News
Come meet us and OA Switchboard participants at 2022 conferences
Just stop by at one of the stands!
UKSG (Telford, UK)
Sunday 29 May 2022:
afternoon (by appointment)
Monday 30 May 2022:
10 – 11am: Royal Society of Chemistry (stand 37 & 46)
11am - 12noon: Jisc (stand 26)
1pm - 2pm: Thieme (stand 78)
2 - 3pm: Royal Society of Chemistry (stand 37 & 46)
3pm - 4pm: Cambridge University Press (stand #)
Bibliotheks Kongress (Leipzig, Germany)
Wednesday 1 June 2022:
11am - 1pm: Royal Society of Chemistry (stand #)
2pm - 3pm: Thieme Verlag (stand #)
Thursday 2 June 2022:
11am - 12noon: Thieme Verlag (stand #)
time TBC: Royal Society of Chemistry (stand #)
The Company of Biologists connects to the OA Switchboard
Posted 20 April 2022
"The Company of Biologists is delighted to announce a partnership with the OA Switchboard which makes it much easier for our library customers to manage their Read & Publish agreements and to monitor the success of their Open Access (OA) strategy. Thanks to the great success of our cost-neutral Read & Publish OA initiative, there has been a significant increase in the number of research articles published immediately OA in our hybrid subscription journals... This is excellent news, but the lack of standardisation between systems, portals and processes has created challenges, particularly in terms of reporting and data analysis.
The OA Switchboard offers a solution...
Connectors between The Company of Biologists and the OA Switchboard are now in place. This means that we can provide real-time publishing information on a regular basis to our library customers that are signed up to the OA Switchboard. We can also provide reports dating back to 1 January 2022. Read the full announcement here.
ORCID and OA Switchboard work to “connect the dots” of PIDs in the Open Access Journey
Open scholarly infrastructure organizations collaborate to navigate the OA research and publishing maze to help solve compliance with emerging requirements
Posted 19 April 2022
We are excited to announce the launch of ORCID-enabled smart matching in OA Switchboard. With our April 2022 release, OA Switchboard users will be able to leverage authoritative affiliation data from authors’ ORCID profiles to corroborate affiliation or organizational identifiers (such as ROR or Ringgold IDs) and ensure more accurate routing of the messages being shared between participants throughout the Open Access (OA) research cycle and publication journey, ultimately resulting in more complete and better quality metadata in the OA Switchboard messages for each article published.
2022 Webinars to present the OA Switchboard to the wider community
Updated 26 April 2022
Also in this second year of our 'launch phase', webinars are being organised to present the OA Switchboard to the wider community.
Wednesday 20 April 2022
Making reporting easy and increasing visibility of open access publication output – a how-to webinar from OA Switchboard publisher participants
Three publisher case studies on how to connect to OA Switchboard to make reporting easy and increase visibility of OA publication output. Our speakers covered the different options for interacting with OA Switchboard (manual, via API or custom connector), illustrated by their own real-life experiences and lessons learned. Our tech partner added background information and best practices across all publishers operational on OA Switchboard, as well as with future trends that are shaping.
The recording of the webinar is available here.
Tuesday 29 March 2022
Lessons Learned to Make Reporting Easy: source data, PIDs, interoperability and a simple messaging tool
This webinar provided an evidence-based look at how the different stakeholders deal with reporting on OA-related publication level information via a series of talks and use case presentations. The full slide deck is here and all questions answered in and after the webinar are here.
Please note this webinar was free and open to all thanks to the support of our host Copyright Clearance Center. The recording is available here.September 2022
Details to follow
London Book Fair Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum
OA Switchboard takes part in the “Tech-decks” session
Posted 8 April 2022
On Thursday 7 April 2022, OA Switchboard participated in the “Tech-decks” session during the Research & Publishing Forum as part of the London Book fair. This session was about new concepts and technologies supporting evolution and revolution in journal publishing.
Our talk was about "Orchestrating data flow to enable Open Access offerings in journal publishing." The on-demand version is available here.
