openCost: the road to publication cost transparencyOn-Site

5 Oct 2022, 12:50 → 7 Oct 2022, 13:40 Europe/Berlin

SR I - III (DESY - CFEL)

Expert workshop

05th - 07th October 2022
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg

 

The DFG funded project „openCost" creates a technical infrastructure to comprehensively record publication cost data, make them openly distributable by means of standardized interfaces, and accessible by well known platforms like EZB, OpenAPC or the the OpenAccess Monitor.

Besides presenting first results from openCost itself the main goal of the workshop is to create an opportunity for knowledge exchange between national and international experts in the field. It will allow them to present their perspectives in the area of publication costs and cost transparency and report on their experiences to ensure openCost is internationally adoptable.

The expert workshop will summarizes the desiderata of the individual participants and the bodies they represent. These results will serve as a starting point to enhance and fine tune the current internal proposal for a metadata schema jointly developed by the openCost core members DESY Library for the JOIN² collaboration and the university libraries of Bielefeld (e.g. OpenAPC and the OpenAccess activities there) and Regensburg (electronic journals database and the OpenAccess projects there).

With contributions from AT2OA, California Digital Library, Forschungszentrum Jülich, JISC, National Library of Finland, OA Switchboard, Open Access Monitor and Unpaywall and others.

For more information about the workshop and the hotel contingent, please visit our website.

Poster expert workshop "openCost: the road to publication cost transparency"

Wednesday, 5 October

1 Arrival & Registration

2 Welcome

Representatives of DESY and the project openCost officially welcome the participants and open the workshop. The project partners will also provide a brief introduction to openCost.

Speakers: Alexander Wagner (L (L Bibliothek)), Ties Behnke (DESY)

Open Cost Welcome.pptx

The openCost project: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron DESY, University Libraries Bielefeld and Regensburg

Beschreibung folgt

Conveners: Dr Alexander Wagner (L (L Bibliothek)), Mr Christoph Broschinski (Bielefeld University Library), Dr Gernot Deinzer (University Library of Regensburg), Mrs Julia Bartlewski (Bielefeld University Library)

3 Using the institutional repository to store data related to payments

At the University of Regensburg, all payments for publications must be made by the library. The fees, invoices and additional payment information are stored with the document in the repositorium. We present the metadata schema used, the provision via the oai interface, and the statistical analysis.

Speaker: Dr Gernot Deinzer (University Library of Regensburg)

2022_10_04_OpenCost_Gernot_Deinzer.pptx

4 JOIN² and openCost

Founded more than 10 years ago, the JOIN² collaboration brings together eight research institutions for the development and operation of a full-fledged shared scholarly publication database and repository based on the Invenio open source framework for large-scale digital libraries. Preferring simplicity to complexity one of our corner stones is to build on well-defined work flows. This enabled JOIN² to extend it's services from representing the scholarly output of the member institutions to serve as the open access repository on site and gradually add additional services. One of these is the management of publication cost data along side the publications within the repository. From the start we headed to model all cost we came across in scholarly publishing, be it open or closed access to further cost transparency. This naturally led JOIN² to be one of the core members of openCost, with DESY representing the collaboration.

After a very short introduction who we are the talk focuses on the status of JOIN² as an openCost cost data provider and makes a suggestion how we could imagine to expose our data to other services like OpenAPC. This includes a suggestion for a metadata format as well as the structure on how to expose it for easy automatic aggregation

Speaker: Alexander Wagner (L (L Bibliothek))

Slides: JOIN² and openCost (via pubdb)

Wed-Wagner_join2-Handout.pdf

Wed-Wagner_join2-Slides.pdf

5 Extension of the OpenAPC infrastructure as part of the openCost project

The OpenAPC initiative collects and disseminates datasets on fees paid for open access publishing under an open database license. OpenAPC is operated by BielefeldUniversity Library. The aims of OpenAPC are transparency and reproducibility of OA costs, as well as to illustrate the development of costs over time.
The current OpenAPC metadata schema is to be extended as part of the openCost project in order to enable collecting additional cost information, such as color orpage charges, in a structured and standardized way. So far, data is mainly reported as csv-files to OpenAPC, either via email or as pull requests on GitHub. As an important element of the project, OpenAPC plans to expand the harvesting of metadata and costdata. In the openCost project, this will be done exemplarily for the repositories of the partner institutions. The talk presents the first results and serves as a starting point for the extension of the metadata schema.

