Hello everyone! My name is Agata
Morka and I am SCOSS Coordinator and we are here today to talk about the new SCOSS
strategy and the results of consultation that was um that was made earlier this summer and 2021, I
am here with four panelists and i would like to um ask all of you to introduce yourselves and
also to tell us what is your role in SCOSS Judy, I will start with you because you are first
on my screen. Thank you. Hi! I'm Judy Ruttenberg, I'm the Senior Director of Scholarship and Policy
at the Association of Research Libraries and I represent ARL on the SCOSS Board. Thank you Susan,
over to you, I'm Susan Hague, I'm Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries
um i represent uh CARL but also crkn our partner in the SCOSS Endeavor for Canada on the Board of
SCOSS wonderful thank you Alwaleed.
Hi, my name is I'm a Senior Intellectual Property Librarian
at Qatar National Library and I represent Qatar National Library on the SCOSS, thank
you very much and now we have John. Hi I'm John Trebway, I'm an independent consultant and
researcher and i have been supporting SCOSS in the consultation and development the strategy
since uh earlier in 2021 thank you very much um Alwaleed over to you all right so i'll be
asking our speakers today some questions about the strategy and cost in general so the first question
is to susan so scarce has been active since 2017. Can you tell us more about costs and what
has cost done over the past couple of years so scots was formed as a as a community
response to a sense that um open um infrastructure small organizations not-for-profits
often uh that may have for example started with project funding we're having um we're um having
sustainability challenges uh to transition their their their support um and to remain viable and
so the community um you're uh led by spark europe i sort of came together to to form this this
organization that basically um is is almost like a crowd sourcing of of support uh towards these
uh not-for-profit organizations the model is very simple it's a it but it's a it's pragmatic it's
effective um it the basically the not-for-profit organizations um uh apply to to SCOSS they um
they're vetted um and then they're vetted by an advisory group of experts uh a few of them are
then endorsed for recommendation to the community for for potential funding as they're put out there
they have in that process they have provided a lot of information in terms of their financial
need and their uh governance structures and all sorts of information um they so as i said they're
recommended and then libraries that are looking to invest in open infrastructure as a as a beginning
to uh to transition away from just investing in licensed content uh have somewhere you know that
is sort of preset for them to to consider and um and then they can either individually invest or uh
consortially and if they do so consortially they end up with uh a kind of discount in their
relationship with the with the individual infrastructure so so far scots has had three
rounds and um has funded or is in the process of funding eight different infrastructures that are
global in reach and uh varied in their in their uh and so far there has been um in dollars about 3.88
million dollars put forward from the global uh library community to support these infrastructures
so the in the first round the pilot cycle it was sherpa romeo and doaj and one of the wonderful
things is the doij uh we achieved 100 of the target need uh for that so it's a success story
it's our best success story to date although they're also 100 in the second round so the
second funding cycle doab and open as well as open citations and pkp uh all of the doab and oaken
achieved 100 as well of their funding goals and the others are still building uh they're still out
there for support and um and then we have just uh very recently announced the the third funding
cycle where we were really delighted that uh uh to announce that we have uh recommended
archive rhetolic uh amelica and uh d space for this round and so this round is just beginning
we're very keen to start gathering funds from from across the globe so it seems there's a lot
of effort taken by cost in vetting and selecting those those infrastructure um judy i was
wondering if you can tell me more about the selection process and how kind of more details
about this yeah absolutely and thank you susan i i do think it's a simple model but i also want to
just say congratulations to any infrastructure that has been selected and vetted by scots
because the process is actually quite rigorous um and so it is a um there is an initial call this
isn't suggested for expressions of interest from open infrastructure services and the there
is a scots advisory group which is made up of open science experts with strong
policy technical financial knowledge taken from drawn from the membership of
the 10 scots member associations and they spend between six and eight weeks evaluating these
initial applications and select a maximum of six to invite to advance to the next round so
the next round is really a formal application which has susan suggested as a much more uh
there's much more data gathered um but they're you know that what they're as it's you know we've
sort of implied in the in the introduction to this we're looking scots is looking at services that
are at least a year old that have a demonstrated sustainability challenge that are themselves
non-profits or owned by a researcher educational institution and scots does look for services that
