Tim Winkler

Nigeria recognised as a global OA leader   Nigeria’s role as a global leader in open access has become more widely recognised as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, COKI-co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon has said.

Nigeria recognised as a global OA leader

A new alliance of researchers led by Curtin University will work together to improve the way research is shared, charting new pathways for the future of universities around the world.

Arcadia funds new Curtin-led alliance to help universities share research

Cameron Neylon

Tracking and Mitigating Climate Change - How open is the research?

 Bianca Kramer and Cameron Neylon v0.9 10 March 2022


 Update – The linked dashboard now also contains the references from the 2021 WG1 Report on the Physical Sciences Basis. The original dashboard is still available.

On Monday 28 February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the Working Group 2 contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report.

Tracking and Mitigating Climate Change

Where's the big idea? The extent to which University staff represent the demographics of the community that they serve may be a key indicator of whether institutions are missing talent, perspectives and ideas as a result of their employment preferences.

Where’s the big idea?

COKI co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon has co-authored a new book.

Peering into Peer Review COKI co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon has co-authored a new book,

 Reading Peer Review: PLOS ONE and Institutional Change in Academia,

published by Cambridge University Press. The book describes the database of peer review reports at the largest scientific journal in the world, PLOS ONE for the first time.

Redefining Peer Review

Award recognition for COKI team   Presentations by two COKI Project staff have been recognised with Delegates Choice awards at the 2020 eResearch Australasia Online Conference.   Senior Data Scientist Dr Rebecca Handcock and Data Trust Scientist Aniek Roelofs both won the awards following their presentations at the October conference.

Award recognition for COKI team

New rankings system shows flaws in university league tables   A new university rankings system based on one of the world’s most comprehensive databases of university performance has demonstrated the inherent flaws in league tables that rank universities in simple numerical order.

New rankings system shows flaws in university league tables

Tracking Global Open Access   Today the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative is releasing a resource that has been in the works for a long time. The new Open Access dashboard provides information on the OA status of research outputs by country and by institution. It provides some surprises and reinforces some of what we know.

Tracking Global Open Access

Bringing students on a voyage of discovery   As part of National Science Week (15-23 August 2020) Dr Rebecca Handcock gave a guest presentation to parents, students and staff of Chisholm Catholic College (Perth, Western Australia) about her expedition to Antarctica, the broader challenges we face as a planet and how future scientists, engineers and mathematicians can make a difference.

Bringing students on a voyage of discovery

The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) project is developing online, interactive data dashboards relating to aspects of university research performance. Dashboards include a broad range of metrics, relating to open access, citations, collaboration, funders, publishers and journals, altmetrics, and the diversity of academic and non-academic staff.

COKI Open Knowledge Dashboards

COKI's Dr Karl attracts international attention  Dr Chun-Kai (Karl) Huang (COKI team) presented COKI’s research findings at the 7:AM Altmetrics Conference on 21 Oct 2020. The presentation is titled “How open are universities?

COKI’s Dr Karl attracts international attention

The threat of COVID-19 to health and economies has sparked an unprecedented growth in open access to research outputs.

By Professor Cameron Neylon, COKI Project Co-lead  The threat of COVID-19 to health and economies has sparked an unprecedented growth in open access to research outputs. There have been extraordinary outcomes from international collaboration: 53 viral genome sequences were available and analysed by February – in comparison to the three months it took to determine the sequence of the SARS virus.

The Virus Pandemic’s Greatest Lesson

There are often lots of questions when we talk about our latest project, building the world’s first data repository for open access books. Most people accept that free books are a good thing, particularly if they are providing insights into cutting-edge research – but how many are free, how frequently are they read and are they having an impact in the community?

A data repository tracking open access books

Great careers often don’t take linear paths. Most people don’t tend to phone in for their job interview on their way to board a ship travelling to Antarctica, but after a research career spanning multiple continents and a range of sectors, the setting seemed appropriate for Dr Rebecca Handcock – who was subsequently snapped up as a Senior Data Scientist with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) project.

Building knowledge one byte at a time

**Laura J. Wilkinson and Katherine Skinner **    The Book Analytics Dashboard (BAD) Project (2022-2025) is focused on creating a sustainable open access (OA) book focused analytics service. During this project, we are scaling up from our prototype dashboard to a fully functioning service. New to BAD? Learn more about the people, background, and work packages in our project overview.

Top findings from the BAD focus groups

Katie Wilson    A special issue of Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analysis | Scholarly Communication co-edited by COKI team member Dr. Katie Wilson explores the state of open science, open data and open access across Africa.

