Weekly digest: OA agreements, International Open Access Week 2023 and usage rights

Mark Elms

This week, we read about a new open access agreement between UK universities and Springer Nature. We hear about this year’s theme for International Open Access Week in October, and we also read about usage rights indicators on publication platforms. We also hear about an open access agreement between PLOS and the University of Padua. Finally, we highlight the first public meeting of ICOR and an upcoming week of celebrations for 10 years of DORA.

To read:

Open access agreement struck between UK universities and Springer Nature via STM Publishing News | 3-minute read

Unlimited open access publishing in Springer Nature and Palgrave Macmillan hybrid journals is now available to authors from over 140 UK universities. This is the result of a 3-year deal struck by the Universities UK and Jisc content negotiation strategy group with the publisher Springer Nature. As well as open access publishing, the deal also allows these authors to access publications for free in more than 2500 Springer Nature journals, including Nature, the Nature research journals, and the Palgrave Macmillan portfolio.

2023 International Open Access Week via SPARC | 2-minute read

The theme for the 2023 International Open Access Week, taking place between 23 and 29 October 2023, has been announced. This year’s theme will be Community over Commercialization, which aims to encourage discussion about how open scholarship can be implemented to prioritize the interests of the academic community and wider society over commercial interests. You can learn more about the 2023 theme and keep up to date with announcements about the week here.

Navigating copyright laws: how are usage rights indicated on publication platforms? via The Scholarly Kitchen | 10-minute read

The labyrinth of copyright laws can often be difficult to navigate. This article, written by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (Affiliate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Annika Deutsch (Master’s Student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), looks at how publication platforms indicate the copyright usage rights for published articles. This includes what language and format are used and the discoverability of the indicators. This evaluation is part two of a series on the topic of usage rights indicators. You can read the previous article here.

The Italian job: PLOS announces open access agreement in Italy via PLOS | 4-minute read

PLOS has announced an open access agreement with the University of Padua in Italy. This agreement allows authors affiliated to the university to publish their research in all PLOS journals without having to pay any article processing charges. The University of Padua joins the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the University of California system, the Center for Research Libraries, NorthEast Research Libraries, Jisc, the Sachsen and TIB consortia, and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network who have all struck similar agreements with PLOS.

To engage with:

The inaugural public meeting of ICOR via ICOR

Incentivizing Collaborative Open Research (ICOR) was created in 2020 by a team led by Kristen Ratan (Founder of Stratos) and Sarah Greene (Founder and CEO of Rapid Science). Since then, ICOR has taken action to increase research transparency, foster collaboration and reproducibility, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs. On 17 May 2023, ICOR will host its first ever public meeting in the form of a virtual webinar, presenting some of the projects it has conducted and resources it has created over the past 2 years. You can register for the webinar here.

DORA at 10: exploring a decade of research assessment reform via DORA

A week of global in-person, virtual and hybrid events will be taking place between 12 and 19 May 2023 to celebrate the 10th birthday of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). With events taking place in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America, the week will examine DORA’s impact on research assessment reform over the past 10 years, and also look into the future and at the problems that may lie ahead. The events are all free of charge but do require attendees to register.

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