Workshop and international conference “openCost: The Road to Publication Cost Transparency”

From October 8 to 9, the international conference “openCost: The Road to Publication Cost Transparency – The Next Stage” took place at the University of Regensburg. The project partners – the University Libraries of Regensburg and Bielefeld as well as the Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron – presented the project results achieved as well as reuse options for the community.

After the official opening of the conference, the project partner presented the project and the metadata schema developed for recording publication costs in detail. The conference also focused on the extensive new functions of the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) and the extensions to OpenAPC that were developed as part of the project. In addition to the institutions involved in the project the JOIN² institution RWTH Aachen University and the Geomar Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel also demonstrated how the project results are already being implemented in practice. Both institutions record their publication costs in the institutional repository and reported on successes and challenges.

International conference with many perspectives

In addition, international experts contributed their perspectives on the monitoring of publication costs and the importance of cost transparency in two sessions entitled “International Cost Monitoring”. Speakers from Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Austria provided valuable insights into cost monitoring in their respective countries and the associated challenges. There were also insights from OpenAIRE and the Horizon Europe project PathOS on the extent to which transparent cost data can support strategic decision-making.

Another session dealt with transformative agreements. The key elements of these contracts, attempts at standardization, best practices and reasons for differences were highlighted. Cottage Labs also provided insights into working with cOAlition S, how it manages information on transformation contracts and the challenges of tracking them.

The keynote speech by Joanna Ball, Managing Director of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which opened the second day of the conference, was also particularly noteworthy. In her presentation “The hidden costs of open access: navigating to a more equitable future, she spoke about the importance of cost transparency and the opportunities and challenges of Diamond Open Access as an alternative to the APC model.

Workshop day and hands-on lab offer space for lively exchange

In a hands-on lab on central publication cost recording on Wednesday and on the preceding workshop day on Monday, October 7, there was also ample opportunity for in-depth discussions. The hands-on lab provided practical insights and an open exchange for publication cost managers. The workshop on Monday was aimed in particular at repository operators and system providers. Based on a brief presentation of the openCost implementation at the institutions involved in the project, implementation options were discussed with the participants.

The project team would like to thank the 51 conference participants, the 27 workshop participants and all the speakers from nine countries for the interesting presentations, exciting discussions, and lively exchange of ideas.

The presentations are available to all interested parties on the event page under the respective contribution.