CCC announcement: CCC and the OA Switchboard Collaborate to Offer Increased Efficiency and Transparency for the Scholarly Communications Community
posted 29 March 2022
CCC, a leading provider of Open Access (OA) workflow solutions, and the OA Switchboard, a global, not-for-profit collaboration between funders, institutions and publishers, announce a collaboration to automate the exchange of OA transactional information between publishers and their customers through the OA Switchboard.
See full announcement here.
Hindawi announcement: Sharing publication metadata to streamline open access reporting
Posted 16 March 2022
"The OA Switchboard has developed quickly over the last couple of years and is starting to demonstrate the real value it can provide to our community, and we are excited to announce that Hindawi has now also successfully integrated with the OA Switchboard. Going forward, this will enable the OA Switchboard to send out notifications on our behalf to institutions/consortia and funders when a relevant article is published."
Read the full blog post here.
ICOLC Meeting Panel
OA Switchboard participates in member-only meeting on 21 April 2021
Updated 21 April 2021 / Posted 8 April 2021
OA Switchboard participated in the ICOLC Meeting Panel during a members-only meeting on 21 April 2021. General information is here, and the ICOLC community can find out more here.
OA Switchboard reaches milestone of 100K messages sent
Posted 4 March 2022
"The more who use it, the better a resource it becomes" by Gaynor Redvers-Mutton from the Microbiology Society, is becoming reality. Early March 2022 OA Switchboard reached an impressive milestone: 100K exchanges of OA publication-level information by publishers to research funders / institutions / consortia! We are proud and grateful for all participants and strategic partner OASPA.
For more information and statistics, see our Participants page.
International Conference on Innovations and Challenges in Research Publishing
OA Switchboard to present a key note (22 February 2022)
Posted 16 February 2022
OA Switchboard participates in the International Conference on Innovations and Challenges in Research Publishing. It is an e-CONFERENCE from Chitkara University Publications, an Open Access Initiative of The Chitkara University.
The full conference program is here.
The title of our key note is: OA Switchboard - a practical tool that thrives on collaboration
2022 Focus: Build on the hard work of 2021 in terms of priorities and use cases
Posted 3 January 2022
On the first working day of 2022, we’re excited to share that the second year of our launch phase will build on the hard work of 2021 in terms of priorities and use cases.
It’s no surprise that our overarching focus will continue to be on: 1) authoritative data from source; 2) interoperability of existing systems; 3) connecting the dots of existing PIDs. All, in our characteristic, well established, collaborative spirit.
What does this mean?
Authoritative data from source: article-level metadata directly from the publisher, via a (technically) validated standardised messaging protocol (no journal-level default values, no myriad of formats, etc)
Interoperability of existing systems: connect via (open) APIs (don’t re-invent the wheel, don’t rebuild what’s already out there)
Connecting the dots of existing PIDs: use of common standards #GRID #ISNI #Ringgold #ROR #ORCID #DOI
Please get in touch to learn more about these topics, and to discuss how OA Switchboard can support your organisation. We invite you to join our community of like-minded spirits on a mission: a breakthrough in the transformation of the market, enabling OA to be supported as the predominant model of publication.
31 December 2021 statistics
Posted 31 December 2021
On this last day of the year we celebrate that we’ve been fully operational for one year. We proudly share our 31 December statistics with you:
84,377 messages were sent by participating publishers to research funders and institutions/consortia via OA Switchboard
(‘messages’ = standardised sets of publication-level metadata).
We’re well underway to deliver on our mission as independent intermediary, connecting parties and systems, streamlining communication and the neutral exchange of OA related publication-level information. In terms of developing and maintaining our central information exchange hub as an operational solution, this is all about shared infrastructure, standardised messaging protocol, and integration with existing systems, powered by Persistent Identifiers (PIDs).
The OA Switchboard is providing a solution for a real pain point shared by research funders, institutions and publishers: the fulfilment of OA publication-level arrangements (policies, mandates, agreements, etc).
In 2021, our stakeholders have built a fantastic community of like-minded spirits on a mission. We’re grateful for our founding partners, launch customers and early adopters. And we very, very much thank Ivo Verbeek and Yuri Vorontsov from our tech partner ELITEX, and Bernie Folan and Claire Redhead from our strategic partner Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association.
