March 18, 2019 – The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) are collaborating to facilitate Canadian support of international open infrastructure through the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS). Under this initiative, Canadian institutions will contribute toward the sustainability of selected key international services in the open scholarship ecosystem.
SCOSS aims to help sustain essential open scholarship infrastructure. In doing so, SCOSS brings together a community of experts to evaluate critical open science services that lack sustainable financing, and then encourages institutions worldwide to financially support the services that it recommends.
Through the collaboration between CRKN and CARL, Canadian institutions will have the option of supporting SCOSS-endorsed services collectively. Benefiting from CRKN’s national infrastructure, CARL and CRKN members can contribute at reduced rates. This increases efficiency, reduces administrative overhead, and has the potential to increase Canadian participation.
The SCOSS Board (which includes CARL representation) has completed an evaluation of its pilot phase, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in community funding for two essential open access services – Sherpa/RoMEO and DOAJ. Many Canadian institutions have pledged support through SCOSS or by continuing to support DOAJ via existing institutional memberships. CARL and CRKN encourage more institutions to participate in this ongoing pilot, as well as in the next round of pledges for additional services that will launch in coming months.
“Academic libraries are keen to support the structures that underlie open scholarly practices in order to make ‘open’ a thriving, sustainable, and compelling model for scholarly publishing,” stated CARL President Donna Bourne-Tyson. “Initiatives such as SCOSS are helping to make this a reality.”
“CRKN is pleased to make use of its national infrastructure to support the collective funding of critical, international, open scholarship tools and services,” said CRKN Vice-Chair, Gwen Bird. “CRKN and CARL members have already taken a leadership role in supporting these initiatives and through this coordinated approach, we look forward to making it more efficient and cost effective to contribute.”
CRKN will be communicating with member institutions in the coming weeks with more information on how to participate, the different contribution levels by institution size, and details about Sherpa/RoMEO and DOAJ’s planned use of the funds.
More information on SCOSS can be found on the SCOSS website or by downloading this 2-page briefing.
CARL members include Canada’s twenty-nine largest university libraries as well as two national libraries. Enhancing research and higher education are at the heart of its mission. CARL develops the capacity to support this mission, promotes effective and sustainable scholarly communication, and public policy that enables broad access to scholarly information. For more information, visit carl-abrc.ca
The Canadian Research Knowledge Network is a partnership of Canadian universities, dedicated to expanding digital content for the academic research and teaching enterprise in Canada. Through the coordinated leadership of librarians, researchers, administrators and other stakeholders in the research community, CRKN undertakes large-scale content acquisition and licensing initiatives in order to build knowledge infrastructure and research and teaching capacity in Canada’s universities.
For more information, please contact:
Rebecca Ross, Director, Marketing and Stakeholder Engagement, CRKN
rross@crkn.ca
613-907-7027
Susan Haigh, Executive Director, CARL
susan.haigh@carl-abrc.ca
613-482-9344 x 101