OASPA seeking feedback on open access position paper
Paper outlines barriers to OA publishing and calls for a move “from aspiration to action”
OAPSA – the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association – has published a new ‘position paper’ and is inviting feedback from the industry on its stated aims. The paper, “Embracing the Complexity of ‘100% OA’: From Percentage to Participation”, produced in association with Research Consulting, expands the organisation’s focus from the percentage of open access outputs published to also enabling participation in an open, scholarly exchange.
This shift in imperative is described in the position paper, where OASPA summarises what it sees as the five biggest problems in open access: inequitable models; a lack of funding; excessive focus on research articles; the commodification of outputs; and a lack of coordination.
The paper also explored how three interlocking barriers (geographic and economic exclusion; linguistic hegemony; and disciplinary fragmentation) limit participation and reveal “a scholarly publishing system that has been optimised for scale, efficiency and standardisation – rather than diversity, inclusion and contextual relevance.”
Malavika Legge, program manager at OASPA, said: “Our work distinguishes challenges at the system level (such as reforming research evaluation frameworks) from sector level issues (such as enabling multilingual outputs). This is followed by a section on why solutions remain uncertain and how we can move from aspiration to action.
“With this, we emphasise the importance of honesty about what we don’t know – rather than false confidence in prescriptive strategies.
“The issues we outline urgently need coordinated action, but this only works if all stakeholders take responsibility – meaning that we at OASPA also have our role to play. We therefore conclude with short, medium and long-term goals for OASPA. These ambitions – ranging from us continuing to convene diverse stakeholders, to the sector making demonstrable progress on participatory openness metrics – will inform the next phase of OASPA’s strategic planning in 2026.”
Give your feedback here, or email malavika.legge@oaspa.org to share your thoughts.