Speakers: Christoph Broschinski (Bielefeld University Library), Julia Bartlewski (Bielefeld University Library)

Bartlewski_Broschinski_opencost_openapc.pdf

16:00 Coffe break

Knowledge exchange between national and international experts: Forschungszentrum Jülich, California Digital Library and Sikt

Conveners: Dr Bernhard Mittermaier (Forschungszentrum Jülich), Mr Jens Aasheim (Sikt), Mr Mathew Willmott (California Digital Library)

6 Key Note: Information budget

The transformation of scientific publishing into Open Access is the impetus for a holistic view of the expenditure for access to scientific literature and for publishing. What happens on a small scale in a Publish & Read contract must also be the general approach for all expenditures and their funding, in accordance to the demand from funders (DFG, German Research Foundation) and policy advice (WR, German Science and Humanities Council). This presentation gives a proposal for an information budget both in its entire breadth, and in the details necessary for practical implementation. This is implemented for the expenditure side as well as for the sources of funding.

Speaker: Dr Bernhard Mittermaier (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

2022-10-05 Informationsbudget.pptx

7 Managing publication costs at the California Digital Library

Starting in 2019, the California Digital Library (CDL) has been negotiating transformative open access agreements with publishers on behalf of the ten campusesof the University of California (UC), which represents almost 10% of the publication output of the United States. Under the current set of agreements approximately half of all articles with a UC corresponding author are eligible to be made OA, most of whichinvolve payment of publication fees by the library using redirected subscription funds, and sometimes in part by the author. This presentation will discuss how these fees are calculated depending on the structure of the agreement, tracked, and paid by CDLand some UC authors. In addition, it will explore the potential benefits of standardization and transparency in publication fees for the administration of existing agreements and the development of new ones.

Speaker: Mr Mathew Willmott (California Digital Library)

8 License Agreement and Publication Cost from a Norwegian Perspective

Sharing experiences on acquiring, handling and using cost data. As the national Open Access coordinator and managing the Norwegian license consortium, Sikt processes a wide variety of data associated with the cost ofpublishing and agreements.

Speaker: Mr Jens Aasheim (Sikt)

jens_aasheim_opencost_2022_norwegian_publication_cost_v01.pptx

Thursday, 6 October

Knowledge exchange between national and international experts: JISC, AT2OA2, National Library of Finland and Transform2Open

Conveners: Mrs Amy Devenney (Jisc), Mr Christian Kaier (University Library of Graz), Mr Timo Vilén (The National Library of Finland)

9 Exploring the total cost of ownership

Since 2015/2016 Jisc has been collecting institutional expenditure on open access publishing, alongside the subscription expenditure, to enable oversight of the total cost of ownership and to more fully understand the trends in open access publishing. This paper will provide an overview of this exercise and offer analytical insights derived from the six years of data available. It will also discuss the evolution of business models since 2016 and explore the impact on the exercise, particularly the increase of Transitional Agreements. The paper will then discuss the metrics used to evaluate the financial value of Transitional Agreements, at both the sector and institutional level, before concluding with an overview of our intentions to re-format the existing exercise to continue capturing institutional expenditure on open access publishing. The new exercise intends to capture any APC expenditure outside the Transitional Agreements to enable holistic oversight of sector expenditure and an awareness of all the stakeholders, as well as reducing the administrative burden on institutions.

Speaker: Amy Devenney (Jisc)

openCost_Devenney.pptx

10 Open Access Cost Monitoring at Austrian Universities

After a short overview of Austrian Transition to Open Access Two (AT2OA2), a national project supporting Open Access, the presentation will focus on the status quo regarding Open Access Cost Monitoring at Austrian Universities as well as on approaches to improve documentation and transparency regarding publication costs. The following aspects will be addressed: capturing and displaying (Open Access) publication costs in accounting and other systems, fostering collaboration across the institution, raising awareness for publication costs at the management level, designing workflows to gather and monitor all kinds of publication costs (centrally and locally funded cost, transformative agreements etc.), as well as improving the reporting of (Open Access) publication costs in statistics.

