Beilstein-Institut + OA Switchboard: Instant Visibility for Diamond OA

Empowering diamond publishers with real-time connections to funders, institutions, and consortia

Publisher at a glance:

• Publisher type: Diamond open access

• OA Switchboard role: Publisher participant

• Integration system: Proprietary editorial and publication system

• Primary use case: Directly informing relevant research funders, institutions, and consortia about diamond open access publications

The Challenge

As a diamond open access publisher, the Beilstein-Institut traditionally does not have a direct subscription-based or any contractual relationship with research-performing or research-funding institutions and consortia; it is therefore not connected to established library vendor systems. This makes it more difficult to achieve visibility for its journals, published articles, and the diamond open access business model in general.

In addition, the lack of traditional relationships with collection builders makes it challenging to reach institutions and funders in a targeted and systematic way to provide publication information and reports.

The Approach

The Beilstein-Institut’s diamond open access journals integrated the OA Switchboard API into their production workflow to enable the delivery of event-driven, article-level alerts with relevant metadata at the point of publication. These alerts are sent to targeted institutions, consortia, and research funders via so-called P1-messages.

P1-messages are selectively delivered to institutions linked to authors’ affiliations (and then routed to consortia) and to research funders that supported the underlying research reported in the article. In 2022, Beilstein-Institut became the first publisher to go live with a direct OA Switchboard API connection.

The Impact

The Beilstein-Institut was the first diamond open access initiative to report relevant publications to research funders, institutions, and consortia in a timely and targeted way through OA Switchboard.

By sending P1-messages, Beilstein-Institut gained a direct and scalable way to communicate with libraries, consortia, and research funders, informing them not only that an open access article has been published for their researchers, but importantly, that it was published at no cost and without any impact on institutional or funder budgets.

Key Takeaway

OA Switchboard enables diamond open access publishers to communicate publication information in real time, directly and transparently to institutions, consortia, and funders; it, thus, improves visibility, recognition, and understanding of the diamond open access model.