Open Science in Africa

Katie Wilson

Katie Wilson. Karl Huang, Lucy Montgomery   COKI team members Professor Lucy Montgomery, Dr. Katie Wilson and Dr. Karl Huang are co-editors of a special issue of the journal

 Publications

exploring issues of

 Open Access and Equity, Justice and Diversity.

Special Issue on “Open Access and Equity, Justice, and Diversity”

2020 locks in shift to Openness - but Australia lags   In October 2020, UNESCO made the case for open access to enhance research and information on COIVD-19. It also joined the World Health Organisation and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in calling for open science to be implemented at all stages of the scientific process by all member states.

2020 locks in shift to Openness – but Australia lags

Dr Katie Wilson has published a short paper on a new short research paper on divergence, dialogue and diversity.

Divergence, Dialogue and Diversity   Dr Katie Wilson presented a short research paper at the iSchools virtual iConference 2021 on March 23, discussing the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) project in terms of divergence, dialogue and diversity. iSchools is an international movement of information schools in universities that Curtin joined last year, one of four Australian members.

Divergence, Dialogue and Diversity

Charting the future of HE   Higher Education institutions around the world have not only an opportunity, but also a responsibility to reconsider their mission, capacity and impact in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) Co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon provides an update on the value of COKI data, dashboards and analytical tools in providing new insights into university performance.

Charting the future of HE

End to rankings? Dr Karl Huang of the COKI Project at Curtin University discusses his recent paper on Open Access. To read the paper please click here.

End to rankings?

Who decides what our brightest minds should be discovering? By Associate Professor Lucy Montgomery, COKI Project co-lead, Curtin University  Amid an international debate over research sovereignty, question marks hang over the future direction of Australian research with new analysis showing that more Australian research articles acknowledge funding from China than Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council.

Who decides what our brightest minds should be discovering?

Naked scientist shines spotlight on COKI   COKI’s own Dr Chun-Kai (Karl) Huang was recently interviewed by The Naked Scientist, talking about open access publishing and findings from the COKI team’s eLife Feature Article “Evaluating the impact of open access policies on research institutions”.  The podcast is available at https://elifesciences.org/podcast/episode70 and https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/how-open-open-access

Naked Scientist shines spotlight on COKI

COKI Project Co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon outlines why he is supporting a campaign calling for all abstracts to be made open access.

Initiative for Open Abstracts   By COKI Project Co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon  One of the tactical questions that often comes up with moving towards more open practice in research is the value of taking small steps vs fighting the large battles. Sometimes big changes occur – and the shift towards open access, although slow is an example of a big shift – but often a set of small steps can help to build towards progress.

Initiative for Open Abstracts

Read more about three PhD opportunities with the cutting-edge COKI project at Curtin University.

New PhD scholarship opportunities for COKI   The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) has up to three PhD scholarships available for outstanding prospective students with an interest working at the intersection of policy, data science, and institutional studies and a passion for the potential for Open Knowledge. Three projects have been identified as part of the Curtin allocation of Australian Government RTP Scholarships.

New PhD Scholarship opportunities for COKI

In September last year – or in another universe depending on how you want to look at it –  the COKI project received funding from Arcadia …

How else can community be built?

 Arcadia Project Update


 By Professor Cameron Neylon – COKI Project co-lead

In September last year – or in another universe, depending on how you want to look at it –  the COKI project received funding from Arcadia to develop a community around the concept of Open Knowledge Institutions.

How else can community be built?

Project co-lead Cameron Neylon writes about online festivals, celebrating success and the challenges of infrastructure.

Fireside Chats at the Open Publishing Festival ::: {.elementor-element .elementor-element-c24f938 .elementor-widget .elementor-widget-video data-id=“c24f938” element_type=“widget” settings=“{"video_type":"hosted","autoplay":"yes","play_on_mobile":"yes","mute":"yes","loop":"yes"}” widget_type=“video.default”}

 
 Project co-lead Cameron Neylon writes about online festivals, celebrating success and the challenges of

Fireside Chats at the Open Publishing Festival

Setting one benchmark for universities is hard.

Battle of the Benchmarks   Setting one benchmark for universities is hard. Setting 27 benchmarks is a Herculean task – but after three years of poring over measurement and data as the statistical expert on the COKI team, it is a task which Research Fellow Dr Chun-Kai (Karl) Huang is taking in his stride.

Battle of the Benchmarks

Over the past 20 years, higher education systems in wealthier countries have embraced narrow rankings systems which purport to evaluate and recognise global excellence but in fact exclude many of the discoveries and insights of universities in countries in the Global South.