Speakers: Mr Christian Kaier (University Library, University of Graz), Mrs Kerstin Grossmaier-Stieg (University Library, Medical University of Graz)

Grossmaier-Stieg Kaier AT2OA2 openCost.pdf

11:00 Coffee break

11 Cost Monitoring in Finland

In my presentation, I’ll look at the current state of cost monitoring in Finland, drawing on my experience as the leader of FinELib’s APC project and the chair of an expert group chargedwith reviewing the total costs of OA for Finland. I’ll describe our approach including our attempts to harness the Finnish VIRTA Publication Information Service for the purposes of cost monitoring and not forgetting some of the challenges encountered alongthe way. Questions I seek to address also include: What do we know (or think we know) already and what other aspects we should consider to get a better picture of the various costs associated with scholarly publishing?

Speaker: Timo Vilén (The National Library of Finland)

Vilen_slides_Project_Open_Cost_Workshop_final.pdf

12 Transform2Open - Cost monitoring, criteria, competencies, and processes of the Open Access transformation

The DFG-funded Transform2Open project addresses the development of budgets, criteria, competencies, and related processes at research-performing organizations around the financial dimensions of the Open Access transformation.
The Transform2Open project supports transformation activities at research institutions in Germany through the following actions:
(1) Improving and further developing cost monitoring; (2) promoting the interplay of library budgets, third-party funding, and other financial resources at research institutions to create overarching information budgets; (3) further development of criteria for contracts with commercial publication service providers, optimizing workflows around the handling of publications and associated metadata and invoices; (4) promoting transparency around the financial framework of the OA transformation and identifying organizational structures and (5) competence profiles for professionals involved in Open Access transformation at research institutions.
Transform2Open organizes dialog forums and develops actions of recommendation for strategies, concepts, and measures for shaping the Open Access transformation at universities and non-university research institutions.
The project ensures the successful interaction of various transformative efforts with the DEAL project and other initiatives and projects in Germany.
Partners of the Transform2Open project are the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Helmholtz Association's Open Science Office, and the Potsdam University Library.

Speaker: Mr Tobias Hoehnow (Universität Potsdam)

transform2open.pdf

Hands-on Labs: Introduction and topics

13:00 Lunch break

Hands-on Labs: Working on a standardized metadata schema

Conveners: Dr Alexander Wagner (L (L Bibliothek)), Mr Christoph Broschinski (Bielefeld University Library), Dr Gernot Deinzer (University Library of Regensburg)

13 Institutional agreements, memberships, shared payments, and articles without persistent identifier

The content of this hands-on lab is to consider payments that cannot be clearly assigned to a publication. Cases are agreements with publishers, multiple payments for one publication or no assignment with a persistent identifier.

Speaker: Dr Gernot Deinzer (University Library of Regensburg)

14 Metadata schema

Based on the preliminary work of the project partners, their initial proposal for a metadata schema is discussed with the participants in order to fix any missingelements or inaccuracies. This will involve defining mandatory and optional elements, their format and any processing rules that may be necessary.

Speakers: Mr Christoph Broschinski (Bielefeld University Library), Mrs Julia Bartlewski (Bielefeld University Library)

Broschinski_Bartlewski_metadata_schema.pdf

15 Terminology

Today, quite a few terms exist to describe cost data. Still, as of now the precise definitions of those terms are often unclear or there exist several terms that describe seemingly the same entity. A well known example in the area of scholarly publishing is the "colour game" of Open Access (green, bronze, gold, platinum, diamond etc.) While several definitions exist there is still no definite answer once it comes to the nitty-gritty details.

For the automatic exchange of meta data as envisioned by openCost, however, unambiguous, clear definitions of terms are of utmost importance. Wrong assignments will simply degrade data quality or even render data useless. Furthermore, the minted terms need to be easily understood by our colleagues
processing publication fees while they especially face a plethora of terms coined by the publishers on their bills.

During this hands-on-lab we want to discuss with the participants

• in which areas definitions are required
• which existing vocabularies may come to aid
• how we can ensure general acceptance of the definitions found
• how we would react to changes in the future
• how we can maintain vocabularies
• how to ensure future extensibility

We will start out with a proposal of terms that are in use within the JOIN² collaboration for several years now, that is however, mainly meant as a starting point.

Speaker: Mr Alexander Wagner (L - Bibliothek)

16:30 Coffe break

New services and subsequent use: Electronic Journals Library (EZB) and Unpaywall

Conveners: Mr Jason Priem (OurResearch), Mrs Silke Weisheit (University Library of Regensburg)

16 Spreading publication cost information with the Electronic Journals Library (EZB)

The Electronic Journals Library (EZB) provides information on more than 110,000 electronic journals from all subject areas, including 74,000 freely available titles. Over 650 libraries and research institutions jointly maintain the EZB data, which is of high quality and up to date.

