Open Access – DigitalKoans

“Enhancing FAIR Data Practices in the Norwegian Research Data Archive: Towards Research Objects and Improved Interoperability”

The increasing volume and complexity of research data necessitate robust data management practices to ensure data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). The Norwegian Research Data Archive (NRDA) is at the forefront of efforts to create a comprehensive platform for researchers to share and archive their data. This paper discusses NRDA’s ongoing initiatives to enhance its infrastructure in alignment with FAIR principles, emphasizing the integration of Research Objects (ROs) and RO-Crate technologies. These improvements aim to facilitate better data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability, thereby fostering a more integrated and sustainable data ecosystem. The paper also highlights NRDA’s collaborative efforts with other platforms via the use of Research Objects to support data sharing and reuse across repositories. By focusing on standardized metadata, persistent identifiers, and interoperability, NRDA is advancing Open Science practices, ultimately contributing to a more transparent, efficient, and collaborative research environment. The challenges and future directions of these initiatives are also explored, providing insights into the ongoing efforts to create a more open and interconnected scientific landscape.

https://doi.org/10.52825/ocp.v5i.1202

“The New Zealand Thesis Project: Connecting a Nation’s Dissertations Using Wikidata”

Introduction: Libraries hold large amounts of bibliographic data, with great potential for enrichment with linked open data. The New Zealand Thesis Project explored this potential by uploading thesis metadata records from New Zealand institutional repositories to Wikidata, a collaborative linked data knowledge base.

Description of Project: Nine New Zealand tertiary institutions collaborated with four Wikidata experts to upload a combined national dataset of doctoral and master’s theses. Thesis records, including author and advisor names and richly described with main subject statements, were extracted from each repository, combined, and data cleaned before being uploaded to Wikidata. The team then undertook additional data enrichment, round-tripped Wikidata’s QID identifiers back to individual repositories, and used the new records to cite theses on authors’ Wikipedia pages. Wikidata queries and other visualizations were created to demonstrate how connecting the thesis metadata to records for authors, advisors, institutions, and subjects allows new insights into our collections.

Next Steps: Documentation is being fine-tuned to support future similar projects, and a second combined upload is under discussion to continue growing the New Zealand Thesis Project. There is considerable scope to continue enriching Wikidata records, some of which is already underway by Wikidata volunteers.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18295

“The Quest to Share Data”

Data sharing in scientific research is widely acknowledged as crucial for accelerating progress and innovation. Mandates from funders, such as the NIH’s updated Data Sharing Policy, have been beneficial in promoting data sharing. However, the effectiveness of such mandates relies heavily on the motivation of data providers. Despite policy-imposed requirements, many researchers may only comply minimally, resulting in data that is inadequately reusable. Here, we discuss the multifaceted challenges of incentivizing data sharing and the complex interplay of factors involved. Our paper delves into the motivations of various stakeholders, including funders, investigators, and data users, highlighting the differences in perspectives and concerns. We discuss the role of guidelines, such as the FAIR principles, in promoting good data management practices but acknowledge the practical and ethical challenges in implementation. We also examine the impact of infrastructure on data sharing effectiveness, emphasizing the need for systems that support efficient data discovery, access, and analysis. We address disparities in resources and expertise among researchers and concerns related to data misuse and misinterpretation. Here, we advocate for a holistic approach to incentivizing data sharing beyond mere compliance with mandates. It calls for the development of reward systems, financial incentives, and supportive infrastructure to encourage researchers to share data enthusiastically and effectively. By addressing these challenges collaboratively, the scientific community can realize the full potential of data sharing to advance knowledge and innovation.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2025.1570568

“Making Your Repository (More) Accessible”

Introduction: As colleges and universities make increasing and overdue efforts under the auspices of access, equity, and inclusion to make their resources accessible to all users, these efforts must extend to the institution’s online presence, including its institutional repository. IR managers must first ask what “accessible” means for compliance with university policies as well as the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), immediately followed by plans for both remediating existing content and imposing best practices on new content, amid current workflows and budgetary restraints.

Literature Review: Literature on the topic of accessibility in IRs has mostly focused on the need to make collections accessible and the challenges for doing so. Advice on how to navigate the actual process is harder to come by.

