Tomorrow marks the 24th anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which offered the first definition of open access. The Initiative proposed complementary strategies for realizing OA, and launched a worldwide campaign for OA to all new peer-reviewed research. Through consultations and convenings, the BOAI has provided critical global strategies which have been updated regularly. Our BOAI20 Recommendations emphasize that OA is not an end in itself, but a means to other ends – above all, to the equity, quality, usability, and sustainability of research.
Over the past year, the BOAI has transitioned to an organization to advocate for the development of equitable OA, as called for in the BOAI20 Recommendations. The new organization has built strong partnerships which have contributed to the development of four core projects:
- Webinar series on protecting the no-fee OA model in Latin America: Given the worrying trend of no-fee OA journals in Latin America adopting the APC model, we partnered with the National Council of Rectors of Costa Rica to organize a webinar to discuss this issue in the Spring. Due to the strong interest in the event, which attracted over 250 participants, we launched a series of webinars on the topic, with the second convening focused on Brazil, and the third discussing best practices for no-fee OA journals. We believe it is particularly important to protect this model in the region where it was developed. Simultaneous interpretation in Spanish, Portuguese and English is provided for our events.
- Open Science/Wikimedia Collaborations: As fostering collaborations with the world’s largest access to knowledge project holds great potential for expanding and strengthening the OA movement, we are partnering with Wikimedia affiliates to develop an Open Science Wiki Community, which will forge stronger connections between Wikimedians by facilitating increased capacity-building, knowledge sharing and coordination around open science. For more, please see our post in Wikimedia’s Diff blog.
- Mapping Institutional Investment in Equitable OA (MIINE OA): This new project will recognize those institutions that are supporting equitable OA while also encouraging others to do so. The project will conduct a mapping exercise to make visible institutional investment in equitable OA, including support for no-fee OA journals as well as repositories. A Working Group of 40 members from 12 countries in Latin America is currently developing a methodology to collect this data.
- Barometer of equitable OA: This project will monitor developments within the OA movement to determine if we are moving closer to, or further away from, our goal of equitable OA. Some trends to be tracked include the adoption and cancellation of Read-and-Publish Agreements, cancellations of Big Deals (working in partnership with SPARC), adoption of APCs by no-fee OA journals, and acquisitions of no-fee OA journals by commercial publishers.
We are deeply grateful to the members of our Steering Committee, including Arianna Becerril García, Leslie Chan, Iryna Kuchma, Nick Shockey and Peter Suber, who are guiding the organization as we navigate this transition.
If you are interested in partnering with the BOAI on these projects to support the development of equitable OA, we invite you to contact Melissa Hagemann (mh[at]budapestopenaccessinitiative.org).
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The BOAI Org and the National Council of Rectors of Costa Rica (CONARE) are pleased to announce the second event in our series of webinars addressing the worrying trend of diamond journals adopting the APC model. This webinar will focus on Brazil. Continue reading “Second Webinar in Series Highlighting the Need to Protect the Diamond Open Access Model in Latin America”