EZB data are used for various user services and numerous services for the supply of literature and research information. In the openCost project, the EZB will be expanded to include special functions for displaying publication costs, which will also be made available for further use.

Speaker: Mr Colin Sippl (University Library of Regensburg)

EZB Spreading Publication Cost Information.pptx

17 The Importance of Publication Costs in Unsub and OpenAlex

OpenAlex is an open index of millions of interconnected entities across the global research system. Unsub leverages data from OpenAlex to help libraries reevaluate their serials collections options. For costs, Unsub forecasts currently incorporate a-la-carte title subscription prices. We would like to incorporate APCs into Unsub to be able to account for institutional spend on APCs; and we hope this APC data can come from OpenAPC/openCost. We think this can be a win-win situation in which Unsub users are encouraged to contribute APC data to OpenAPC/openCost, from which Unsub can leverage to account for APC spend. In addition, we’re interested in adding cost data to OpenAlex, including journal level APC costs, and article level APC costs.

Speaker: Mr Scott Chamberlain (Our Research)

chamberlain_scott.pdf

20:00 Conference Dinner

For the conference dinner we have arranged a table at a restaurant near the train station Holstenstraße. From the conference it is reached easily by bus No 3 or X3 towards the city centre and get off at Holstenstraße. The train service from downtown or Altona would be the line S31 till Holstenstraße.

Friday, 7 October

18 Wrap up Hands-on Labs

Presentation of the lab results, wrap up & discussion

Speakers: Alexander Wagner (L (L Bibliothek)), Mr Dirk Pieper (Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld), Gernot Deinzer (University Library of Regensburg)

10:45 Coffe break

New services and subsequent use: Forschungszentrum Jülich and OA Switchboard

Conveners: Ms Campfens Yvonne (OA Switchboard), Mrs Irene Barbers (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

19 Publication cost transparency and the Role of the Open Access Monitor Germany

The Open Access Monitor Germany (OAM) records the publication output of German academic institutions in scientific journals and offers a freely available tool for analysis of the aggregated datasets to libraries, funders, and researchers. Through analyses of subscription fees and publication fees, the OAM helps to monitor and support the transition of the publishing system towards open access. With the existing OpenAPC integration, the OAM has already implemented basic functions for working with cost data. Gold OA and Hybrid OA publication fees are displayed in the OAM interface, where additional grouping and representation options to those in OpenAPC are offered. As a next step towards a more complete cost transparency, the OAM will benefit from the data exchange enabled by OpenCost. In addition to the fees mentioned above, the OAM will collect via OpenAPC, and in return provide, additional cost data for example on color charges or page charges.
The second part of the presentation describes the role of the OAM in relation to funders. The OAM offers support to institutions applying for funding in the DFG’s new Open Access Publication Funding program. By providing a specific filter set for the journal portfolios covered by transformative agreements and a curated list of open access journals that meet the DFG’s funding criteria, the OAM enables institutions to collect the data required for their applications. At the same time, the OAM team is responsible for monitoring the publication output from participating institutions. We are building a dedicated database for the monitoring of the program’s output and related costs, and establish a yearly reporting to the DFG. The Open Access Monitor will ingest the data from the monitoring database if participating institutions are agreeable and will offer ready-to-use analyses for the whole program but also on the institutional level. The monitoring data will be in turn be delivered to OpenAPC.

Speaker: Mrs Irene Barbers (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

Barbers_Open-Access-Monitor_.pdf

20 How the OA Switchboard fits into the ecosystem with collaboration and transparency built-in

The OA Switchboard is a mission-driven, community led initiative designed to simplify the sharing of information between stakeholders about open access publications throughout the whole publication journey. It provides a standardised messaging protocol and shared infrastructure that is designed to operate and integrate with all stakeholder systems. Currently 19 publishers are live and operational with the first use case: 'reporting made easy'. To date, they have sent over 150,000 notifications 'messages' to relevant stakeholders in these publications, with metadata about authors, affiliations, article and cost.

Speaker: Mrs Yvonne Campfens (OA Switchboard)

20221006_openCost Hamburg_YvonneCampfens7Oct2022.pptx

21 Closing