SCOSS | Pilot Funding Cycle
In late 2017, SCOSS launched its pilot funding cycle with the presentation of two services for funding: SHERPA/RoMEO and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Since then, 1,635,635 euros have been pledged by more than 200 institutions; 366,125 euros for SHERPA/RoMEO and 1,269,510 for DOAJ.
When the services applied for funding, they submitted detailed applications that were thoroughly vetted by SCOSS. Below are excerpts wherein they define their services and speak to their value to the community:
“Sherpa RoMEO is an online service that aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of self-archiving permissions and conditions of rights given to authors on a journal-by-journal basis. The service is available free of charge at the point of use and is used worldwide as a respected and authoritative source for the interpretation of publishers’ copyright transfer agreements (CTAs) as they relate to open access archiving.
Sherpa RoMEO is widely considered to be an essential part of the open access environment, in giving information and guidance to depositors who wish to make material available on an open access basis, whether in subject repositories, central archives, institutional repositories or otherwise.
Sherpa RoMEO serves the following stakeholder groups: Repository Managers and Administrators, Academic Authors and Researchers, Research Managers, Open Access Software Developers and Publishers.”
“DOAJ is primarily (but not only) a list of peer-reviewed open access journals covering all disciplines and more than 50 languages. Journals are listed after a detailed evaluation based on the application from journals/publishers. DOAJ receives around 500 applications per month. The rejection rate is around 50%. Evaluation is free of charge, like all other DOAJ services. DOAJ provides as well article metadata (currently 70% of journals upload article metadata) for download/harvesting. Currently DOAJ lists nearly 9.400 journals and 2.500.000 article metadata records are available. The data DOAJ provides are harvested and downloaded with an API and integrated in all major discovery services, indexing databases etc.
DOAJ has become the reference point for good open access journals. DOAJ serves research funders, research managers, universities, libraries, researchers, students and the public as well as publishers. DOAJ is as well an important source for research in scholarly publishing.”
Please note that DOAJ is currently motivating current financial contributors (DOAJ members) to migrate from the current membership model to the SCOSS funding model. What will happen from 2021 onwards depends on the take up of the SCOSS funding model.
Organisations interested in becoming part of the voluntary endowment network providing temporary financial support to DOAJ and/or SHERPA/RoMEO should consult the following flat fee funding structure devised by SCOSS.
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Open Access or Open Science is made free to all, but it is not free. It is more often than not paid by researchers, funders and libraries across the world to provide free access to all.
SCOSS has come up with a pricing model to help sustain certain infrastructure for three years, after which time services will come up with another model that sustains them further into the future.
The SCOSS recommended pricing model is a tiny fraction of what libraries spend on article subscriptions.
If the pricing structure is too high for your current budget, you are free to negotiate directly with the services, but note that the lower the fee, the higher the overheads and administration, and the longer the duration to meet the targets.
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For each of the services (DOAJ and SHERPA RoMEO) an organisation chooses to help support, the following is recommended:
- Large organisations from high-income countries would contribute Euros 4000 annually for a period of 3 years
- Small organisations from high-income countries would contribute Euros 2000 annually for a period of 3 years
- Funders would contribute Euros 8000 annually for a period of 3 years
- Government would contribute Euros 5000 annually for a period of 3 years
- For organisations from low and middle income countries and others with lower incomes it is suggested that they contribute 500 euros per year for 3 years.
- A 25% discount would be deducted for consortia of 10 organisations or more
- Organisations may choose between paying up front for 3 years or annually.
- Funding transactions will take place between the service provider and the funder, and not via SCOSS.
Large and small organisations can be defined using the following criteria: size of faculty, economic health, and relative position in the region.
Please note that numbers have been based on what the coalition estimates it can achieve to reach the targets of each service across the three years.
For DOAJ the target is 970 000 euros. This has been reached. However, after reviewing DOAJ’s progress, SCOSS approved an additional work package for those still wishing to fund the service. See DOAJ’s work plan for the funding period.
For Sherpa/RoMEO the target is 1 529 935 euros. See Sherpa/RoMEO’s workplan for the funding period here.
Please note that UK institutions are already funding Sherpa/RoMEO via their Jisc subscription so do not need to contribute additional funds for Sherpa/RoMEO.
Any organisations that cannot commit to the sums above but still wish to contribute, please contact SCOSS at info@scoss.org.
SCOSS requests a one-time fee from services to help support SCOSS operations and marketing.
For organisations that choose to fund DOAJ and/or SHERPA RoMEO, please contact:
Azhar Hussain for SHERPA/RoMEO (azhar.hussain@jisc.ac.uk)
Lars Bjørnshauge for DOAJ (lars@doaj.org)
The support of many organisations and institutions is vital in securing a future for Open Science that is truly open.
Download the
SCOSS Fee Structure
Download the
SCOSS Letter SPARC Europe