Big Ten Academic Alliance announces agreement with OA Switchboard

Big Ten Academic Alliance libraries have reached an agreement with OA Switchboard to benefit from the standardized metadata protocol and shared infrastructure provided by this community-led intermediary initiative. This agreement began on January 1, 2023, and runs through December 31, 2025.

Under the new agreement, the Big Ten Academic Alliance has made it possible for its members to benefit from OA Switchboard in supporting the transition to open access and to advance the growth of open scholarship. Through this arrangement, BTAA members can receive ‘publication notifications’ from over 24 participating publishers in a consistent data format to enhance their workflows, enable fulfillment of OA publication-level arrangements, and make OA publishing highly visible. It will ease the technical integration with the increasingly complex open access research and publishing ecosystem. Benefits will only grow as OA Switchboard acquires more use cases.

Maurice York, Director of Library Initiatives at the Big Ten Academic Alliance stated, “We are pleased to be able to partner with the OA Switchboard and its community to collectively develop this open infrastructure initiative. Transparency and standardization are key parts of creating a thriving open knowledge ecosystem. Programs such as this move the community closer to a more equitable and sustainable future.”

Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director of Stichting OA Switchboard says: "OA Switchboard supports all OA business models and policies and strives for worldwide representation and collaboration in developing open source solutions and services. We are very happy to have the extensive and diverse group of research institutions that BTAA represents as part of the OA Switchboard initiative and welcome them as they join this supportive and inspiring community."

About the Big Ten Academic Alliance

The Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the provosts of the member universities, Big Ten Academic Alliance mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters. The fifteen world-class libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance members include the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Chicago.

About OA Switchboard