28 June 2021 by Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director OA Switchboard

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The OA Switchboard is live and we're well on track in the first year of our 2021-2022 'launch phase'.

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There is so much to share on how and why we came about, how our core principles ensure sustainability, how we’re organised, governed and funded as a not-for-profit, collaborative and mission-driven organisation, how it all works technically, and which funders, institutions/consortia and publishers are involved as launch customers and/or founding partners. The activity and engagement has been non-stop!

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To tell our stories, we’ve participated in interviews and conferences, hosted panels, delivered keynote presentations and taken part in poster sessions. We’ve also hosted our own webinars over the last few months. Furthermore, we’ve held regular meetings and deep dive sessions with our Advisory Group, Client Advisory Board and Working Groups, and have regularly reported to the wider community on the outcomes via our blog posts and mailing list.

If you want to read more, view a recording or are looking for something specific, we have now made it easy for you to review our content at a new dedicated resources page on our website. The most recent information on ‘Reporting Made Easy’ by the OA Switchboard is there as well.

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If you have just 3 minutes, or want to share the compelling story of ‘Reporting Made Easy’ with your colleagues, we now have a short animation video available.

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This video shares the experiences of research institutions/libraries and funders who care for OA, and who want:

• to be alerted when an OA article is published

• to receive standardised reports and machine-readable, structured data from publishers on OA-related publication level information

• one (API) connection across publishers

Via the OA Switchboard, these important requirements are now operational for various publishers, under a wide range of models: subscribe-to-open, diamond, individual article charges paid from a central OA fund or covered under a prior agreement (R&P, P&R, Transformative Agreement, pure publish, membership, sponsorship, contribution, community funded and more).

The video also shows the various ways in which publishers are connecting to the OA Switchboard. It’s really not rocket science!