CAUL released its first Statement on Open Scholarship in 2010, with updates in 2015 and 2019.
At the CAUL Council meeting, CAUL Members indicated support for CAUL to pursue transformative agreements. The CAUL Board endorsed this and it has become a major strategic focus of the Content Procurement service.
Developed by the Content Procurement Strategic Advisory Committee, the Principles and Framework serves as a guide for consortium members in the acquisition of digital content in support of the learning, teaching and research programs of the institutions participating in the Consortium.
The first transformative agreement for Australia and New Zealand was signed with the UK-based Microbiology Society.
CAUL-negotiated transformative agreements with Microbiology Society and Portland Press commenced. CAUL was the first library consortium to sign a transformative agreement with the Biochemical Society (Portland Press), the wholly-owned publishing subsidiary of the Biochemical Society.
A significant downturn in international students and other COVID-19 related disruption had a significant impact across the sector in 2020, and continues to do so in 2021. Budget cuts, redundancies and organisational restructures are occurring across the sector. It is anticipated this will continue for some time. In the face of this straitened financial climate, CAUL negotiated 0% increases on the majority of consortium agreements for 2021.
To accelerate the transition to Open Access, CAUL Procurement Published a framework for publishers to provide pricing and publishing information in a consistent and efficient manner. The toolkit includes
Criteria for pricing and licensing Ready & Publish agreements
A pricing template
A licensing template
A proposal template
A publication report template.
Proposals submitted under the Fast Track program that meet all the criteria, licensing and pricing requirements can progress to agreement swiftly and with minimum negotiation. The toolkit is based on the SPA-OPS Transformative Agreement Toolkit and amended based on the pilot CAUL agreements.
CAUL negotiated an additional five transformative agreements that commenced in January, including the first with an Australian publisher, CSIRO.
The position statement outlines CAUL’s rationale and strategy to achieve the end goal of open access to journal articles, which is articulated as universal, immediate and perpetual open access to the version of record.
Major negotiations commenced for 2022 renewals, underpinned by six principles. The principles aim to reduce costs and/or include OA publishing without an increase in spend.
CAUL undertook a return on investment project to assess ROI for transformative agreements. Early indications are that there is strong financial ROI as well as increased downloads, Altmetrics, and citations for articles published under CAUL transformative agreements.
To support libraries in managing and communicating with stakeholders about CAUL-negotiated Read & Publish agreements, CAUL Produced a guide containing key information about CAUL-negotiated Read & Publish agreements. The guide includes information for libraries and authors. Content for existing agreements will be updated annually and new agreements will be added to the guide as they are negotiated.
As a result of the current negotiations for 2022 renewals, CAUL is in advanced stages of negotiation for an additional four transformative agreements, two with large publishers and two with mid-sized publishers.
Strategic engagement and advocacy work alongside targeted projects keeps us focused on the broader open research agenda. CAUL’s Advancing Open Scholarship program will continue to be a priority in 2022.
In 2021/22, CAUL is working to adapt and adopt Jisc’s article level metadata reporting approach.