Project | Paderborn University

Overview

The University of Paderborn already has good conditions for Open Access publishing, organized by the University Library. The research project 'OASE' aims to assess the current status of the university's Open Access Culture (OAC) and to increase its visibility. The aim of the project is to develop measures for the dissemination of OAC through a sustainability concept and to create a transfer plan for other universities based on local knowledge. The cultural change towards a living OAC at the University of Paderborn will be monitored and empirically investigated until the winter semester 2025/2026.

Motivation

The project is based on the premise that Open Access (OA) is becoming increasingly important in academic communities. OA facilitates the faster dissemination of knowledge, increases the visibility of scientific findings, promotes international collaboration and has proven to be a valuable tool for increasing the recognition of authors' achievements. However, unlike other countries, Germany has not yet established a comprehensive Open Access system, despite major efforts by major scientific organizations. One reason for this is that German universities are generally slow to change due to their loosely coupled organizational structure. The traditional top-down models do not work effectively. The project framework assumes that an organization-sensitive approach is needed to increase the willingness to use OA. This approach should focus on the structural conditions in higher education.

Objective

The 'OASE' project develops and iteratively improves measures to enhance OAC based on design- and development-oriented educational research. It is envisaged that qualitative and quantitative evaluations will be carried out to gain insights into the design of the interventions and the cultural change. The project follows the organization-sensitive approach of the Model of Collective Change by Graf-Schlattmann et al. (2020). This model was developed specifically for digitization processes in higher education. It will be adapted and extended within the scope of this project to effect a change in OAC.