The theme for this year’s Open Access Week is ‘Open for Collaboration’ – something that is also central to the mission of OASPA. As an association of open access which has grown to encompass related service providers, the foundations of OASPA are a group of organisations with a shared interest in open-access publishing. No doubt, the organisations have different viewpoints and approaches, but by communicating and working together to set standards and build on one another’s experiences we can help to foster progress and innovation in open access publishing.
Back in 2008 a small group of organisations with a shared vision worked to set up OASPA and bring together the open access community that was developing. It’s a community that continues to evolve, but has become firmly established in the publishing landscape. OASPA itself is now 90 members strong and growing all the time, with collaboration between organisations always at the heart of its activities.
OASPA’s annual conference not only allows members to meet and discuss their progress in open access publishing, but also offers an opportunity for widening the discussion beyond our membership and to hear about experiences from other organisations working towards openness in scholarly communication. The 2015 conference last month in Amsterdam, our biggest so far, was no exception.
OASPA has also collaborated directly with other organisations, the most recent project being the Think. Check. Submit. Campaign. This project aims to help researchers to make an informed decision when choosing a journal to publish their research, and to navigate the landscape of unfamiliar new journals that are constantly emerging.
Another example is the DOI Event Tracker project, or DET, which arose from discussions between OASPA and CrossRef and has gathered momentum to such an extent that it has now progressed to a collaboration between a number of different organisations, many of whom are OASPA members.
Earlier this year OASPA worked with COPE, WAME and the DOAJ to revisit the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing – these shared values are standards that apply beyond open access publishing but which have helped us to refine the entry criteria and review processes for OASPA and will in turn ensure that standards in open access publishing remain high.
OASPA has also supported resources such as the Wellcome Trust’s guide for on Open Access Monographs and Book Chapters, and collaborative projects including JATS4R and the open access spectrum (HowOpenIsIt?) produced jointly by OASPA, SPARC and PLOS.
Collaboration is essential for OASPA to make progress and we’re looking forward to continuing our work with our members as well as on projects with other organisations to help drive standards, innovation and transparency within open access publishing.