Description of Service: The University of Mississippi established a goal that everything going into its IR would use OCR software to convert images of text into searchable text and create a process by which patrons could request remediation of older content from the IR, whether documents or recordings. A combination of shared tools (including Equidox and SensusAccess) and interdepartmental partnerships has made a significant difference in making these digital collections proactively accessible.

Next Steps: We continue to maintain partnerships with units around campus, made challenging by frequent turnover as in demand specialists take positions at other institutions. Despite our efforts to provide searchable text as a minimum level of service, OCR correction provides tags but not necessarily headings or alt-text. Hopefully future versions of OCR editors will include such features.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18308

“Making an Open Information Literacy Textbook: A Case Study in OER Collaborations Among Four Oklahoma Academic Librarians”

Springboarding from a statewide initiative, four academic librarians from three different universities collaborated to create an openly licensed textbook on the Pressbooks platform that could be easily embedded into one-shots or general education research courses. The project developed over the span of a year, which included: planning, exploring, creating, evaluating, sharing, and implementing. The first three steps taught the authors to set and agree upon shared expectations early, decide to either clone or create original content, and trust remixing material from other OER is firmly within the moral framework of sharing knowledge. In the final three stages the authors learned to recruit more reviewers/editors than needed, recognize when to turn off perfectionism and publish, and stay open to new collaborative opportunities. The authors experienced firsthand how OER transforms libraries from information gate-keepers to become content owners. This transformation brings libraries closer to their missions of access for all.

https://doi.org/10.33011/newlibs/18/2

“What Are Journals and Reviewers Concerned about in Data Papers? Evidence From Journal Guidelines and Review Reports”

The evolution of data journals and the increase in data papers call for associated peer review, which is intricately linked yet distinct from traditional scientific paper review. This study investigates the data paper review guidelines of 22 scholarly journals that publish data papers and analyses 131 data papers’ review reports from the journal Data. Peer review is an essential part of scholarly publishing. Although the 22 data journals employ disparate review models, their review purposes and requirements exhibit similarities. Journal guidelines provide authors and reviewers with comprehensive references for reviewing, which cover the entire life cycle of data. Reviewer attitudes predominantly encompass Suggestion, Inquiry, Criticism and Compliment during the specific review process, focusing on 18 key targets including manuscript writing, diagram presentation, data process and analysis, references and review and so forth. In addition, objective statements and other general opinions are also identified. The findings show the distinctive characteristics of data publication assessment and summarise the main concerns of journals and reviewers regarding the evaluation of data papers.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2001

“De Gruyter Brill Accelerates Open Access Transformation, Making 58 Journals Freely Available via Subscribe to Open”

De Gruyter Brill is expanding its Subscribe to Open program, DG2O, by immediately switching 37 additional journals to open access. In total, 58 journals from the De Gruyter portfolio will be published open access via DG2O in 2025, making approximately 2,300 research articles freely available to the global scholarly community. The transition is made possible through the continued commitment of libraries and institutions, whose renewed subscriptions helped meet the necessary funding threshold.

https://tinyurl.com/5n7z8z7k

“Springer Nature Achieves Revenue and Profit Targets and Projects Further Growth for 2025”

Revenue grew by 5% on an underlying[1] basis to €1,847 million and adjusted operating profit rose by 7% on an underlying[1] basis to €512 million

Research was main growth driver, posting underlying[1] 6% revenue increase following strong performance of the Open Access (OA) Journals portfolio

For the first time, Springer Nature published 50% of its primary research articles

https://tinyurl.com/bdd7umwm

“Cambridge to Conduct ‘Radical’ Review of Open Research ”

Cambridge University Press is to conduct a “radical, community-led” review of the open research publishing ecosystem. The review aims to identify bold and workable solutions that support innovation and researchers’ needs in a manner that’s sustainable for all major stakeholders.

The project will focus on four areas crucial to the future of open research:

The link between publishing, reward and recognition

Equity in research dissemination

Research integrity

Technological change and the future of research publishing

https://tinyurl.com/2879upe8

“Investing in the Future: A New Strategic Agreement for Diamond Open Access in Canada”

The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and Érudit are proud to announce a new five-year agreement (2025–2029) for the Partnership for Open Access, with 57 participating libraries. . . .

