Knowledge Exchange news

Welcome to the latest Knowledge Exchange (KE) newsletter. We’re excited to bring you the latest edition of our newsletter as there’s lots going on as we head further into Autumn!

Alternative Publishing Platforms

Preprint just published!

It’s been a busy time for our Alternative Publishing Platforms team. The preprint  sharing the results from the second phase of the work has just been published.

If you are interested in finding out about what individual alternative publishing platforms do and how they fit in the open scholarly communication ecosystem, then this report will be of interest to you.

As part of our work on Alternative Publishing Platforms, we invited platforms working in open access publishing to contribute to a survey and this analysis shares the first results. You can find out what the pros and cons of different platforms are and whether they differ significantly from traditional scholarly journals. The survey results certainly provide valuable and interesting insight into the world of alternative publishing platforms.

You can access the report here.

A busy time for conference presentations

September was a busy month for conferences. Four experts from the Alternative Publishing Platforms group were invited to present the latest phase of the work at three conferences.

First up was the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) conference which took place online from 19 – 21 September. Jeroen Sondervan, Dutch Research Council (NOW), the Netherlands, presented a poster lightning talk on Thursday 21 September. His topic was ’Towards a Taxonomy of Alternative Publishing Platforms’.

Next was the Open Science Fair which took place from 25 – 27 September in Madrid. On 26 September, attendees heard from Jean Francois Lutz, University of Lorraine, France, who presented on the topic ‘Alternative Publishing Platforms: Where do we stand in 2023’. In his presentation, Jean Francois presented the first results of the taxonomy as well as a prototype to present this in a way it can serve as a practical guide for the research community when accessing these platforms.

Read all about the presentation here.

And last but not least, Xenia van Edig, German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), Germany and Daniel Beucke, Göttingen State and University Library, Germany, presented at Open Access Tage in Berlin. On 28 September, Xenia and Daniel provided insight into the different ways of alternative publishing platforms and more, in their presentation titled ‘More than PDFs on the Internet – Alternative Publication Platforms’.

PIDs webinar – Did you miss it?

The first KE webinar took place on 23 May 2023, the subject being Persistent identifiers in academia: risk and trust. If you missed it, you can watch the one-hour recorded event below and hear from expert speakers on how to ensure the effective implementation and management of PID systems. You will also learn more about the risks of an unreliable PID service and reasons why PID usage should be promoted.

You can also read more about our work around PIDs on the KE website here.

Goodbye and a huge thank you to KE Coordinator Bas Cordewener!

Our long-serving and enthusiastic KE Coordinator, Bas Cordewener, has just retired. Bas has been involved with KE in various roles since its conception nearly 20 years ago. He has played a fundamental role in formulating KE purpose, values, and output within and beyond the KE community. Thank you so much Bas for all of your hard work over the years. You’ve been an amazing colleague and we will all miss you and wish you all the best in your retirement!

Thank you and goodbye to …

In this edition, we say farewell to some of our very much valued colleagues as follows:

We say goodbye to three invaluable members of the KE Steering Group. John Doove from SURF has been involved with KE for over 10 years, as a KEG Member, OA Expert Group member and most recently as the chair of the KE Steering Group.  Thank you and goodbye to Kathrin Winkler who has represented DFG and Sara Garavelli from CSC. All of your contributions are much appreciated.

Christina Hemme has been representing DFG as a KE Group member. Congratulations on your new role Christina and thank you for all your valuable work.

Georgia Hemings ends her maternity cover for Sarah James as Project and Administration Officer. Thank you Georgia, you’ve been a wonderful colleague and all of your help in the KE office is hugely appreciated.

Thank you all. We will miss you and wish you all the very best.

And hello and welcome to …

A warm welcome to three new KE Steering Group members. Heidi Laine succeeds John as chair of the Steering Group and represents CSC. Karin van Grieken, a previous KE Group member, joins the Steering Group from SURF and Stefanie Mewes joins on behalf of DFG. And welcome Sebastian Brandt who takes over from Christina Hemme as our new KE Group representative for DFG. We look forward to working with you all.

We will be announcing the new KE Coordinator soon so do keep an eye on our website and social channels for more information.

You can keep up to date with all of our work by following us on @knowexchange and LinkedIn.

The purpose of Knowledge Exchange is to exchange knowledge, build expert networks and cooperate between partners, with a special focus on Open Access and Open Science.

KE has an open eye for emerging opportunities to enhance and support an open higher education and research infrastructure.

Feedback or comments on this newsletter? You can contact us at office@knowledge-exchange.info or visit our website