are inter broadly internationally relevant and broadly serve more than one discipline so again
congratulations to the services that have come through this in particular you know welcome to the
third round so when the scots board approves that short list and um the advisory group has a much
kind of richer set of data to look through in applications they do select two to three services
to go forward for funding and again is looking for things like what the services value is to the
stakeholder community and stakeholders are broad libraries universities funders research managers
the research community itself of course looking at the governance structure sustainability measures
and their kind of future plans um and then also just how they how the infrastructure see that
they fit within a broader open sustainable fair landscape so uh as soon as suggested we
work with the selected services to do to do this crowdfunding scott does not collect the money it
that happens between the uh the services and the the contributors the funding institutions and
and consortia but uh being selected by scots really means having been vetted by this
global community of open science experts and it means that the services are working to
become more stable and sustainable financially which again encourages transparency efficiency and
and good governance thanks judy so sustainability is a key term in what cost does and what we're
looking for i mean a question maybe for um julie susan and john please feel free to jump in what
can sustainability mean for open infrastructure um of course i mean i don't know we mentioned
several things but uh what can it mean in in like long term in general for open infrastructure
maybe maybe a good place to start our leaders is a quote that we've referred to when developing
a strategy because you know when people say sustainability often they mean oh we need more
money we need grant we need funding we need somebody to fund us and um we have as a group
referred to the sustainability mindset which is a book by bell striker and zimmerman which is
very useful and they talk about sustainability or a sustainable business model sounding like it
will allow an organization to generate financial resources on an ongoing basis and everyone can
sort of sit back oh we've got a sustainable business model that's it gold chief and and that's
not it right sustainability is an orientation it's a mindset it's a way an organization is set up
it's not a destination that you reach it's um they distinguish between two types of sustainability so
there's financial sustainability which is kind of what most people talk about but they they define
it as the ability to generate resources to meet the needs of the present without compromising the
future so it's not something that's achieved and there you are it's done and dusted there is a
business model that's always sustainable it is how can you do what you need to have present without
compromising your future existence it's a richer conceptualization and then also programmatic
sustainability so the ability to develop and mature and cycle out programs that are responsive
to constituencies to stakeholders to groups of customers over time so a an ability to
grow to develop to invest in the next um the next version of your software the ability to
progress your offering to respond to the needs of your customers to respond to the community
that is supporting you it's a much um again it's a much broader and richer concept that i think
most people understand when you talk it through and scott has and maybe susan and judy can tell
me here it has always been interested in not just getting funds to people but making sure those
organizations can grow as part of the process can can demonstrate an ability to utilize
funds and sustain themselves and be part of the landscape over a lengthy longer period
of time not just their business model shows that if they get this in it will cover their
costs it's a much broader concept than that thanks john maybe this is a good way it's
a good time to talk about the strategy so over the last couple months john we've been
working with you um and a strategy working group within scoss um which includes members
from the scots board and the advisor group and from the beginning as cos planned or wanted
that this strategy is evidence-based so i was hoping maybe you can tell us more about
our approach to kind of understand what uh scots should do in the future um strategy wise
and what kind of techniques and tools that we've used during this process sure i'm happy too you
know for scots it has a very clear community a very clear network of organizations with whom it
works very clear group of infrastructure providers that it's supported and and those it hasn't
because as we've said you know not everyone who's applied has been successful and so a a
clear and well defined group of people to whom we wanted to speak so the consultation had several
strands the main strand was a survey of uh the research sector with different sections targeted
at providers of open science infrastructure and institutions that pledge funds through scoffs as
well as general questions seeking to ascertain knowledge and awareness of scots and what it
does we supplemented that with six focus groups um and uh about 20 semi-structured interviews with
a range of individuals uh including i think some of the panelists who are speaking today you
know board members but also much wider group of people um if you look at the survey um it
breaks down with canada providing the highest number of respondents france the next highest and