Read more in our year-end blog post here.
Three OA Switchboard events at 2021 Open Publishing Fest - for three time zones
posted: 1 November 2021
OA Switchboard will host three 'discussion events' at the 2021 Open Publishing Fest, a decentralized public event that brings together communities supporting open source software, open content, and open publishing models.
The same event will run three times on Tuesday 9 November 2021:
at 7am (CET) for our friends to the east of us
at 1pm (CET) for our friends nearer by
at 9pm (CET) for our friends to the west of us and in New Zealand
The title of our events is: From toll roads to highways - How the OA Switchboard is building the infrastructure for an OA-driven scholarly communications landscape.
The event will reflect on our journey from idea (2018) to being operational (2021). We'll present our principles and POSI self-assessment, cover tough choices and will share pragmatic solutions. We're happy to share our experiences and enter into discussion with the participants.
Webinars to present the OA Switchboard to the wider community
Last updated 14 September 2021 / Posted 30 October 2020
Webinars are being organised to present the OA Switchboard to the wider community, supported by demonstrations/presentations of real-life use cases by launch customers and founding partners.
Wednesday 8 September 2021
This webinar focused on the shared use case Matching Publication Costs with Publication Funds that our launch customers and founding partners are currently working on collaboratively. The speakers covered a wide range of use cases, covering all kind of business models (APC-based, non-APC based / diamond, subscribe-to-open, transformative agreements, pure OA/publish deals, etc) and a wide range of technical implementations ('connectors') for data feeds from different source systems.
This webinar was free and open to all thanks to the support of our host Aries Systems. The recording of the webinar is available here.Wednesday 31 March 2021
This webinar focussed on the Reporting Made Easy shared use case our launch customers and founding partners are working on collaboratively. Funders and institutions/consortia would much prefer publishers to report their publication-level OA information in a structured format. This enables data to be fed directly into their own (or their solution provider’s) system for further processing and analysis.
This webinar provided a practical evidence-based look at how the OA Switchboard is making reporting easier via a series of short five minute talks and use case presentations, with time for questions and discussions following. The recording of this webinar is here.
Tuesday 8 December 2020
The OA Switchboard is a tool that can be called upon as and when needed, or integrated in stakeholders’ own systems and workflows to achieve automation and scalability. This webinar brings together participants from publishers, research institutions and our tech partner to present and discuss real-life use cases. Learn what specific challenge they implement the OA Switchboard for and how a simple communication hub can handle many different situations. The unanswered questions posed by attendees via the webinar chat, as well as the recording of this webinar is available here.Thursday 5 November 2020
Part of the OASPA AGM will also be given to an update on the OA Switchboard project which OASPA has been leading this year. In this webinar we’ll present a status update and insight into our plans. Also, some of our early adopters will present specific use cases they are getting started with in 2021.The recording of this part of the meeting is available here.
Royal Society of Chemistry connects to OA Switchboard
posted: 7 September 2021
"We recently announced our support for the OA Switchboard initiative, a not-for-profit, industry-wide collaboration among publishers, academic institutions and research funding organisations.
We're pleased to announce that it's now all systems go, with Royal Society of Chemistry Product Manager, Charlie Quigg, saying: "I have to commend OA Switchboard on their approach. They were able to integrate smoothly with our existing systems and setup only took two meetings and a few weeks of work on their side, with no development work on ours. Within hours of going live, multiple participating institutions were notified of published articles."
Read the full announcement here.
SSP 43rd Annual Meeting: Charting a New Course - From Chaos to Innovation
OA Switchboard to present a poster (27 May 2021)
Posted 2 April 2021
Updated 1 June 2021
OA Switchboard participated in SSP's 43rd Annual Meeting (online conference from 24 - 27 May 2021). The full program is here.
The title of our poster is: OA Switchboard, central information exchange hub: Taking charge of multi-lateral OA publication-level arrangements.
NASIG 2021 Conference
Live-streamed OA Switchboard panel (20 May 2021)
Posted 20 February 2021
Updated 9 June 2021
OA Switchboard participated in the 36th annual NASIG Conference (19-21 May 2021) by hosting a panel session. The recorded session is here.
