National approaches to Open Access publishing

Abstract

Open Access implies universal access to scholarly publications. While the goals are global, many of the necessary changes need to be implemented in national settings. The goal of this panel discussion is to highlight various examples of activities and developments in a variety of countries. The session will begin with four lightning talks (6–7 minutes each), in which representatives of Spain, Algeria, the Netherlands, and Lithuania will highlight various aspects of Open Access development in their respective countries. After the lightning talks, there will be a discussion moderated by Iva Melinščak Zlodi, scholarly communication and e-resources librarian at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia).

In Spain, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) has conducted a survey of 254 scholarly journals to see whether they fulfill a variety of standards in the domain of open access publishing. These standards include publication of content under open access licences, the promotion of supplementary material deposition, and the possibility of open peer review, among others. María Ángeles Coslado, responsible fo the journal evaluation process at FECYT will give a lightning talk titled “Raising Open Science through the editorial quality assessment processes of scientific journals: a Spanish perspective.”

A comparable survey on the awareness and implementation of open access among scholarly journals in Algeria was conducted in 2014 by Samir Hachani, professor of library science at the Université d’Alger 2. Since then, Algeria has embarked on a vigorous and ambitious program of implementing open access and open science at the national level. Enhancing the editorial and technical quality is as important as the quantitative increase of open access figures. Hachani will summarize the successes and deficiencies of this program in a lightning talk on “Open Access in Algeria: Ten Years Later”.

"Strengthening Diamond Open Access in the Netherlands (2024–2026)", a program funded by the Universities of the Netherlands and carried out by the Dutch consortium of university libraries (UKB) is in full swing. The project arises from the awareness that Diamond journals are often struggling. With little to no budget, reliance on volunteering, and a culture of evaluation centered on impact factors, Diamond Open Access is not flourishing to its full potential. In her lightning talk, Susanne van Rijn, program manager at the Dutch Academic Library Consortium UKB/Erasmus University Rotterdam will give a short overview of the projects involved.

Another key aspect of the publication landscape is what software scholars choose for their journals. Together with a group of colleagues from Vilnius University In Lithuania, professor at the Faculty of Communication and managing director of Vilnius University Press Arūnas Gudinavičius has investigated the use of software for different stages of the production and publication process of Lithuanian journals. In many cases, a mix of proprietary and open source software is being used. Gudinavičius’s lightning talk is titled “Publishing technologies of scholarly journals: the preferences of using publishing software in a small language country.”