then a large number of european nations providing a number of respondents each you know europe is
the long tail by definition and that's reflected um the remaining responses were split out across
other continents qatar australia the usa all provided a significant number and um a large
the largest number of respondents were also from university libraries and there were a few from
other libraries we also saw um research intensive universities well-represented open science
infrastructure provided as well represented and then a broad range of other respondents from other
organizations of the respondents a large minority about 40 percent have authority over budgets from
which they can support open infrastructure and we had um about 45 organizations that have previously
pledged funding to one of scott's discus one or more of scottish selected initiatives so a very
broad range and then we supplemented that as i say with focus groups and one-to-one interviews
with people where they had expressed a particular opinion or where we wanted to dig more deeply but
i'm going to talk here in in detail about some of the survey findings and all meant that with
some of the things we heard from other people so um we started with familiarity with open
science infrastructure and no surprise that of people responding to a scar survey you know
nearly 90 said they had some familiarity you know so somewhat very or extremely familiar and 10 of
them were extremely familiar and respondents based in europe or north america were those most likely
to be in the extremely or very familiar categories those that were responding from institutions
that pledge funds were actually less likely to be extremely or very familiar with respondents
from other organizations which says something about how scott's been able to reach those who
who perhaps previously hadn't contributed funding familiarity with scots then about 65 so 89
90 familiar with open science infrastructure about 65 were somewhat very or extremely familiar
with scots itself um the only respondents who said they were extremely familiar with scots came from
europe or north america and specifically canada france the uk and the netherlands were those
saying they were extremely familiar and those countries and geographies were those they
also contributed a lot of respondents who were very familiar with scots we then asked us about
familiarity with how scots operates itself and here around 50 of respondents were somewhat very
or extremely familiar with house course operates the respondents from university libraries
were likely most likely to say they were not so familiar than any other response and
responses from pledging institutions were more likely significantly more likely to express some
familiarity with house class operates than other respondents and the only respondents who are
extremely familiar with house class operates were european and uh the not so familiar responses
or not all familiar responses were coming broadly quite broad but asia and um africa and oceania
um had a higher proportion than other geographies 76 respondents thought scots was somewhat very
or extremely important as a source of support to open science infrastructure this was broadly
represented across the globe european respondents were more likely to say it was extremely important
or somewhat important than other geographies who were all very saying it was very important um
when we asked about the effectiveness of scots about 60 percent of respondents felt scott has
been at least somewhat effective in sustaining open science infrastructure and here we asked um
we asked in the surveys and in the focus groups people for more diff for more details so if if
they had a particular view of scots whether it was effective or not perfect we asked why what
they thought it was that made it effective and um most people said when they were talking positively
that scots has increased awareness it's drawn more organizations into providing support for
open science infrastructure it's increased funding it's increased the amount of funding
by those who are providing support so not just more funding but those who are providing support
are themselves giving more funding open science infrastructure and non-commercially provided open
science infrastructure is more visible and that by promoting the support of infrastructure globally
scots has helped promote interoperability between different providers and the confidence globally
that that infrastructure is going to persist you know challenging the myth that some not
commercial providers or open providers are somehow higher risk um when explaining why they
hadn't given a more positive view or they'd said that scott was not effective which i think only
one percent of respondents did um people said that they felt that scots supporting infrastructure
was still seen as a nice to have in budgets and therefore vulnerable to budget cuts and
that was something that they felt needed to be more addressed respondents um highlighted a a
general sense that there was an imbalance in the geographic support through scottish funding that
some areas were heavily represented in providing support and other areas were not and that scott
hadn't been able to deal with a free rider problem whereby some institutions could benefit but didn't
provide support you know the idea that some people aren't aware of that the fact that organizations
providing the infrastructure needs support or to provide funding and that that hasn't been
fully addressed yet there's a very strong belief that scott will be required for many years to