Thanks to the ongoing engagement of participating libraries, the Partnership for Open Access (POA) provides financial support to 260 scholarly journals. Independent and diverse, these journals reflect the linguistic diversity and the impactful research conducted in Canada and beyond. They are also deeply rooted in their academic communities, as over 1,500 Canadian researchers publish their work in these journals annually, which are often based on Canadian university campuses. . . .

Through its 10+ years, the POA has established itself as a successful and sustainable model: it enables the distribution of over 2,000 articles per year without APCs, and has already helped 40 journals make the transition to open access.

https://tinyurl.com/yrwz2pkp

Royal Society at 71% OA: “Our Open Access Transition Enters the 70’sEra”

Looking back on the Royal Society journals’ progress over 2024, I am pleased to report that we have increased our open access output from 66% in 2023 to 71% across the research journals. . . .

Data from articles published in our Transformative Journals in 2022 shows that open access papers received on average 100% more citations and 116% more downloads than subscription articles. Of all articles published in 2022, 99 of the top 100 articles by Altmetric score were open access.

https://tinyurl.com/5a84jt5d

“News & Views: Open Access Charges – Price Increases Back on Trend”

Going into 2025, we have seen APC pricing increasing but falling back to long-term trends.

Fully OA APC list prices across our sample have risen by around 6.5% compared with 9.5% this time last year.

Hybrid APC list prices have risen by an average of 3% compared with 4.2% this time last year.

Maximum APCs for fully OA journals remain at $8,900.

Maximum APCs for hybrid journals now top out at $12,690 (up $400 from last year).

https://tinyurl.com/mpdmd7vy

Paywall: “Challenges in Tracking Archive’s Data Reuse in Social Sciences”

Identifying data reuse is challenging, due to technical reasons, and, in particular, incorrect citation practices among scholars. This paper aims to propose an automatic method to track the reuse of data deposited in the archives joined to the CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) infrastructure. The paper also offers an overview on the identified data to understand the characteristics of the most reused data sets.

https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-07-2024-0112

“openRxiv Launch to Sustain and Expand Preprint Sharing in Life and Health Sciences”

Since their launches in 2013 and 2019, respectively, preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv have transformed how scientific findings are communicated. They have hosted more than 325,000 reports of new discoveries, enabling scientists worldwide to collaborate, iterate, and build upon each other’s work at an unprecedented pace. . . .

Establishing openRxiv aims to accelerate the value of these preprint servers, making it easier for these resources to grow and adapt. Created as services of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in partnership with other institutions, bioRxiv and medRxiv now move under openRxiv’s researcher-driven governance, ensuring that preprint sharing remains independent, sustainable, and responsive to researchers’ evolving needs.

https://tinyurl.com/2auerw5t

“The Academic Impact of Open Science: A Scoping Review”

Open Science seeks to make research processes and outputs more accessible, transparent and inclusive, ensuring that scientific findings can be freely shared, scrutinized and built upon by researchers and others. To date, there has been no systematic synthesis of the extent to which Open Science (OS) reaches these aims. We use the PRISMA scoping review methodology to partially address this gap, scoping evidence on the academic (but not societal or economic) impacts of OS. We identify 485 studies related to all aspects of OS, including Open Access (OA), Open/FAIR Data (OFD), Open Code/Software, Open Evaluation and Citizen Science (CS). Analysing and synthesizing findings, we show that the majority of studies investigated effects of OA, CS and OFD. Key areas of impact studied are citations, quality, efficiency, equity, reuse, ethics and reproducibility, with most studies reporting positive or at least mixed impacts. However, we also identified significant unintended negative impacts, especially those regarding equity, diversity and inclusion. Overall, the main barrier to academic impact of OS is lack of skills, resources and infrastructure to effectively re-use and build on existing research. Building on this synthesis, we identify gaps within this literature and draw implications for future research and policy.

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241248

“Frontiers introduces FAIR² Data Management”

FAIR² Data Management leverages AI-assisted curation to structure research data for publication, making it easier to find, reuse, and analyze—both by humans and machines—so researchers can focus on discovery rather than data preparation. By making datasets shareable and optimized for reuse, FAIR² Data Management enhances research efficiency and reproducibility, accelerating breakthroughs in global health, planetary sustainability, and scientific innovation. . . .