Spotlight on an invisible continent   While many universities across Africa have grown their research productivity over the past 20 years, the scale of and impact of their outputs are not recognised by world university rankings. South Africa and Egypt dominate research outputs from Africa, with research output also growing significantly in Tunisia, Nigeria, Morocco and Algeria.

Spotlight on an invisible continent

**The intersections between less privileged groups are easy to overlook – but essential to understand in order to develop a clearer picture of equity, diversity, and inclusion. **  For example, a person who is both a woman and non-white may experience bias and discrimination relating to each of those characteristics separately, or in combination. Specific issues may also arise only for people who have both of these characteristics.

UK Universities face diversity dilemma

Amanda

Open Access and Open Data are critical elements of effective vibrant scholarly communication systems. However, they are not sufficient on their own to guarantee that universities remain relevant and engaged. To unlock the potential for the production and mobilisation of knowledge, universities must democratise access to be not only a knowledge taker but also a knowledge maker.

Universities find relevance in sharing knowledge

As universities across Australia look to enrol more domestic students in 2021, trends indicate that female students are likely to dominate first year intakes across the country.

COVID-19 presents opportunity to re-think diversity in Australian HE   As universities across Australia look to enrol more domestic students in 2021, trends indicate that female students are likely to dominate first year intakes across the country. A total of 58.74% of domestic students enrolled in Australian universities in 2018 identified as women, compared to 41.17% of male students.

COVID-19 presents opportunity to re-think diversity in Australian HE

This post introduces the Open Edition of the CWTS Leiden Ranking, published today by CWTS in collaboration with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative, Sesame Open Science, and OurResearch. The Leiden Ranking Open Edition is the first fully transparent university ranking.

Ludo Waltman, Nees Jan van Eck, Martijn Visser, Mark Neijssel, Lucy Montgomery, Cameron Neylon, Bianca Kramer, Kyle Demes, Jason Priem

 This post introduces the Open Edition of the CWTS Leiden Ranking, published today by CWTS in collaboration with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative, Sesame Open Science, and OurResearch.

Introducing the Leiden Ranking Open Edition

How do you avoid talking to the same groups of individuals with your research publications?

Avoiding thought bubble captivity   How do you avoid talking to the same groups of individuals with your research publications? COKI Research Fellow Dr Katie Wilson had written a paper on international research into higher education staff diversity and wanted to submit it to the higher education journal that has the most international engagement.

Avoiding thought bubble captivity

The evolution of the internet has resulted in digitisation of many scholarly tomes, but also further obscured what we know about the influence of monographs.

Once upon a time, books were stored in libraries and bookstores, read by lenders and purchasers and the insights from them observed and retold or else contested and discussed. The evolution of the internet has resulted in digitisation of many scholarly tomes, but also further obscured what we know about the influence of monographs – written studies on specialised topics which are frequently produced by university researchers.

If a publication lands in the library and nobody is near, does it still make a noise?

Around the world, respect for the work of university researchers appears to be on the rise.

By Associate Professor Lucy Montgomery – co-lead, COKI project

Around the world, respect for the work of university researchers appears to be on the rise. A recent opinion poll commissioned by the UK Open Knowledge Foundation found that 64% of voters were more likely to trust expert advice from scientists – an outcome which anecdotally appears to resonate around the world.

Why open knowledge is central to the future of HE

Curtin University researchers will help create a new international data trust to improve the measurement and analysis of open-access (OA) books, which will be delivered through a US$1.2 million (AUD$1.75 million) project funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Curtin develops cyber knowledge bank for open-access books

Open Knowledge Institutions: Reinventing Universities book goes live

Curtin Mauritius recently hosted a workshop for the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI), attended by global experts on research evaluation, data science and scholarly communications. The attendees discussed empowering universities to work with local and global communities in the production of knowledge, and how to broaden the impact of higher education and research.

COKI Mauritius Workshop

Cameron Neylon, Ludo Waltmann, Lucy Montgomery The COKI team is excited to be working with CWTS to deliver a course on

 Scientometrics Using Open Data

. As part of our growing collaboration the COKI team will work with the world-leading experts at CWTS to deliver an online synchronous course from October 31 to November 3. More details on the course are available below and on the CWTS website.

Using Open Data in Research Evaluation – A collaborative course from COKI and CWTS

Kathryn Napier, Cameron Neylon and Jamie Diprose    The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative has just released a long awaited update to the Open Access dashboard. The migration from Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG) to OpenAlex is now complete. The (currently available) data for research outputs published in 2022 has also been released.

