The Open Scholarship Initiative
Working together in partnership with UNESCO to create the global future of open
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Tech products

Overview

Filling the gaps

OSI tech products address specific needs in scholarly communication with the goal of helping pave the way toward a more open future.

Global

What products can help improve access globally, taking into consideration a wide range of issues and concerns? What are the global needs and solutions?

Achievable

OSI tech products take small bites out of big problems. They are discrete and achievable deliverables that together provide stepping stones toward more ambitious end-goals.

Coming soon

Recent Products

Upcoming

Products under consideration (or development)

  1. Apcgrabber.com: Would it help to have website that pulls in data on APCs for easy comparison or where publishers can self-post pricing info (granted there would be lots of caveats)?
  2. All-Scholarship Repository (ASR): For several years now, the OSI group has examined the pros and cons of an All-Scholarship Repository. Back in 2015 when we first started this conversation, this was an idea ahead of it’s time. Now, there is more global chatter about ideas like this. Has the time come to take a serious look?
  3. Blacklist: Should a new blacklist be developed to replace Beall’s list? A whitelist? Some other solution? Various ideas have been discussed at length both on and off the OSI list and in side groups but a final decision hasn’t been reached yet.
  4. iTunes: Would an iTunes model work for scholarly journals? Would providing a-la-carte access to journal articles at 99 cents apiece be attractive to scholars and publishers?
  5. Open data: Is there a role OSI should play in the open data conversation? There is much overlap on the core challenges facing the open access and open data movements. Sharing insights and collaborating on efforts might be helpful to both.
  6. Open protocols: Open study protocols is an important and under-researched area. There are a few open protocol sites but none for major clinical work. What are the challenges? Is this a solvable problem? How can the foundation of OA work help with this effort?
  7. Standards: OSI2016 and 2017 participants identified standards development as a key need. The open scholarship community can work together to review existing relevant standards and areas of overlap or conflict. From this, we can collaborate to create clearer, universal standards for scholarly communication, and new standards for needs where relevant standards are needed and don’t yet exist.