FAIR² (FAIR Squared) extends the FAIR principles by defining a formal specification that makes research data AI-ready, aligned with Responsible AI principles, and structured for deep scientific reuse. Compatible with MLCommons Croissant’s AI-ready format, it integrates essential elements for scientific rigor, reproducibility, and interoperability. FAIR² ensures data is richly documented and linked to provenance, methodology, and a detailed data dictionary, creating a context-rich representation of each dataset. It also integrates with TensorFlow, JAX, and PyTorch, enabling AI-driven analysis and easy sharing on Kaggle and Hugging Face, amplifying its impact across disciplines.

https://tinyurl.com/3bwjbsw6

“Project Alexandria: Towards Freeing Scientific Knowledge from Copyright Burdens via LLMs”

Paywalls, licenses and copyright rules often restrict the broad dissemination and reuse of scientific knowledge. We take the position that it is both legally and technically feasible to extract the scientific knowledge in scholarly texts. Current methods, like text embeddings, fail to reliably preserve factual content, and simple paraphrasing may not be legally sound. We urge the community to adopt a new idea: convert scholarly documents into Knowledge Units using LLMs. These units use structured data capturing entities, attributes and relationships without stylistic content. We provide evidence that Knowledge Units: (1) form a legally defensible framework for sharing knowledge from copyrighted research texts, based on legal analyses of German copyright law and U.S. Fair Use doctrine, and (2) preserve most (~95%) factual knowledge from original text, measured by MCQ performance on facts from the original copyrighted text across four research domains. Freeing scientific knowledge from copyright promises transformative benefits for scientific research and education by allowing language models to reuse important facts from copyrighted text. To support this, we share open-source tools for converting research documents into Knowledge Units. Overall, our work posits the feasibility of democratizing access to scientific knowledge while respecting copyright.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.19413

Clarivate: “Our Letter to the Library Community”

After receiving feedback and guidance from our customers and partners, we would like to further clarify our intentions moving forward:

We remain unequivocally committed to preserving perpetual access to previously purchased Ebook Central titles.

We are committed to increased investment in Rialto as an ebook marketplace, enabling title-by-title ebook purchasing from publishers and other vendors.

We will work with vendors, such as EBSCO, to integrate with their book and purchasing platforms, to maximize choice and workflow efficiency for customers.

We will expand benchmark and collection development tools in Rialto, providing you with insights to more efficiently make book selection, purchase and access decisions.

To further support the changes announced:

We will extend the ability for customers to make perpetual purchases for both print and ebooks on all platforms, including Ebook Central, OASIS, Rialto and GOBI through June 30, 2026.

We reaffirm our commitment to always facilitate title-by-title perpetual access purchasing through the Rialto marketplace of ebooks from publishers and aggregators.

We will work with you and your vendors of choice to create migration toolkits, to make transitioning your workflows and profiles as efficient and seamless as possible.

We will provide the data and analytics you need, as well as regular updates and close communication with your local team.

https://tinyurl.com/9hbuheru

“An APC Trap?: Privilege and the Perception of Reasonableness in Open Access Publishing”

Four institutions from the U.S. participated in this research: The University of Colorado Boulder (CUB), the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass), the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), and the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK). . . .

Grants were the largest source of APC funding across all institutions, with well over half (56%)of respondents who paid an APC using grant funding to pay for at least part of their APC (Figure 2). Eighty-six percent of respondents used grants, departments, and/or other university funding towards their APC. Overall, libraries were not a significant source of funding for paying these fees. In fact, fees were just as likely to be waived than to come from library funding sources 10% of respondents, each), and the library was ranked 5th overall out of 8 funding source options. . . .

Overall, more than two-thirds of respondents across institutions thought that fees less than or equal to US$1.5K were reasonable, with an additional 16% responding that no fees were reasonable (Figure 6).

