The Open Access Observatory now contains publication data from all of the Catalan public universities

The Open Access Observatory was initially created by the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) as a way to monitor open access publishing in the Catalan university system. Gradually, however, the Observatory took on new participants, such as the UOC, which joined in July of 2018. Today, the remaining public universities have come aboard and the list is just about complete.

For the UOC, the Observatory has become an opportunity to track open access scientific publications, a task laid out in the University’s Open Knowledge Action Plan. Ultimately, the University hopes to contribute to co-creation and knowledge transfer to society by bolstering open access academic production in its journals and institutional repository, O2.

Methodology

The Observatory relies on Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus to gather university data. The results are obtained by following a common methodology presented in a similar manner as seen in other initiatives abroad; in Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, for instance.

Furthermore, the Observatory generates both aggregate and university-specific data dating as far back as 2011. One feature to highlight is that data is grouped according to open access type, meaning that advancements along the green and gold routes of this international movement can be viewed easily.

The Observatory’s results serve to round out the data provided by the Catalan Research Portal’s (PRC) publishing in open access indicator. More specifically, the Observatory calculates the total number of open access and closed access publications and theses in the PRC.