“Working with the Knowledge Integration, Leipzig University, and the wider FOLIO community to develop the Open Access requests management application has been challenging, interesting and fun. As this is (as far as I know) the first time open access request management has been fully integrated with a library service platform, leaps of imagination have been needed from all sides, to envisage how this work will integrate with the wider library service. The flexibility of the FOLIO environment, where we can add new applications as libraries observe the need for them, has made it possible to develop a module independently while ensuring that it fully integrates with the existing electronic resource management (also developed by Knowledge Integration) and the invoicing functionality (developed by EBSCO) relatively easily.
Weekly meetings with the FOLIO open access specialist interest group have provided regular and valuable feedback. This is all part of our iterative consultation process, which enables us to adjust our approach and the functionality in the application as, development, review, and re-development as needed. Through this process we’ve developed innovative approaches to tracking workflows and ensuring all aspects of a request to publish open access articles and books can be recorded and managed. The final application includes:
The ability to record all aspects of an open access request
Checklists for workflow management
The ability to record correspondence in relation to the request and whether there are any related follow-ups that need to happen
The ability to link requests to any transitional or transformational publisher agreements in place at the library, and to report on all open access publications made under a single agreement
Recording charges, including taxes and discounts, in many currencies, with integration into FOLIO’s existing invoicing and finance applications. Making it possible to track a library’s open access expenditure in the same place as the library’s materials budgets
Reporting in OpenAPC compliant formats…”