In October 2015, the open access infrastructure project INTACT (www.intact-project.org) has started its work. The project website has now been launched.
Funded by DFG, INTACT brings together three already existing initiatives which will now collaborate under one roof:
i) The Open APC platform at Bielefeld University Library collects cost information for open access article charges from university and research institutions. The constantly growing dataset is publicly available on a GitHub environment, which is integrated on the INTACT website. Currently it aggregates data with a total volume of more than 8,000,000 € for about 6,300 articles. Open APC demonstrates transparent and reproducible reporting and allows various cost analysis on fee-based open access publishing across institutions and publishers, which will be developed within the project.
https://github.com/OpenAPC/openapc-de
ii) The working group Open Access Analytics at the “Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Science” (I²SoS) at Bielefeld University focuses on bibliometric research. Within the INTACT project, OA Analytics will provide indicators about the development and distribution of open access publishing at universities and research organizations. This is complemented by publication analytics frequently performed in the context of the global open access transformation by the MPDL Big Data Analytics group.
iii) The ESAC initiative at the Max Planck Digital Library was established in 2014 to address the administrative challenges between publishers and libraries related to the management of open access article processing charges. ESAC wants to help shaping the principles and conditions of the apc based business model while partnering with publishers and libraries in order to develop good practices and guidelines.
In following these three fields of action INTACT aims at an improvement of infrastructure which is needed to ensure a transparent and efficient APC market.
“The INTACT project combines three major components which are crucial for making the transition to open access happen. I am convinced that the synergies of the INTACT project will soon speed up progress in open access infrastructure building”, says Frank Sander, General Manager of the Max Planck Digital Library. “We are pleased to further strengthen the collaboration between Bielefeld University, Bielefeld University Library and MPDL as these partners are already today well-recognized in their ability to create and provide both robust services, deep insights and advanced library concepts”, he continues.
“We are also looking forward to collaborate with the Max Planck Digital Library on this important project” states Dirk Pieper, Deputy Director of Bielefeld University Library. “It is important that universities and research organizations work closely together to foster the ongoing open access transition. The international reputation of the MPDL will help increase the visibility and relevance of our joint project.”
The next steps of INTACT will be an expert workshop on open access offsetting agreements to be held in March at the MPDL and a Bielefeld workshop for Open APC data suppliers in April.
