IRYNA KUCHMA & MILICA ŠEVKUŠIĆ ‣ short talk, session 1
The presentation discusses tools and resources for Diamond open access (OA) publishers (charging no fees to either readers or authors) and service providers, policymakers, funders, libraries and all those who practise and support Diamond OA publishing, released by the project Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication – DIAMAS (2022–2025). Diamond OA publishing initiatives play a crucial role in the research ecosystem. Along with offering equitable publication venues, they often support scholarly communication in native languages and foster multilingualism and bibliodiversity. However, they struggle with fragmentation, limited visibility, insufficient recognition in local and international research assessment systems and largely rely on a variety of fluctuating income streams and an unpaid workforce to carry out their work. DIAMAS activities and resources address these challenges.
Research on the financial sustainability of institutional publishers and service providers in Europe and recommendations to help Diamond OA publishers and service providers become more sustainable are explored. It is noteworthy that sustainability is not considered at the level of individual institutions only and that the role of infrastructures used by many is taken into account as well: “If we are to envision the future, we need to look at institutional OA publishing at the national and international policy and practice ecosystem level. Supporting infrastructures that facilitate the development of small to mid-sized IPSPs and efforts that connect, build capacity and share resources have the potential to make this ecosystem more technically and financially sustainable in the mid to long term.” (Brun et al., 2024). To help IPSPs deal with sustainability challenges, DIAMAS has developed the Diamond OA Sustainability Check. This self-assessment tool helps IPSPs gain insights into their financial health and aids them in planning for a more sustainable future.
The richness of Diamond Open Access (OA) publishing is characterised by its diversity: from the wide-ranging disciplines it serves in multiple languages to the types of organisations and networks involved in developing, running or maintaining it. The newly-published report National overviews on sustaining institutional publishing in Europe (Taşkın et al., 2024) describes the current contexts for Diamond OA publishing in ten countries: Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and the UK.
This research, together with the Landscape of Diamond OA publishing in Europe (Armengou et al., 2023), is accompanied by supporting materials that can be used for further research (e.g., survey results published as datasets, a registry of institutional publishers and service providers, country reports, etc.) or advocacy and dissemination materials (factsheets, presentations, webinar recordings, podcasts and blog posts).
Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS) (Consortium of the DIAMAS project, 2024) promotes quality in Diamond OA publishing. Serving as both a technical guide and a practical benchmarking resource, DOAS combines comprehensive guidelines with a self-assessment tool to elevate standards in scholarly publishing. This comprehensive quality framework defines required and desired criteria across seven key components of scholarly publishing:
The self-assessment tool will soon be accompanied by detailed guidelines relating to the implementation of DOAS criteria, which will be released in the autumn of 2024, together with the DIAMAS toolsuite for publishers and service providers covering a range of topics (ownership and governance, sustainability, technical efficiency, editorial quality, and multilingualism). The toolsuite and guidelines are designed as a collection of fairly short texts offering hands-on advice and references to external resources and are organised in a modular way, allowing for text extension, expanding the scope of topics covered, translation and adaptations.
All these resources and many more will be available via the DIAMAS Common Access Point (CAP) – a virtual gateway that will serve as a hub for both DIAMAS and external resources. CAP will also include a registry for institutional publishers and service providers, a community forum and a platform for knowledge sharing.
The actions and results of DIAMAS support the vision of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment that the assessment of research, researchers, and research organisations should recognise “diverse outputs, practices, and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research. This requires basing assessment primarily on qualitative judgement, for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.” (CoARA – Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment Agreement, 2022) Through consultations with regional, national and European funders/sponsors/donors and policymakers, DIAMAS is developing guidelines and recommendations aimed at supporting Diamond OA publishing. If integrated into funder and policy requirements these recommendations will mainstream research integrity and quality in research assessment and lead to the recognition of bibliodiversity, a wide range of Open Science practices and the engagement of researchers in Diamond OA publishing (e.g., as authors, editors or reviewers) for assessment and promotion. Furthermore, DOAS will be instrumental in aligning quality standards in Diamond OA publishing across institutions and countries. Along with providing guidance to Diamond OA publishers, it could also be integrated into national frameworks for journal assessment and allocation of funding.
KEYWORDS
Diamond open access; guidelines; institutional publishing; standards
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