With a series of deadlines for open access (OA) in 2025 and beyond, the race is underway so that many editors make the transition to OA. Simon Linacre asks, can these objectives be achieved?
Traditionally, September and October have always been one of the busiest and most interesting times to be in the editorial industry. In the day, September would be the deadline for the first of the numbers of the following year that the editors will be collected, while in more recent times great events such as the Alpsp conference, the Frankfurt Book Fair and Open access week They have established the agenda for the rest of the year and beyond.
In 2024, this period has perhaps more intrigue than the majority given a series of deadlines and political events that occur in the next 12 months or so, many of them revolving around open access (OA) and its additional adoption. But will things work in the way people anticipate, and there are solutions that can be used to help forge a path through so many uncertainties about the future?
Conference season
In the recent Alpsp conference in Manchester in September, there was a great discussion about how open access had been developed this year and its possible progress in 2025 and beyond. Perhaps, as expected, at a conference full of editors, the mood was a bit descending when it was OA, but not for the reasons that one might think. When reading between the lines, there was a frustration in the changing sands that many felt that they had to constantly navigate, in the form of changing or newly introduced policies, and the feeling that innovation was being hindered as a result.
For example, the tone for OA seemed to have been established by the JISC Report on Transforming Agreements (Tas) that was published in the United Kingdom in early 2024. This made a gloomy reading, with the main prediction that, although the transition from the United Kingdom to OA was faster than most countries, based on The ruling rates of the magazine observed between 2018-2022, would take at least 70 years for the five large editors to turn their titles ta to OA.
With this in mind, the fact that there were deadlines for the plan, established by 2025 around the transition that seemed unlikely to be fulfilled, and with the OSTP memorandum in the United States plunged into committees and a potential change in the Letters in the White House, the belief among many editors was that the movement A OA was not happening to the rhythm or in the direction that many thought it would.
Geopolitical calculations
In addition to what is happening in the United Kingdom, Europe and in the US, the events are also causing the editors to take stock of their medium -term strategies in the long term. The publication of authors based in Russia has decreased abruptly since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and collaboration between US authors and those based in China has also decreased, possibly due to changes in policies by the government Chinese that favors publication in China headquarters, but also potentially due to fears about research security problems in the United States and other countries.
China’s movement is also happening at a much lower level than many countries, which is significant, since it occupies such a high percentage of published articles, passing the United States a few years ago as the most prolific editor in the world of research articles. As a result, despite the increase in the number of ta they remember with universities, editors are still seeing a high degree of uncertainty in the transition to OA.
Forward movement
This uncertainty will be at the back of the editors’ minds when the OA week is held this year, as it does every year in the back of the main conferences such as ALPSP and Frankfurt, and in the midst of adjustment budgets fine for the following year. In Digital Science, we understand this situation given how closely we work with editors as clients, and also because many of us have worked in the editorial industry ourselves. As such, we have been analyzing how Digital Science Solutions can help editors to go a path to follow in OA and transforming agreements, and we have created this Case of use for Dimensions in support of our community.
This resource has been designed to reflect the period of change that the editorial industry is experiencing, which supports the need for editors to believe, evaluate and negotiate when delivering a strong range of historical and predictive data through dimensions. Using the Dimensions database, which now contains data in almost 150 million publications, as well as details on funds, subsidies and patents, editors can easily find and analyze data surrounding the authorities in categories such as country, geography, institution and institution Financer. Understanding the current or future game of a given discipline can complement the data of the publishers and inform their strategies accordingly.
Solid state
The issue of this year’s OA week, ‘community on marketing’, is deliberately provocative, and should generate a great debate during the week and beyond. It must also expand conversation to adjacent areas such as open research and open science, since here we have policies and geopolitics that make waves for all those involved in the research ecosystem.
The origin of some of these waves can be seen in two reports of Digital Science. At the end of October, a new report on the transformation of the investigation includes substantial contributions of those involved in the Academy on how the OA is affecting its work, while November sees the ninth report of the annual state of open data, tracking how the Researchers see open data problems that are developed as part of their work. Without revealing too much, both reports require greater awareness about the use, and the use of the myriad of rapid development technologies that are beginning to affect academics and their institutions. As such, the community of interest that supports the week of OA every year needs to work together in the ecosystem that all inhabit if these OA deadlines must be met.
About the author
Simon LinacreContent Manager, Brand & Press | Digital science
Simon has 20 years of experience in academic communications. He has given conferences and published on the issues of the Bibliometry, the ethics of the publication and the impact of the research, and has recently written a book on predatory publications. Simon is an ALPSP tutor and has also served as COPE trustee.
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