October - December 2024 OAEBUDT Update

[Ursula Rabar]

Greetings everyone, 

It’s with much gratitude that I share this short video message that celebrates the many things we accomplished together last year. Thank you for the ongoing support and input!

The OAEBUDT community has been very active, preparing for the data space technical pilot and refining the draft sustainability model. We’re excited to share updates on these activities as we approach the end of the Mellon award that has supported our governance development and seek support for the next phase of technical operations.

For any questions, feel free to reach out using my contact info: 

Ursula Rabar, Community Manager | OA Book Usage Data Trust

ursula.rabar at operas-eu.org

OA Book Usage Data Trust (OAEBUDT) | October - December 2024 Update

Technical OAEBUDT data space infrastructure proof of concept build and pilot scheduled 

• Thanks to support from the Mellon Foundation, from February to May 2025, OPERAS is managing the technical development and piloting of a minimum viable data space. Up to six organizations will exchange COUNTER title and chapter level metrics as a proof of concept.

• Data space architecture and open-source Eclipse Data Connector experts Think-IT will lead the open source build, as they were selected by the Board of Trustees after a thorough RFP process engaging our Technical Advisory Committee. The decision followed the review and discussion of four proposals, follow-up responses and Technical Advisory Committee feedback. The Board’s consensus aligned with that of the Technical Advisory Committee. 

• The minimum viable data space is expected to enable direct, authenticated data flows between organizations via open source Tractus-x Eclipse Data Connectors while facilitating the machine actionable discovery and stewardship of related data provenance and data access and reuse terms associated with each connector. 

Sustainability model development and implementation

• The Board elected to form an ad-hoc Transition Committee to steward the transition off of the Mellon Foundation-supported Advancing to Launch - Governance Building Blocks award into the new sustainability model. 

• A membership fees and benefits consultation was prepared to gather input on a proposed membership program that evolved from discussions among our Membership and Sustainability Committee and Trustees after 2023-2024 consultations indicated membership, grants and scalable infrastructure-usage related fees were the most trusted methods of cost-recovery.

• A report is being drafted to aggregate findings from the Supporting Membership pilot, the February 2025 Membership fee and benefit consultation and the data from our prior sustainability workshops.

Opine by 7 March 2025: Provide your feedback on organizational membership fees and benefits via this link to comment on Organizational Membership package benefits, fees, and discounts and recognition of the organizations or individuals providing financial support. 

Support Us: “Supporting Membership” pilot launched

• To determine membership administration processes for our rulebook, our Board authorized OPERAS to launch a Supporting Membership pilot to give organizations a way to support the  transition from the technical proof of concept to a launched, operational data space focused initially on multi-platform COUNTER item metrics aggregation and benchmarking. The Supporting Membership pilot will also illuminate staffing, outreach, and administration requirements for direct membership campaign management, and the extent to which membership fees can support early stage operations, research, and development costs given the current budgetary climate facing open book publishing and discovery stakeholders. 

  • Thank you to the University of Michigan Libraries and Project MUSE, our first Supporting Members! 

Give: Contact me (Ursula) to become a founding Supporting Member and help us launch our infrastructure.

Community governance elected 

• December elections for the OAEBUDT Board of Trustees occurred in line with our current Governance guidelines. Trustees elected to 2025-2027 terms include:

  • John Sherer, Director of the University of North Carolina Press, newly elected

  • Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian, Publishing, University of Michigan Library and Director of University of Michigan Press, re-elected for a second term

  • Jon Elwell, Director of Content Strategies for EBSCO Books, re-elected for a second term

• As committee member terms are one year in duration, staff reached out to all board committee members to gauge 2025 participation interest and support further board committee development. 

Participate: Contact me (Ursula) if interested in joining one of our board committees in 2025.

Extensibility research partnerships forming

• The Board voted to support future research into the extensibility of the OAEBUDT data space infrastructure to other areas of sensitive data exchange among scholarly communications stakeholders. Potential use cases so far include data exchange related to: knowledge graphs, funding models, and collections development. 

  • The European Commission awarded the three-year GRAPHIA project, which includes a use case that explores how a data space could support knowledge graph data provision. OPERAS, OAPEN, and Taylor and Francis will be involved in this work from 2026-2027.

  • Christina Drummond is actively developing research partnerships to seek 2026-2028 funding in line with shared aims. 

Partner: Contact Christina if your organization is interested in partnering to explore how the data space can streamline other types of sensitive data exchange in scholarly communications.

Raising Awareness:

• In the last quarter of 2024, OAEBUDT staff presented at the Annual Open Access Symposium, the 23rd Research Data Alliance Plenary, and the Charleston Library Conference. 
  

• In 2025, you can find staff presenting in February at IDCC and NISO Plus, and in March at UKSG. Further information can be found on our events page.