Tracking Global Access- the move to OpenAlex and inclusion of 2022 data

Lucy Montgomery, Kathryn Napier    Year One of the Book Analytics Dashboard Project   The first year of the BAD project has flown by! We have achieved a huge amount and are excited by how far we have come.  The BAD project formally kicked off in April 2022. The project is being led by a truly international team located in Australia, the US and Europe.

Updates from Year One of the Book Analytics Dashboard Project

Kathryn Napier,

BAD project Technical Lead, Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI), Curtin University The Book Analytics Dashboard (BAD) project (2022-2025) is a 3-year, Mellon Foundation funded project that is creating a sustainable analytics service to support diverse Open Access (OA) book publishers.

The Book Analytics Dashboard project: reflections on coordination, collaboration, and community consultation

Julian Tonti-Filippini, Cameron Neylon, Kathryn Napier Research Impact Evaluation System COKI team member Julian Tonti-Filippini led the construction of a pilot Research Impact Evaluation System (RIES) demonstrating the feasibility of conducting an on-demand, ERA-like analysis for research-active institutions (locally and globally), using journal-level metadata from the Australian Research Council and article-level metadata from publicly

Julian Tonti-Filippini, Cameron Neylon, Kathryn Napier

Automating ERA benchmarks, and a call for expressions of interest from institutions

*Katie Wilson and the COKI team, *pdf available here 2022 Highlights  The COKI Open Access Dashboard Launch. In 2022 COKI launched a powerful new open access dashboard that makes it possible to engage with data about open access publications by region, country and institution.

COKI 2022 Update Newsletter

There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea of diversity in scholarly publishing and often diversity of language is used as an example.But while the groups that work actively in languages other than English have been making this point consistently and forcefully, it has had limited traction in the scholarly anglophone literature.

Data Processing and production: Jamie Diprose Analysis and Text: Cameron Neylon and Bianca Kramer  There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea of diversity in scholarly publishing and often diversity of language is used as an example.

Language Diversity in Scholarly Publishing

Can I be taught by someone like me? Students will be able to look at new indices to determine whether a university is a good fit for them before they enrol, as a result of research from Curtin University’s Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI). The COKI team have developed one of the most comprehensive sets of […]

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Can I be taught by someone like me?

COKI

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Lucy Montgomery, Kathryn Napier

 

## Year One of the Book Analytics Dashboard Project

[The first year of the BAD project has flown by! We have achieved a huge
amount and are excited by how far we have
come. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The BAD project formally kicked off in April 2022. The project is being
led by a truly international team located in Australia, the US and
Europe. The PI team comprises Lucy Montgomery and Cameron Neylon (Curtin
University, Australia); Niels Stern and Ronald Snijder (OAPEN
Foundation, the Netherlands); and Katherine Skinner (formerly Educopia
Institute, now Research Lead at IOI, based in the United
States). ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The first order of business for the project involved the recruitment of
key staff; and integration of old and new staff into an effective
project team through a combination of in-person and virtual meetings and
work sprints. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[Technical work is being led by Kathryn Napier, who is located at Curtin
University in Perth, Western Australia. Kathryn and Senior Data
Scientist Rebecca Handcock (Curtin University) were involved in the
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Mellon-funded predecessor to the BAD
project: the OAeBU
project]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://openknowledge.community/projects/book-usage-data-workflows/)[.
For this new project they have been joined by Software Developer Keegan
Smith, who is also based at Curtin. Project Managers Laura J. Wilkinson
and Sînziana Păltineanu are both based in Europe, having joined the
OAPEN Foundation and the BAD project in July 2022 and January 2023
respectively.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

 