The title of our session was: The OA Switchboard - How a simple, collaborative solution tackles multiple use cases for funders, institutions and publishers, strategically and practically.
UKSG 44th Annual Conference and Exhibition: Online
OA Switchboard lightning presentation on 13th April 2021
Updated 13 April 2021 / Posted 4 February 2021
OA Switchboard participated in this year's online version of the UKSG Annual Conference on Tuesday 13th April 2021. The full program is here.
The title of our lightning presentation is: OA Switchboard: a mission-driven practical solution, that thrives on collaboration.
30th Annual North Carolina Serials Conference
OA Switchboard Lightning Talk on 9 April 2021
Updated 9 April 2021 / Posted 9 February 2021
OA Switchboard participated in this year's North Caroline Serials Conference on 9 April 2021. The conference website is here.
The title of our Lightning Talk is: How the OA Switchboard is building the infrastructure for an OA-driven scholarly communications landscape.
InformationToday feature article: OA Switchboard, central information exchange hub
Posted 2 February 2021
[Editor's Note: If you heard Yvonne Campfens' inspiring keynote talk at Internet Librarian International 2019 all about creating, innovating, collaborating and what we can learn from startups, you won't be surprised to hear that she has taken her own advice and joined startup OA Switchboard as its executive director. I asked her to tell us about this new venture.]
Read the full article here.
ICOLC EMEA Webinar
Posted 15 March 2022
OA Switchboard was pleased and honoured to organise 2-hour webinar for ICOLC EMEA. The following partners joined us in this closed event:
Arjan Schalken, UKB/VSNU
Frank Manista, Jisc
Gaynor Redvers-Mutton, Microbiology Society
Ivo Verbeek, ELITEX
Marten Stavenga, John Benjamins Publishing Company
Richard Bennett, Hindawi
Next steps for Open Access, Westminster Higher Education Forum policy conference
OA Switchboard keynote on 9th July 2021
Posted 24 January 2021
OA Switchboard will participate in the Westminster Higher Education Forum policy conference on Friday 9th July 2021. The theme of the conference is 'Next steps for Open Access' and the full program is here.
The title of our keynote is: Streamlining communication and the neutral exchange of OA-related publication level information - collaborative infrastructure to make the ecosystem work better for everyone.
Outsell Analysis: OA Switchboard addresses an acute need in scholarly communications
Posted: 19 January 2021
OA Switchboard was covered in an Outsell Analysis by Tatiana Khayrullina (Director & Lead Analyst) today, with the title: OA Switchboard Is Ready to Go Live, Addressing an Acute Need in Scholarly Communications.
In the abstract it states: "The OA Switchboard strives to remove technical barriers on the path to OA adoption. Its mission is to smooth out communications among market players, one connection at a time."
Academic Publishing in Europe Conference (APE2021): The New Face of Trust
OA Switchboard opening keynote on Day 2 of the conference
Posted 17 November 2020
Updated 13 January 2021
The OA Switchboard participated in the 2021 Academic Publishing in Europe Conference, as the opening keynote on Day 2 of the conference on Wednesday 13 January 2021. The title of the presentation is: From complexity to transparency: How the OA Switchboard is building a cost-effective collaborative infrastructure solution for an OA-driven scholarly communications landscape.
Our presentation is available here.
NISO Plus 2021
"Collaborate to solve a common problem - OA Switchboard"
Posted 11 December 2020
The OA Switchboard will participate in the NISO Plus Conference, by means of a session on Wednesday 24 February 2021. The title of the presentation is: Collaborate to solve a common problem - OA Switchboard.
The full program of NISO Plus 2021 is here.
Progress report December 2020
Posted 10 December 2020
This post is by Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director of the OA Switchboard
Although many may want to forget all about 2020, I will remember it as a catalyst year, in which inspiring collaboration prepared for the OA Switchboard to go live as an operational solution in 2021. This progress report marks the end of the 2020 OA Switchboard project, and preludes the structural set-up for 2021 and beyond.