come and that was a really interesting finding because you know i think when we talk to people
there's a general sense about scots that it's part of its value is just that it exists so
there have been lots of attempts to create initiatives to provide support to open science
infrastructure but scots is pragmatic it exists funding has got out the door it has supported an
institution institute it's provided connections to support infrastructure and so it was a
general question as to whether that need would still exist in years to come and there's a
very strong support that mainly that it would be needed for many years to come some people's same
for the next few years but nobody responded to this question by saying that there would not
be a need for scots for many years to come we have a lot of data and
insight from the surveys uh and the one-to-one interviews how does how do
these results translate into our score strategy and perhaps maybe uh susan you would like to
keep it up uh well i think uh what we've what we've we've been uh floyd by the results and uh
and have looked carefully about what it means for scarce and i i think um in as a way of summarizing
really that i think our strategy is um is to keep going to continue um uh to evolve as needed uh to
continue with outreach and communication to try to even up the landscape of the investment
landscape a little bit more over time to think about how we how we fit with others the
complementarity that we see between uh scots for example and ioi and and the different um uh ways
that both uh both can operate in this landscape and advance advance open infrastructure um we
are looking we will continue to to uh add uh uh worthy infrastructure to the to those that are
endorsed and continue to uh try to raise funds and and and and and hone i think that the
criteria and uh and the government the the application process and all of the processes
involved it's a it's a a a strong and dedicated undertaking at this point and and um and so
it's well set for for the next few years so one of the scott's goals is to have is to be
global and rich and to have global support from uh for the selected infrastructure
and i was wondering how does the support look right now geographically and are there any
markets or kind of countries or locations that could do more um judy is whether maybe he can
answer this question sure sure um so you know first i think uh you know we've got good data on
this from the consultation and from scots itself which is great um i think there's a huge amount of
enthusiasm right now for open infrastructure which is you know accounts for the survey results around
what's extremely important um and i think one of the challenges that certainly we face in the us is
just making sense of what those opportunities are so through our involvement with scoss the
association of research libraries can help do that um cni as an organization as a conference
100 does that which is why we're so thrilled to be recording this for cni audience um and you know
we do do such things in our in our convenings and our communities our publications etc what we
don't do which is um different from many of the member organizations and of scots is
licensed on behalf of the of the country so the way the u.s is is organized is through um
in this decision-making is through regional or peer or local consortia of libraries and there
are many of them many of our members within arl are members of more than one um consortium so it
is um it is complicated um but we are seeing some you know uptake among those groups the
big ten academic alliance for example um was you know contributed as a group to doaj to
doab to oapen just yesterday i think we saw the iv plus libraries pledge their collective support for
archive in 2022 so again i think the challenges in evening this out is is having is visibility
and having endurance which is part of strategy understanding what the opportunities are
knowing how to prioritize investments so i think you know again scott needs more
visibility in the us very happy so again happy to be here for cni um those decision makers um
in the us and consortia and individual libraries need data which i'm really pleased that scots
provides and collects and discuss infrastructures can you know can provide on a on a geographic
area in terms of usage so um you know in the round three funding um you know two out of three
of the resources are very familiar in the us archive and d space but rhetolic has quite
high usage by the research community um so we you know we hope that through that enhanced
visibility we see some enhanced um contribution thanks judy and i was wondering yeah i just
i'm just very happy to and i i i think um the consortial model is an interesting one in this
context actually and quite fruitful because what what has happened in canada we're not a a
consortium licensing organization either carol um but there are consortia of course and because
they're because the what has happened is that we have a it's almost like a pick list of
of different infrastructure that are then possible for individual uh member institutions
to opt into um we have it on a more refined tier basis than the suggested uh funds uh
at the suggested levels from scots itself uh and from the infrastructure so we we
we have an opt-in model that ends up being uh uh attractive to members and they can choose
which which infrastructure they invest in and at what levels there are tiers um so it's kind
of rational and um and it that is how we've broadened the reach we had individual members