## Engaging with the BAD Stakeholder Community and Refining Technical Priorities

[A priority in our first year of the BAD project was community
consultation and the development of the first in a series of Annual
Technical Roadmaps. A Draft Technical Roadmap was made available for
community comment and feedback in June-July 2022. The Draft Technical
Roadmap had two goals: 1. To ensure that technical systems and plans are
visible to stakeholders; and 2. Creating a practical mechanism for
involving those stakeholders in a conversation about where technical
efforts and resources should be focussed. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The original ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project
plan]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6618791)[
placed focussed heavily on standardising technical workflows developed
during the previous OAeBU project, in order to support the scaling of a
dashboard service. However, as ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Kathryn
explores in this blog
post]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://openknowledge.community/the-book-analytics-dashboard-project-reflections-on-coordination-collaboration-and-community-consultation/)[,
consultation with the wider project team highlighted important
differences between the technical needs associated with the OAeBU usage
data trust; and the BAD use cases. Identifying these differences made it
possible to re-focus the BAD project's technical priorities in the
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[updated technical roadmap released in
January
2023]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7731288)[.
The end result was a complete redesign of the
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD
dashboards]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://template.book-analytics.org/)[,
which formed the basis of]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[ focus group
community
consultations]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7780563)[
that took place in the first quarter of
2023.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The series of 6 focus group consultations captured insights from more
than 20 diverse organisations involved in the publication of OA books.
Our sincere thanks go to those who participated and so generously shared
their perspectives and experiences. A summary of focus group findings
can be found in ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[this blog
post]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://oapen.hypotheses.org/496)[.
The information gathered via the focus groups is being used to help
shape our ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Year 2 Draft Technical
Roadmap]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TII5C9SJ3FqXiaO4bTO3p5kYW8WaVeC7K3kdCo2VHTk/edit?usp=sharing)[,
which is now open for comment. We would love your input on the
document!  ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[Engaging with key international partners and exploring the ways in
which synergies and collaborations between the BAD project and major
initiatives like the OPERAS-Plus project has also been an important
highlight. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[This blog
post]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://operas.hypotheses.org/5757)[
reports on in-person meetings between the BAD project team and
OPERAS-PLUS in Brussels in October 2022, highlighting the community
governance aspirations of both projects, as well as our commitment to
collaboration. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

##   {#section}

## Appointment of the BAD Advisory Board

[2022 also saw the appointment of the BAD project Advisory Board. The
Board met for the first time in November 2022; and will continue to meet
quarterly for the duration of the BAD project. The Advisory Board brings
a depth of expertise and experience to the project that is truly valued
by the project team, and which we feel will help to ensure the long-term
success of this project. BAD Advisory Board Members
are:]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

- [Rupert Gatti, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Trinity College
  Cambridge]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/)[
  and ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Open Book
  Publishers]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.openbookpublishers.com/)
- [Sy Holsinger, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[OPERAS
  AISBL]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.operas-eu.org/)
- [Laura Mesotten, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[KU Leuven
  Libraries]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://bib.kuleuven.be/)
- [Peter Potter, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Virginia
  Tech]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.vt.edu/)[ and
  ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem
  (TOME)]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.openmonographs.org/)
- [Emily Poznanski, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[CEU
  Press]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://ceupress.com/)
- [Ros Pyne, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Bloomsbury
  Publishing]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.bloomsbury.com/)
- [Charles Watkinson, ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[University of
  Michigan
  Press]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://www.press.umich.edu/)

 

## Welcoming New Partners

[Perhaps the most important step in establishing a sustainable,
community-focussed Book Analytics Dashboard Service is opening the
project to new partners, and working with the Board and the community to
refine a pricing and sustainability model.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The process of onboarding new partners is now underway, and behind the
scenes work on pricing and sustainability models is now well
advanced.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[We are looking forward to inviting community feedback and comment on
the pricing model in the next few months.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[[Join our mailing
list](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdt7m9xL_4LxY3RUlX7DFg9uq7_12c8NLtDj036eGIZszPONA/viewform)
for updates on how to get involved in community consultations on
pricing, as well as how to sign up for the Dashboard
Service.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[ ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

## For more information

- [Visit the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project
  website]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://book-analytics.org/)
- [Follow the BAD project on Twitter
  ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[@BookAnalytics]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://twitter.com/BookAnalytics)
- [Visit the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project Zenodo
  community]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://zenodo.org/communities/book-analytics-dashboard-project/?page=1&size=20)
- [See the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD dashboard for University of
  Michigan
  Press]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://uomp.book-analytics.org/)
- [Our ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[book-focussed GitHub
  repository]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://github.com/The-Academic-Observatory/oaebu-workflows)
- [Our ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[technical documentation on Read the
  Docs]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://oaebu-workflows.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html)
- [Email BAD
  ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[info@book-analytics.org]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](mailto:info@book-analytics.org)
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**Kathryn Napier,**[ BAD project Technical Lead, Curtin Open Knowledge
Initiative (COKI), Curtin University]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Book Analytics Dashboard (BAD)
project
(2022-2025)]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://book-analytics.org/)[ is
a 3-year, Mellon Foundation funded project that is creating a
sustainable analytics service to support diverse Open Access (OA) book
publishers. Affectionately referred to as
the]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*[ BAD
project]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*[, our goal is to provide publishers
with user-friendly tools to navigate complex data about how their books
are being used. The project is grounded in the premise that efficient,
user-friendly usage analytics services are needed to safeguard and
support diversity in the voices, perspectives, geographies, topics, and
languages made visible through OA books. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The BAD project is building on the earlier (2020-2022) Mellon-funded
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Developing a Pilot Data Trust for Open
Access Ebook
Usage]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://educopia.org/data_trust/)[
project, affectionately referred to as the
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*[OAeBU
project]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*[. The BAD project is scaling
workflows, infrastructure and customer support processes originally
developed during the earlier project. In addition to technical
refinement and scaling, BAD is developing a long-term plan for housing,
maintenance, and funding of the analytics service as a sustainable
community infrastructure.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The team working on BAD is truly international. The Principal
Investigator (PI) team comprises: Lucy Montgomery from Curtin University
(Australia); Cameron Neylon (Curtin University); Niels Stern and Ronald
Snijder (OAPEN Foundation, the Netherlands), as well as community
cultivation expert Katherine Skinner (Research Lead at IOI, based in the
United States). ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[I lead the project's technical team, which is based at Curtin
University and has close links to the Curtin Institute for Computation.
The Curtin team is working closely with OAPEN to support the development
of the governance and sustainability model needed to ensure the
long-term stability of a dashboarding service. The whole project team
meets weekly, coordinating a series of teleconference meetings and
coworking sessions across hemispheres and
timezones.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

