Strategies for publishers to make scholarly metadata openly available

Bianca Kramer; Colleen Campbell; Dominic Mitchell; Anne Gentil-Beccot; Mike Nason

doi:10.7557/5.8155

Authors

Bianca Kramer Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5965-6560
Colleen Campbell Max Planck Digital Library https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0105-0099
Dominic Mitchell Directory of Open Access Journals https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2432-7035
Anne Gentil-Beccot European Organization for Nuclear Research https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9199-655X
Mike Nason Public Knowledge Project https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5527-8489

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/5.8155

Keywords:

open research information, open metadata, publishers

Abstract

(Watch the VIDEO.)

Research information, or scholarly metadata, is important for decision making around strategic priorities, distribution of resources, and evaluation of researchers and institutions. It is also used by funders, institutions and governments to assess the effect of policies, and by researchers and societal stakeholders to find and assess research results. The value of openly available research information is increasingly recognized, as it supports fair research assessment and makes it possible for everyone to find and assess relevant research.

Publishers play an important role in this context, as they are an important source of scholarly metadata - including bibliographic metadata for the research articles, books and book chapters, and other research outputs they publish. Many publishers make important metadata, including abstracts, authors and affiliations, references and funding information available via Crossref, including persistent identifiers (ORCID, ROR and funder and grant IDs). However, for many research articles, this metadata is still only available through closed, proprietary systems, if at all.

This panel brings together a number of approaches to support publishers to make metadata for the articles and other outputs they publish openly available. The panel will present and discuss these approaches, including criteria for success, potential challenges and context-specific considerations. Approaches represented on the panel vary from inclusion of open metadata in publisher negotiations, supporting under-resourced publishers, and the SCOAP3 open science mechanism that financially rewards publishers for open science practices, including open metadata. In addition, removing barriers in publisher workflows, from submission systems to metadata depositing, will be discussed.

Given the diversity of publishers in the scholarly communication landscape, from large commercial publishers to scholarly societies and institutional publishers of diamond journals, challenges and solutions for the provision of open scholarly metadata will vary. The panel will invite audience perspectives on the question how publishers can make more and better metadata available as open research information.

Author Biographies

Bianca Kramer, Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information

Bianca Kramer is Executive Director of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, an initiative she helped organize and coordinate. She has a background in research communication and libraries, having worked as scholarly communication/open science librarian at Utrecht University Library for 15 years, before moving to an independent consulting/research analyst role at Sesame Open Science, with a focus on open science, open metadata and open infrastructure - a role she combines with her activities for the Barcelona Declaration.
Colleen Campbell, Max Planck Digital Library

Colleen coordinates the international OA2020 and ESAC initiatives, connecting library and consortium leadership, negotiators, implementation teams, funders, and research leaders worldwide to align and advance open access strategies. She helps stakeholders drive innovation and transformation in scholarly communication by shaping the mechanisms that make transparency, equity, and open science values possible.
Dominic Mitchell, Directory of Open Access Journals

Dominic is Deputy Director of DOAJ and has over 25 years of experience working with publisher and library communities. He has been with DOAJ since 2013. He is responsible for DOAJ's strategic development in the areas of key partner relationships, platform and technology services, outreach and building communities. Dominic acts as Committee Chair for Think. Check. Submit., of which DOAJ is a founding organisation. He spent six years on the OASPA Board of Directors, two of which were as Chair. He oversees the Editorial Committee of the Open Access Journals Toolkit, an initiative launched with OASPA. Dominic leads one of the Barcelona Declaration Taskforces on supporting poorly resourced publishers. This is his fourth Munin conference.
Anne Gentil-Beccot, European Organization for Nuclear Research

Anne Gentil-Beccot works in the CERN Scientific Information Service in Geneva. After many years with the Library team, she is now part of the Open Science section. As the CERN Open Science Coordinator, she is responsible for overseeing Open Science activities within the organization, enabling the implementation of the Open Science strategy, and supporting CERN Open Science Governance. Additionally, she supervises all operations related to the Open Access strategy and community support. She is also a member of the operational team managing the SCOAP3 initiative (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics).
Mike Nason, Public Knowledge Project

Mike Nason is the Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian at the University of New Brunswick and an Open Scholarly Infrastructure Advisor with the Public Knowledge Project. He's a passionate advocate for collective action, open access, cool hats, advancing publishing and metadata literacy, dismantling the cultural trappings of professionalism, and the principles of open scholarly infrastructure.