Reimagining academic assessment: university stories of innovation and change

As part of our work on rewards and incentives and continuing our work to share good practices, together with DORA and EUA, we are involved in a project to examine the institutional change process for academic assessment reform. What we learn will be shared via a collection of case studies. The idea is to identify potential pathways of change, and to present them as good practices, while also providing adequate context. The potential for replication in other settings will also be addressed. If your university is developing a new policy or practice to change the way you evaluate research, please get in touch with us so that we can invite you to share your story with DORA. We are particularly looking for examples in France, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe and Southern Europe. Send us an email in September.

Diamond OA Survey

1,700 OA Diamond journals and counting: Help us find those hidden OA Diamond journals for the cOAlition S survey (Deadline extended)

The impact of Diamond OA on the scholarly community has been unclear to date. This publishing model, wherein research is free to publish for authors and free for readers to access, is used by publishers across cultures and countries throughout the world. To grow our understanding of it, its strengths and weaknesses, and to help identify opportunities for closer collaboration; CoAlition S commissioned a survey, awarding funding to a consortium that included SPARC Europe. Deployed last month; to date, the survey has drawn 1,700 responses. If your organisation publishes journals or platforms under the Diamond OA model, and you haven’t taken the survey, there’s still time; the deadline has been extended to 11. Sept. Take me to the survey.

SPARC Europe granted funding to support large-scale Open Education programme

If 2020 has taught us within academia anything—it’s that we need faster progress on Open Education in Europe. Thanks to a generous grant by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation SPARC Europe has the financial resources to support a two-and-a-half-year programme intended to grow Open Education capacity among libraries of higher education in Europe. The multi-faceted initiative, which kicks off later this year, directly contributes to the implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation . Soon, we will be seeking a community manager to support this work.  Read our post about plans for the programme. 

OA Tage Germany

SCOSS will present a poster at the most influential conference on OA in the German-speaking region this year. Find out more about the event.