 
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![](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot-2023-03-14-at-8.53.25-pm-1-400x250.png){.attachment-et-pb-post-main-image
.size-et-pb-post-main-image .wp-image-2886 loading="lazy"
decoding="async" width="400" height="250"}
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*[Cameron Neylon (Curtin University), Rebecca Handcock (Curtin
University), Kathryn Napier (Curtin University), Sînziana Păltineanu
(OAPEN Foundation), Laura J. Wilkinson (OAPEN Foundation), Ronald
Snijder (OAPEN Foundation), Lucy Montgomery (Curtin University),
Katherine Skinner (Formerly Educopia Institute, now IOI), Niels Stern
(OAPEN Foundation) meeting online in March
2023.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*
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###   {#section}

### *[Consult, listen, iterate]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*

[Engaging with community feedback productively has demanded willingness,
not just to consult stakeholders, but also to listen and iterate
technical directions. The decision to move away from Elasticsearch
Kibana in favour of Looker Studio during the first year of the project
is an example of how this process of consulting, listening, and
iterating has worked in practice. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[In 2022, when the BAD project kicked off, an important first priority
was community consultation and the development of the first annual
Technical Roadmap. A ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[draft technical
roadmap]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[ was made available for community
comment and feedback in June-July 2022. The draft technical roadmap had
a dual purpose: making technical systems and plans visible to
stakeholders; and inviting those stakeholders into a conversation about
where effort and resources should be
focussed. ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

[The original ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[project
plan]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6618791)[
placed a heavy focus on standardising technical workflows developed
during the previous OAeBU project, in order to support scaling of a
dashboard service. This included the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[use
of ElasticSearch
Kibana]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://uomp-public.book-analytics.org/)[,
a system chosen because of its ability to allow for fine-grained user
access roles and permissions, and well suited to keeping the information
contained in dashboards private. However, ElasticSearch Kibana is less
well-suited to a publisher-focussed dashboard service that engages with
the value of dashboards to support advocacy and public communication.
Being able to easily make dashboards public, embedding dashboards within
publisher websites, and simple, visually appealing user interfaces
required a different solution.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}
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![](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/kibana-768x381.png){.attachment-medium_large
.size-medium_large .wp-image-2887 loading="lazy" decoding="async"
width="768" height="381"}
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*[An example of pilot dashboards produced using ElasticSearch/Kibana
during the OAeBU project.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*
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::: {.elementor-widget-container}
 

[Community consultation and feedback in the early stages of the BAD
project highlighted important differences between the primary use cases
imagined during the OAeBU project, which focussed on keeping data
private; and the needs of users focussed on external messaging and
public sharing of visualisations. Improving user experience needed to
become a higher priority. Rather than simply standardising ElasticSearch
Kibana workflows, the BAD dashboards needed both a visual and technical
revamp. Technical work shifted focus to producing dashboards that can be
used both publicly for marketing and communication and internally for
reporting by publishers.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

 
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![](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/looker-768x868.png){.attachment-medium_large
.size-medium_large .wp-image-2888 loading="lazy" decoding="async"
width="768" height="868"
srcset="https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/looker-768x868.png 768w, https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/looker-480x542.png 480w"
sizes="(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 768px, 100vw"}
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*[An example of the BAD dashboards produced using Looker Studio during
the first year of the BAD project (see the
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[template dashboard
here]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://template.book-analytics.org)[,
and the University of Michigan Press' dashboard
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[embedded in their website
here]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://ebc.press.umich.edu/impact/#oa-book-usage)[).]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*
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[We therefore shifted our focus on
]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[technical priorities in the updated
technical
roadmap]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7731288)[
(released in January 2023) to investigating alternative dashboarding
solutions, and produced a ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[template
dashboard]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://template.book-analytics.org/)[
using ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[Looker
Studio]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://cloud.google.com/looker-studio)[,
a dashboarding solution offered by Google. This template dashboard
formed the basis of]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[ focus group community
consultations]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7780563)[
that took place in the first quarter of 2023, and the dashboard design
will continue to iterate and incorporate feedback through the life of
the BAD project.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

