeting on 21-23 March 2023 in Sweden, going back to where RDA was launched in March 2013. Following on from the success of the 19th Plenary meeting held in a hybrid format for the first time, P20 will take place in Sweden’s second-largest city – Gothenburg.  

Hosted by Chalmers University of Technology, the University of Gothenburg and the Swedish National Data Service (SND), a three-day hybrid conference will once again bring together researchers, data scientists, policymakers, and data stewards from disciplines from all over the world to share new ideas and explore best practices in using data. 

RDA P20 will take place at the Lindholmen Conference Centre. The centre is located on the north side waterfront of the Göta Canal in Gothenburg. The venue offers a highly technological environment and opens its doors to many local and international events throughout the year. The waterfront offers breathtaking architecture with many cosy Swedish restaurants and cafes offering traditional food. The conference centre’s location in Gothenburg means that it is only a 4 minutes Älvsnabben ferry ride into the city centre….”

Domain Registry Takes Sci-Hub’s .SE Domain Name Offline * TorrentFreak

“Sci-Hub, a shadow library that offers a free gateway to paywalled academic research, has lost control over one of its main domain names. Sci-Hub.se was deactivated by The Internet Foundation in Sweden, which manages the country’s .se domains. The action came without warning and took Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan by surprise.”

DataCite Connect Gothenburg

“The DataCite Connect event in Gothenburg provides a forum for discussion and networking for DataCite members and the broader community. The session will focus on national PID and Open Science strategies and how the DataCite community can engage in, contribute to, and support their implementation. Participants will learn about on-going efforts across different regions and will have the chance to work together to identify and discuss alignments between national strategies and their current/future plans that leverage the DataCite infrastructure and services. The outcomes of the meeting will help DataCite members and community to better understand the PID landscape in other regions, connect with PID champions and establish new collaborations. There will be plenty of time for Q&A!

This is an in person event that will not be recorded or streamed. Slides of the speakers will be made available afterwards. Make sure to use the hashtag #DataCiteConnect23 when sharing your experience on socials….”

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….”

Stricter requirements for science to be open access – Stockholm University Library

“The demands on research data and science results to be open access are intensified. But how does it work in practice? During this year’s Open Access Week, which runs from 24-30 October, the issue is in focus.

That tax funded research should be open access is a common goal in the political sphere as well as at the Swedish universities. Of the 3,868 peer-reviewed scientific articles published at Stockholm University in 2021, 87 percent were published with open access in some form. But the goal is 100 percent.

And with a new policy for open science, Stockholm University is gearing up the transition to an open scientific system. The same development takes place in the rest of the world, most recently in the United States where the White House recently decided that federally funded research should be made open access immediately upon publication.

– It is interesting that the United States is now following Europe and what the EU is doing, and is setting strict requirements for open access to data, articles and books. It changes the game plan for us in relation to the scientific publishers, says Wilhelm Widmark, Senior Advisor to the President with operational responsibility for Open Science at the university. …”

Physical Review Journals – APS and the Bibsam Consortium Open Access Agreement

APS and the Bibsam Consortium Open Access Agreement

The Bibsam Consortium (Bibsam) consists of Swedish universities, colleges, state research institutions and other authorities that have jointly signed licensing agreements. APS has undertaken an open access agreement with Bibsam to advance open science and research collaboration.

Read and Publish Agreement Terms and Conditions

Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
Licensee: The Bibsam Consortium (Bibsam)
Agreement Period: January 1, 2021 – December 31, 2022, inclusive of both dates
Member Institutions: Please review the list of participating institutions included in this agreement.
Read Access: Through this agreement, authorized users affiliated with one or more Bibsam Member Institutions may obtain electronic access to the following online, licensed materials, including Physical Review Journals and related publications and products:

all peer-reviewed Physical Review Journals published by APS
Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA)
Physics Magazine …”

UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science – Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU

“In late 2021, the UNESCO General Assembly approved a new Recommendation on Open Science. All the member states agreed on a final version, that for the first time provides an official definition of what open science is, and that calls for legal and policy changes in favor of open science. As a recommendation is the strongest policy tool of UNESCO, “intended to influence the development of national laws and practices”, this is important news for the entire scientific community. 

The recommendation presents a framework on, and principles for, open science. It aims to build a common understanding on the topic, and calls for publicly funded research to be aligned with the principles: transparency, scrutiny, critique and reproducibility; equality of opportunities; responsibility, respect and accountability; collaboration, participation and inclusion; flexibility, and sustainability. 

It asks for more dialogue between the public and the private sector, and for new, innovative means and methods to be developed for open science. Finally, the recommendation stresses the importance of citizen science and crowdsourcing, and the need for cooperation between different kinds of actors, nationally and internationally.

In Sweden, the recommendation is currently being discussed with stakeholders. A few weeks ago, Wikimedia Sverige was invited by the Swedish National UNESCO Commission to a round table conversation on the subject. Other than Wikimedia Sverige, organisations and institutions such as the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions, the Swedish Research Council, the Ministry for Education and the National Library, took part – many of those who will bear the largest responsibility for putting the recommendations in practice. …”