January - March 2024 OAEBUDT Update
Ursula Rabar
Dear all,
At the onset of the year, the OAEBUDT team and community were fully immersed in various endeavors, including finalizing the International Data Space (IDS) Technical Development Call for Proposals. We sincerely appreciate your patience as we bring you the first quarterly update of 2024, featuring news on our newly elected Trustees, committee development, the OAEUBDT rulebook, community consultations on sustainability, and much more!
I hope you’ll find the below information useful. Feel free to reach out with questions and comments 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) | January - March 2024 Update
Highlights:
As per our Governance Board Documentation, new Trustees were elected to the OAEBUDT Board of Trustees:
John Lenahan, Vice President, Published Content at JSTOR
Sherine Eid, Acting Head of the Quality Improvement Unit, Library Sector at Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Vivian Berghahn, Managing Director, Berghahn Books
We recognized the efforts of Trustees who rotated off the Board: Dimitris Pierrakos, Lorraine Estelle, Sharla Lair and Tasha Mellins-Cohen. We wouldn’t be where we are without the work of these individuals and are thankful for their in-depth engagement through Board committee work and community consultations.
Drafting of Version 0.0 of the OA Book Usage Data Exchange and Stewardship Rulebook was completed, compiling over a year of stakeholder discussions and contributions across the Brussels in-person workshop, 2023 consultations on trusted usage data exchange, and “Rulebook Task Team” conversations. This draft was shared publicly with global stakeholders over three weeks, supported by social media, email and video presentations. Received feedback was incorporated into the mentioned Version 0.0, which will now support standard contractual clause drafting and be formatted to post in Zenodo in Q2.
Stakeholders were invited to inform how an open infrastructure could be sustained by and for the communities it serves via an in-person workshop at the Researcher to Reader conference and online focus groups. Individuals wishing to be notified of forthcoming community consultations are welcome to subscribe here.
The reports on all the related community consultations will be shared in 2024.
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The Details:
Supported by the 2022-2025 Advancing to Launch project funded by the Mellon Foundation, staff facilitated Trustee and subcontractor efforts to further develop the OAEBUDT’s community governance, participation agreements, sustainability model, and technical roadmap.
Community Governance
In addition to the above mentioned changes to the Board of Trustees composition, new Board Officers stepped up to serve over the next two years:
Jo Lambert and Jennifer Kemp as Board of Trustees Co-Chairs
John Lenahan as Board Treasurer, supported through the transition by outgoing Treasurer Charles Watkinson
Vivian Berghahn as Board Secretary
Given 2024’s focus on OAEBUDT sustainability and technical development, two Board Committees were launched for Trustees and community members to advise efforts:
The Technical Advisory Committee (charter) informs the technical development and implementation roadmap for the OA Book Usage Data Trust’s International Data Space (IDS) as it adapts existing German DINS IDS-RAM standards (that are undergoing ISO certification) for scholarly communications usage and impact data.
Seventeen committee members participating across four continents include: Charles Watkinson (Committee Chair), Amanda Ramalho, Clive Herbert, Devin O’Hara, Dominique Lechaudel, Jeff Edmunds, Kathryn Napier, Ken Klingenstein, Kevin Moreno, Laurent Schmitt, Luca De Santis, Matthew Goddard, Pablo Markin, Paolo Manghi, Ronald Snijder, Sy Holsinger, and Toby Steiner. (Tasha Mellins-Cohen served as Committee Chair thru 5 April 2024.)
The Membership and Sustainability Committee (charter) guides the development of POSI aligned inclusive cost-recovery mechanisms so the OAEBUDT can grow in a scalable, sustainable way.
Twelve committee members participating across three continents include: Jennifer Kemp (Committee Co-Chair), John Lenahan, (Committee Co-Chair), Andrew Joseph, Gillian Leslie, Jo Lambert, John Sherer, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Mikala Narlock, Peter Potter, Philippa Grand, Sherine Eid, and Stephanie Veldman.
Standing board committees also received new Trustee Chairs and members, with Jon Elwell leading the Finance and Fundraising Committee (charter), and Wendy Queen and Vivian Berghahn co-chairing the Policy and Governance Committee (charter), welcoming new committee member Tina Baich.