### *[Virtual, in-person, hybrid: working as a truly global team]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*

[The first year of the BAD project presented both challenges and
exciting opportunities. Coordinating project management and deliverables
across a multinational and multidisciplinary team is not a simple
exercise, and we have discovered that a combination of detailed
in-person meetings and workshops with regular teleconference meetings
has resulted in the best outcomes for the project. The lightbulb moment
that occurred in late 2022 where we shifted our technical priorities and
dashboarding system would not have occurred without a series of
in-person meetings.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}
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![](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_9731-1-400x250.jpg){.attachment-et-pb-post-main-image
.size-et-pb-post-main-image .wp-image-2889 loading="lazy"
decoding="async" width="400" height="250"}
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*[Laura J. Wilkinson (OAPEN Foundation), Ronald Snijder (OAPEN
Foundation), Lucy Montgomery (Curtin University) and Cameron Neylon
(Curtin University) meeting in person for a series of project workshops
in The Hague, October 2022.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}*
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[This shift in technical focus came at an ideal time within the first
year of the project. We are now well placed to further refine the
dashboard design through the feedback received from the focus groups
(detailed in the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[draft technical roadmap
for year
2]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TII5C9SJ3FqXiaO4bTO3p5kYW8WaVeC7K3kdCo2VHTk/edit?usp=sharing)[),
which will also inform the continued development of the dashboarding
services sustainability, governance and financial models. We will
continue to endeavour to build the best service we can with the combined
talents from our multidisciplinary team.]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

 

### [Learn more about the BAD project]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

- [Visit the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project
  website]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://book-analytics.org/)
- [Follow the BAD project on Twitter
  ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[@BookAnalytics]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://twitter.com/BookAnalytics)
- [Join the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project mailing
  list]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdt7m9xL_4LxY3RUlX7DFg9uq7_12c8NLtDj036eGIZszPONA/viewform)
- [Visit the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD project Zenodo
  community]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://zenodo.org/communities/book-analytics-dashboard-project/?page=1&size=20)
- [See the ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[BAD dashboard for University of
  Michigan
  Press]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](http://uomp.book-analytics.org/)
- [Our ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[book-focussed GitHub
  repository]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://github.com/The-Academic-Observatory/oaebu-workflows)
- [Our ]{style="font-weight: 400;"}[[technical documentation on Read the
  Docs]{style="font-weight: 400;"}](https://oaebu-workflows.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html)
- [Email BAD info@book-analytics.org]{style="font-weight: 400;"}

 
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![Construction crane in
Perth](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/Perth-crane-2-scaled-opobyd8whhjylt01kuqiok3ouaj6d0q8x67bb4ap3o.jpg "Perth crane"){decoding="async"
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## Peering into Peer Review {#peering-into-peer-review .elementor-heading-title .elementor-size-default}
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COKI co-lead Professor Cameron Neylon has co-authored a new book,
*[Reading Peer Review: PLOS ONE and Institutional Change in
Academia](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/reading-peer-review/42F027E4C67D246DD8C3AC440A68C7A7){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"},* published by Cambridge University Press.

The book describes the database of peer review reports at the largest
scientific journal in the world, PLOS ONE for the first time.

The book presents the background contexts and histories of peer review,
the data-handling sensitivities of this type of research, the typical
properties of reports in the journal to which the authors had access, a
taxonomy of the reports, and their sentiment arcs.

The book yields a compelling range of insights into the evolving state
of peer review in the twenty-first century, at a crucial political
moment for the transformation of science.

The book is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
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![perth
grass](https://openknowledge.community/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/perth-grass-scaled-oorqphsk4kgi7qf098dnidwqacpggy9nk21yyrbwr8.jpg "perth grass"){decoding="async"
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By [Professor Cameron
Neylon](https://research.curtin.edu.au/supervisor/prof-cameron-neylon/),
COKI Project Co-lead

The threat of COVID-19 to health and economies has sparked an
unprecedented growth in open access to research outputs.

There have been extraordinary outcomes from international collaboration:
53 viral genome sequences were available and analysed by February -- in
comparison to the three months it took to determine the sequence of the
SARS virus. 