Continue reading here
UK collaborates with new body to accelerate global open access
Published 3 December 2020
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Wellcome and Jisc are among the first organisations supporting the establishment of a new body called Open Access Switchboard.
Full announcement here.
Annual Publishing Conference 2020 (Rave Technologies)
Panel on Cross-Publisher OA Logistics
Posted 17 November 2020
Updated 13 January 2021
The OA Switchboard participated in a panel during the Annual Publishing Conference 2020 on Wednesday 9 December 2020 on facilitating Open Access in a publisher-neutral manner.
Our presentation is here.
OASPA founds new organisation with future-proof governance and funding structure for the OA Switchboard
A neutral, independent intermediary enabling shared infrastructure, bringing transparency, efficiency and cost effectiveness to the open access ecosystem
CNI Fall Virtual Membership Meeting (November 10-December 15, 2020)
"From toll roads to highways: How the OA Switchboard is building the infrastructure for an OA-driven scholarly communications landscape"
Posted 3 November 2020
Updated 13 January 2021
The OA Switchboard participated in the 2020 CNI Fall Virtual Membership Meeting by means of a Short Update (pre-recorded video) to be made available during Week 3 (December 1-7, 2020).
The theme of week 3 is: Technology, Standards, & Infrastructure
2nd Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum - The Global Transition to Open Access: Challenges and Solutions
"How did we get here? How to move on? How is the OA Switchboard helping?"
Posted 29 October 2020
Updated 13 January 2021
OA Switchboard participated in this virtual conference on 26-27 October 2020: 2nd Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum - The Global Transition to Open Access: Challenges and Solutions.
The title of the paper was: How did we get here? How to move on? How is the OA Switchboard helping?
The recording is available here.
Our presentation is here.
Progress report September 2020
Posted 29 September 2020
API integration workshop (26 August 2020)
Posted 28 August 2020
We’re now in the middle of the Pilot. One of the topics to prove is that we deliver the basics (standards & essential infrastructure). Specifically for, and with, the stakeholders’ partners, we recently organised a very well attended interactive workshop, about technical integration of the OA Switchboard API with these other systems, value-adding solutions on top, so the ambition of an automated, integrated, scalable solution will be achieved.
-- Questions -- Challenges -- Suggestions --
Watch the brainstorm animation here: Where do you see potential challenges with the technical integration to the OA Switchboard?
Demonstration videos of Minimum Viable Product (MVP)/iteration #6
Posted 7 August 2020
6.1 Compose Eligibility Enquiry (E1) message - no prior agreement
6.2 Compose Eligibility Enquiry (E1) message - prior agreement
6.3 Compose Publication/Payment Settlement Notification (P1) from an existing message (pre-populated)
6.4 Respond to an E1 message with an E2 message - prior agreement
6.5 Respond to an E1 message with an E2 message (partial accept) - no prior agreement
6.6 Reporting: monitoring and tracking predicted/committed OA spend and publication numbers and details
Progress report July 2020
Posted 30 July 2020
RLUK's OAPP group hosts demonstration of the OA Switchboard initiative
Webinar on 27 July 2020
Posted 27 July 2020, updated 28 July 2020
On 27 July 2020, the RLUK OAPP Group hosted a webinar demonstration of the OA Switchboard initiative. The recording is available.
Demonstration videos of intermediate delivery iteration #5
Posted 21 July 2020
5.1 Compose Eligibility Enquiry message - prior agreement, with individual article charges specified
5.2 Routing of message to non-participating recipient (undelivered message)
5.3 Auto-reject of Eligibility Enquiry based on central OA fund terms (master data)
Demonstration videos of intermediate delivery iteration #4
Posted 7 July 2020
4.1 Compose Eligibility Enquiry message - prior agreement
4.2 Compose Eligibility Enquiry message - no prior agreement
4.3 Compose Publication/Payment Settlement Notification message & edit and resend
4.4 Read and respond to Eligibility Enquiry message (prior and no prior agreement)
Demonstration videos of intermediate delivery iteration #3
Posted 1 June 2020
Announced 4 May 2020
Posted 31 March 2020
Issued 18 March 2020
Posted 31 January 2020
Published 12 February 2019