Participation Rulebook and Agreement Development
Version 0.0 of the OA Book Usage Data Exchange and Stewardship Rulebook started with an in-person workshop in Brussels in April 2023 where an initial set of data exchange principles was drafted. In preparation for this workshop Christina Drummond shared a draft discussion paper to provide the attendees with an overview of the OAEBUDT effort, the IDS framework, and how both can foster trust in multi-party data exchange and potentially lead to higher quality OA book usage data analytics. The proceedings of the workshop further helped conduct online and in-person consultations on trusted usage data exchange.
At the same time, the Rulebook Task Team was formed representing stakeholders from the publishing, library, service providers and infrastructure communities, that worked on expanding and finalizing the draft rulebook document. This draft version was made publicly available while supported by social media, email and video presentations for final community consultation until March 2024. Ursula Rabar and Christina Drummond co-facilitated the Rulebook Task Team efforts while the Task Team participants included: James Watson of Taylor and Francis, Jo Lambert of Jisc, John Lenahan of JSTOR, Jon Elwell of EBSCO, Niels Stern of OAPEN/DOAB, and Pierre Mounier of OpenEdition. Lambert recused herself after one session due to time conflicts. The current OAEBUDT project’s coPIs Yannick Legré and Prodromos Tsiavos supported this work with input as well. Received feedback was incorporated into the mentioned Version 0.0, which will be formatted to post in Zenodo in Q2. A report on the feedback received through the process will be published in 2024 as well.
Sustainability Model Development
To inform the OAEBUDT cost model and recovery options, OAEBUDT staff have started community consultations via workshops in Q3 2023 with a first in-person workshop during the Charleston Pre-Conference. This was followed by two events in Q1 2024 (an in-person workshop at Researcher to Reader and two online focus groups). The findings will be shared with the Membership and Sustainability Committee and published in a report in 2024.
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Technical News:
Multiple efforts in this quarter worked to inform the technical data space development and pilots scheduled for 2024:
67 Bricks completed an analysis to understand whether operational open scholarly infrastructures can play the specific IDS roles referenced in the IDS Model. Their Research Plan, Infographic, and IDS Technical Gap Analysis Report are available in Zenodo.
Research interviews supported by the US National Science Foundation, related to the extensibility of a book usage-focused IDS, continue through Clarke and Esposito and Stratos Consulting. Researchers are respectively working to study and document usage and impact data supply chains and shared vocabularies for other publicly accessible scholarship outputs. A draft vocabularies glossary and crosswalk will be circulated in Q2 for community feedback with final reports expected this summer.
OAEBUDT technical pilot cohorts are forming (infosheet). Organizations that create usage data to share with others are asked to notify Christina or Ursula if they’d like to be in the first or second cohort for data exchange through the OAEBUDT data space. Pilot partners will work with experienced IDS system integrators (2024-2025 pending funding) and have the unique opportunity to understand their return on time/resources invested in connecting to a data space thanks to Mellon Foundation support.
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Raising Awareness:
As displayed on the OAEBUDT website, staff continue to present at library, publisher, OA and open infrastructure conferences to raise awareness of this effort and solicit feedback. Examples include:
NISO+ invited talk, February 13-14, speaker: Christina Drummond
Researcher To Reader lighting talk About the OA Book Usage Data Trust Effort (recording available), February 21, speaker: Ursula Rabar
Looking ahead, OAEBUDT representatives will be at the following:
AUPresses annual conference talk and showcase presentation, June 11-13, speaker: Christina Drummond
LIBER presentation Digital infrastructure for a scalable exchange of sensitive and proprietary usage and impact metrics across public and private stakeholders, July 2024, speaker: Christina Drummond
The OAEBUDT YouTube channel library now showcases past presentations, including:
Charleston panel How an international data trust model can benefit those working with OA book usage data, December 2023, panelists: Christina Drummond, Jennifer Kemp and Ursula Rabar
OAEBUDT IDS Technical Gap Analysis update, January 2024, speakers: Alexandra Howat and Richard Brown from 67 Bricks
R2R lighting talk, February 2024, speaker: Ursula Rabar
The OAEBUDT website now includes a Frequently Asked Questions section.