Within a month of the sequence being released, the first structures of
potential drug and antibody targets from the virus were being released;
a process that not long ago took years. By the beginning of April the
BioRxiv, a site for rapid bioscience communication, had 1048 reports
covering the characteristics, structure, sequence, epidemiology and
treatment of the virus. 

Research is being shared more quickly and widely, reducing the
duplication of effort and enabling infectious disease experts and health
system operators to build on expert knowledge as soon as it becomes
available. In addition to reducing overall research costs and fostering
international collaboration, this approach is already saving lives.

But while the urgent threat of COVID-19 is shining a spotlight on the
benefits of open access, a far more significant lesson is yet to be
widely learned. In the first three months of this year, COVID-19 has
claimed 40,000 lives. While this is a terrible toll, more than 45,000
people die of heart disease each *day* on average, and thousands more
die of cancer. 

In the first three months of this year, more than 4.1 million people
around the world are likely to have died from heart disease and 3.1
million of cancer. The death rate from both of these diseases has grown
steadily since the millennium, but they have not inspired the same
levels of urgent action on open access and collaboration; perhaps
because they have been around for a long time.

The tale is similar with other diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease,
where families and patients with early onset of the disease have
clamoured for open access to the latest research findings, but have been
denied. Millions struggle every day with rare diseases, and with chronic
conditions. Why are their conditions less important or deserving of open
access, collaboration and focus than COVID-19? 

Open Access publishers have been opening their virtual doors to enable
critical information to be shared between researchers and the public for
years, but until now, the majority of research has continued to be
published out of reach, behind subscription paywalls.

During the COVID-19 crisis, conventional publishers have joined the
trend, throwing open their paywall doors as one to support the global
fight against a disease -- and universities that need to find new ways
to take classes online. 

Open access issues also have a significant impact beyond the domain of
health sciences. Some commentators have suggested that the COVD-19
crisis is providing an accelerated view of the looming climate crisis --
where monumental events are expected to require the world's greatest
research teams to collaborate in a bid to rapidly deliver fresh
solutions.

For decades requests for open access to research information has fallen
on deaf ears, despite entreaties by patients with rare diseases and the
doctors that treat them -- as well as many others. The great lesson of
COVID-19 is not only how we can save lives, protect economies and
support communities by freely sharing research data and discoveries. But
the great question posed by the crisis is whether we will have to learn
the lesson of sharing information and collaboration all over again once
the crisis is past?

It would be easy, but unfair to jump to the conclusion that it is
traditional publishers exclusively wearing the black hats in this
scenario. Certainly, some publishers have been making handsome profits
by providing paywall-protected access to journals that are perceived by
many to be the most prestigious in the world. However, no publisher can
operate without incurring costs, and the systems of publication and
rewards for researchers and universities that became entrenched by the
end of the 20^th^ century cannot be easily dismantled. 

A lot of power lies in the hands of a few core publishing houses, but it
is the choice of universities and researchers to chase the prestige that
those publishers hand out, and the rankings success that follows it that
maintains that power. It is the choices of governments to pay greater
attention to simplistic rankings and quantitative assessment that
reinforces those choices. To build a knowledge production system capable
of responding to today's challenges we need alternatives to the
traditional and entrenched success measures of the 20th century.

This issue introduces the second remarkable lesson from the COVID-19
crisis. One of the challenges for improving access to publications and
data is that there have been inadequate systems to record their usage
and impact. At Curtin University we have been studying these issues,
trying to build out the systems to allow us to understand the growth of
open access. Our Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) project is
giving us insights into the past growth of open access data for
individual universities, university groupings and national university
systems that have been challenging to ascertain before.

While this is a great insight in terms of historic data trends, and
provides new insights into university performance and engagement, the
COVID-19 crisis provides an additional opportunity to measure in real
time how useful open access to research really is. Publishers have not
only been opening medical research content, but also a huge range of
other materials to support students who can no longer access library
buildings, researchers working from home or having to shift their focus,
as well as a wider public, looking for intellectual sustenance, and yes,
entertainment and distraction from their day to day challenges.

This is an extraordinary opportunity to measure the impact of open
access around the world -- providing insights that are central to the
role and value of universities and research organisations into the
future. We are currently seeking to collaborate with publishers to
collect and analyse data on the world's largest experiment on access to
research content provision ever.

Amidst threats to health, finances and the wellbeing of the university
community, many have said that universities will never be the same after
this crisis. 

As the impact of open access measures throughout the COVID-19 crisis are
measured and analysed, there is a singular opportunity for universities
to not just return to being the same, but to be better -- and to be
recognised as a critical resource to uncover solutions that we require
in future.
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