Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access

Informations projet

CRAFT-OA

N° de convention de subvention: 101094397

DOI

10.3030/101094397

Projet clôturé

Date de signature de la CE 6 Decembre 2022

Date de début 1 Janvier 2023

Date de fin 31 Decembre 2025

Financé au titre de

• Research infrastructures

Coût total

€ 4 777 337,50

Contribution de l’UE

€ 4 777 337,50

Coordonné par

GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAT GOTTINGEN STIFTUNG OFFENTLICHEN RECHTS
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CRAFT-OA (Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access)

Période du rapport: 2024-01-01 au 2025-12-31

Résumé du contexte et des objectifs généraux du projet

In Diamond Open Access (DOS), authors can publish free of charge as the institutional sector with universities, research institutions or libraries provide the necessary infrastructure, usually with a higher level of diversity and origin than in the commercial OA model. However, large parts of the DOA landscape are still fragmented, underfunded, and not always technically proficient enough to develop its full potential. To consolidate the Diamond OA landscape, CRAFT-OA focused on four threads of activities to improve the infrastructures of Diamond OA:
(1) Provide technical improvements for journal platforms and journal software
(2) Build communities of practice to foster overall infrastructure improvement
(3) Increase visibility, discoverability and recognition for Diamond OA publishing
(4) Integrate Diamond OA publishing with EOSC and other large-scale data aggregators.
CRAFT-OA’s 23 partners from 14 European countries have all been engaged in institutional publishing and are committed to sustaining and developing capacities in the field. Many CRAFT-OA partners are leading organisations at national and European levels in open publishing, and represent internationally visible centres of expertise in Open Science and FAIR implementation with strong connections to the EOSC. Within 36 months, CRAFT-OA delivered technical and community tools, training events and materials, and services for the Diamond OA institutional publishing environment. It fostered communities of practice with the capacity to sustain the project improvements over time, mainly through the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH).

Travail effectué depuis le début du projet jusqu’à la fin de la période considérée dans le rapport et principaux résultats atteints jusqu’à présent

The following five goals where met, operationalised with the six Key exploitable Results (KERs):

1. Providing Orientation and Closing Technical Gaps (met esp. with KERs 1, 4, 5, 6)
CRAFT-OA conducted analyses of technical standards, workflows, and organisational requirements within the European DOA community as many services continue to be only partially aligned with existing recommendations, quality criteria, and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) principles. Therefore, the project developed a range of support measures, including technical enhancements for publishing software, training materials, guidelines, and modular tools that promote interoperability and enable the sustainable advancement of services.

2. Increasing Visibility, Transparency, and Networking (met with all KERs)
CRAFT-OA improved discoverability and representation of DOA journals and service providers. It created structures for systematic collection and presentation of the output/ of the results of institutionally operated and scholar-led publishing initiatives, supporting data harmonisation, quality assurance, metadata enrichment, and collaboration with aggregators and international infrastructures.

3. Community Building, Empowerment, and Professionalisation (met with all KERs)
In DOA publishing, community empowerment and professionalisation is interconnected with technical capacities. CRAFT-OA focused on targeted capacity-building. Training and competence-development programmes supported editorial teams, service providers, and system administrators in transitioning towards standards-based, interoperable publishing practices. Smaller publishing initiatives were specifically targeted: workshops, summer schools, and online exchange formats offered skill-building essential for sustainable technical and editorial work. One of the major outcomes of the sister project DIAMAS, the EDCH, provides a community framework to maintain such project results beyond Funding periods.

4. Technical Tools for Interoperability and Data Integration (met esp. with KERs 1, 2, 3, 5)
CRAFT-OA developed technical solutions to facilitate the work of editors and Service providers and support integration with European infrastructures. These include enhancements to publishing systems that improve metadata quality, enable automated enrichment, and introduce new interoperability functions. They strengthen the quality and visibility of publications, and allow for new analytical and monitoring capabilities.

5. Sustainable Key Innovations for the Diamond OA Ecosystem (met with all KERs)
The project’s central innovations provide the foundation for sustainable services that will continue to operate beyond the project’s runtime. These solutions were designed to integrate with existing publishing systems such as Open Journal Systems (OJS) or Lodel and to enable their long-term maintenance and further development by the European infrastructure and developer community.

With its DoA CRAFT-OA contributed to the long-term strengthening of the European Diamond OA ecosystem, increased the visibility of community-led publishing models, and created improved conditions for technical and organisational maturity across the sector.CRAFT-OA channelled its activities into six key exploitable results to ensure all technical and scientific results were supporting DOA communities on a technical level, all delivered as fully functional MVPs or beyond, with TRL 7-9 and having respective sustainability plans including consortium partners providing long term commitment. They became part of the EDCH collective and its task forces to oversee target group orientation, collective governance and (if needed) technical updates beyond funding. CRAFT-OA KERs are meaningful contributions for the DOA communities of practice on a technical level, closing known technical gaps.

KER1 Diamond Discovery Hub: A central registry of scholar-led Diamond OA journals in Europe that boosts their visibility and discoverability by providing interoperable metadata and enhanced recognition across platforms.

KER2 Enhancements to OJS: A suite of new and improved functionalities within the Open Journal Systems platform to enhance metadata quality, support multilingual content, and improve GDPR-compliant handling of editorial and reviewer data.

KER3 Publisher Dashboard: A data-driven dashboard component integrated with the OpenAIRE MONITOR service, designed to help Diamond OA publishers access analytics and insights to support publication workflows.

KER4 Publisher’s Living Handbook for Diamond Open Access: A continuously updated and sustainable handbook documenting best practices, standards, and technical guidance for Diamond Open Access publishing. Among other resources, this collection includes all the training materials and sessions developed in the CRAFT-OA project.

KER5 Six OJS Diamond Plugins: A collection of additional plugins for the Open Journal Systems platform that extend support for Diamond OA publishing needs and interoperability with other tools.

KER6 Guide to Scholarly Indexes: A structured set of documentation that helps Diamond OA publishers understand and engage with the technical and indexing requirements of major scholarly publication indexes and aggregators.

Progrès au-delà de l’état des connaissances et impact potentiel prévu (y compris l’impact socio-économique et les conséquences sociétales plus larges du projet jusqu’à présent)

The 26 endorsements for CRAFT-OA from various stakeholders emphasised that strengthening the not-for-profit Diamond OA model with its manifestation in OA Diamond Journals (OADJ) is urgently needed and that CRAFT-OA proposed the right way forward to do so. Additionally, all consortium members are deeply rooted in DOA communities, either on a disciplinary, technical or regional and national level. Therefore, CRAFT-OA was able to adress DOA community needs and offer pathways for improvement right with project start.
While RP1 laid the foundation for project results meeting community needs, RP2 delivered, such as OJS core enhancements, coffee lectures, more meet the expert workshops than planned, several national events (IBL PAN, EZB) and a final event 2025 with a lot more international, diverse and technical community input than foreseen. CRAFT-OA results were mentioned as benchmarks in national funding schemes on DOA (f.e. DFG), the standard JMEF evolved, six operational Diamond OA criteria have been established as a community standard for assessing diamondity of journals, AEGIS OA as follow up project.