Diamond Open Access: Repositories as journal publishing platforms, practical experiences

Cambridge University Library (CUL) is currently undertaking a pilot project to engage with Cambridge researchers wishing to publish their research in non-traditional journals. The project seeks to provide greater discoverability and availability of content by implementing suitable infrastructure, built on interoperable, open, and widely adopted platforms.

During the first year we have implemented and launched the journal hosting platform, which is available at https://diamond-oa.lib.cam.ac.uk. It is based on DSpace, a widely adopted, open-source repository platform. This choice allows us to explore alternative publishing and review models, currently unavailable in more traditional journal publishing platforms. We are working very closely with our pilot participants to assess submission and editorial management workflows, as well as determining content structuring and journal pages design needs and gathering feedback from the journals. These are key activities that allow us, jointly with our participating journals, to determine the suitability of DSpace as a journal publishing platform. So far, feedback from participants has been very positive and they are finding the platform and publishing processes intuitive and easy to use.

This presentation will provide an overview of the pilot, lessons learned so far and describe next steps and future areas for development as we transition into service.