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/55542

“The Economic Impact of Open Science: A Scoping Review”

This paper summarised a comprehensive scoping review of the economic impact of Open Science (OS), examining empirical evidence from 2000 to 2023. It focuses on Open Access (OA), Open/FAIR Data (OFD), Open Source Software (OSS), and Open Methods, assessing their contributions to efficiency gains in research production, innovation enhancement, and economic growth. Evidence, although limited, indicates that OS accelerates research processes, reduces the related costs, fosters innovation by improving access to data and resources and this ultimately generates economic growth. Specific sectors, such as life sciences, are researched more and the literature exhibits substantial gains, mainly thanks to OFD and OA. OSS supports productivity, while the very limited studies on Open Methods indicate benefits in terms of productivity gains and innovation enhancement. However, gaps persist in the literature, particularly in fields like Citizen Science and Open Evaluation, for which no empirical findings on economic impact could be detected. Despite limitations, empirical evidence on specific cases highlight economic benefits. This review underscores the need for further metrics and studies across diverse sectors and regions to fully capture OS’s economic potential.

https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/kqse5_v1

“Applying the COUP Framework to a Library-Sourced eTextbook Adoption: A Mixed Methods Study”

A growing number of studies have reported that using open educational resources benefits students, but few studies have investigated academic impacts of adopting library-sourced eBooks as the course textbook. This mixed-methods study utilizes the Open Education Group’s COUP Framework (Cost, Outcomes, Usage, Perceptions), which has previously been used to investigate the impact of OER adoptions, and applies it to the adoption of a library-sourced eBook for a large university course. Results are based on analysis of qualitative data obtained from a student survey and focus group, as well as quantitative student grade point average and drop/fail rates. Findings show that this library-sourced eBook adoption significantly reduced costs for students with no statistically significant impact on student success metrics. Additionally, students reported that cost savings were appreciated and beneficial; they further described the course eBook as high quality, easy to find and use, and supportive of their performance in class. The authors conclude that the potential benefits to students justify the time, cost, and effort expended by the library to facilitate and support eBook adoptions.

https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.86.2.235

“Affordable College Textbook Act Reintroduced in U.S. Congress”

The Affordable College Textbook Act was introduced today in the U.S. Senate by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), with companion legislation sponsored by Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) expected in the U.S. House. Although the bill’s prospects are tied to the broader Higher Education Act reauthorization process, its sponsors have worked to deliver immediate results for students by securing annual funding for the Open Textbook Pilot grant program. Distributed by the U.S. Department of Education, the Open Textbook Pilot has funded 28 projects since 2018, which are projected to save students an estimated $250 million—a substantial return on federal investment.

https://tinyurl.com/25vnn9r5

“The Economic Impact of Open Science: A Scoping Review”

This paper summarised a comprehensive scoping review of the economic impact of Open Science (OS), examining empirical evidence from 2000 to 2023. It focuses on Open Access (OA), Open/FAIR Data (OFD), Open Source Software (OSS), and Open Methods, assessing their contributions to efficiency gains in research production, innovation enhancement, and economic growth. Evidence, although limited, indicates that OS accelerates research processes, reduces the related costs, fosters innovation by improving access to data and resources and this ultimately generates economic growth. Specific sectors, such as life sciences, are researched more and the literature exhibits substantial gains, mainly thanks to OFD and OA. OSS supports productivity, while the very limited studies on Open Methods indicate benefits in terms of productivity gains and innovation enhancement. However, gaps persist in the literature, particularly in fields like Citizen Science and Open Evaluation, for which no empirical findings on economic impact could be detected. Despite limitations, empirical evidence on specific cases highlight economic benefits. This review underscores the need for further metrics and studies across diverse sectors and regions to fully capture OS’s economic potential.

https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/kqse5_v1

Paywall: “Implementing Read and Publish Agreements at the College of Charleston Libraries”

Focusing primarily on the Read and Publish agreements with Cambridge, Wiley, and Springer Nature, this article gives insight into managing Read and Publish agreements, specifically for academic libraries with no designated scholarly communications librarians.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2025.2471077

“Exploring Academic Librarian Support of Open Pedagogy: A Survey of U.S. and Canadian Perspectives”

Case studies have demonstrated various ways in which academic librarians support open pedagogy, but little has been done to look at the bigger picture of what this support entails. This study surveyed 145 US and Canadian academic librarians about how comfortable they are with the concept of open pedagogy and whether they have supported it, along with what that support has looked like. The study also sought to understand what factors might affect this support, as well as how these librarians themselves could be better supported. Results show that a majority of respondents are at least somewhat comfortable with open pedagogy and have even supported it in at least one course. Respondents also expressed an interest in supporting open pedagogy in the future, but many expressed a desire for more resources and professional development.

https://tinyurl.com/3jrrdryw