initially that were individually engaging with scots and when we went to uh sort of rolled it
out in a consortium basis it became much more more lucrative really for the for the fundraising
because it was getting a smaller investment but from many more institutions and that is the beauty
of of a consortium approach where there is a 10 to 25 discount as well that is offered then
by the infrastructure towards consortium so really important i think that
consortia uh i think about uh the scots options and the
scots recommended infrastructure and i think what it means is that there's other
countries as well that can be stepping up that are considering um how to how to orchestrate
this and some of them france for example pools their funds they they basically they have the
individuals put the individual institutions put money towards a um a fund and then the fund
allocates towards uh towards infrastructure globally so there's different models that can play
out and they're there scots is a flexible approach it was a flexible uh model i think that's what's
great about cost as well is that i mean there's no one fit all solution and it depends on one
country or to another one so what can work for canada might not work for let's say in qatar or
other countries but there's always a solution and i guess the the pragmatism of the scots approach
is what we're hoping kind of uh works uh all on the long term um i think and i think how willy
that goes back to one of your earlier questions about sustainability which is scots is not just
scots is helping people to help themselves by creating those connections by helping bring other
people to the table and by enabling organizations to grow and be able to sustain something into
the future it's not just about writing a check and getting out the door because that actually
doesn't address some of the challenges that these organizations face and as you say different
things work in different places helping helping connect people at scale so they're not knocking
on a thousand doors is as valuable as anything else that scores does and finally different
ways to do it in different locations is extreme so maybe perhaps a question for the whole
group um now we're towards the end of 2021 what can we expect from scots in
the next year on the next years i mean i'm happy to go first if you know i think
somebody's already said it but it's more of the same it's doing something that's worked doing
something that's uh successful for a larger group of organizations someone who've been identified
and going again learning from the experience because you know now there's a group of supported
infrastructures coming to the end of their cycle and their experience will be useful and scott
will learn and change its application process and change some of its models to adapt to
that i think in particular thinking about the right mechanisms for supporting earlier stage
or small organizations for whom this cost model is very challenging given the requirement in places
to build connections and do that raising funds and finding finding ways to help those
organizations possibly in a slightly different way i think those are the things that
from conversation with people like susan and judy and yourself those are the things that i'm
interested and excited to see over there yeah absolutely i mean i think uh continuing to raise
the visibility of the resources and the mechanism and build the efficiencies of the fundraising
model so that you know sort of fewer links and easier easier opportunity for libraries that
are members of different kinds of groups to make those contributions and to continue to provide
decision makers with really rich data about usage and about the transformation of these resources
themselves as they kind of engage with scots i don't think i have anything to add
aside from the fact that i think we are we're looking to grow the stable and we're looking
to grow the reach uh the stable of infrastructure there's many parts to fit together i
think the type of organization that we're looking to support is is evolving a little
bit and becoming more clear what what kind of organization it needs to be and i think we need
to address the kind of once it's transitioned you know then what because in point of
fact i think that there is a sustained relationship between the between our
individual institutions and some of these infrastructure that is appropriate and is what is
ultimately sought and i know from conversations with agatha there's a lot of outreach activities
going on so maybe i can tell us more about how can people find out more about scots and latest news
and what's what's going on yes i'll eat absolutely so you all mentioned that we just barely launched
the third pledging ground uh with three uh with free infrastructure so we have archives we
have d space and we have redlich america and what we learned uh from past years is also
that uh potential pledgers or the community would like to hear about these infrastructures from the
infrastructures themselves so um we asked them to to work with us together with us and we will
organize a series of webinars that will be focused on the third pledging ground where we will have
representatives from each infrastructure telling the community what what kind of sustainability
issues challenges they encounter uh how they would like to spend the money that hopefully we will
raise for them um and they will tell you a little bit more about how they operate on a day-to-day
basis what i think is quite crucial is what judy mentioned about usage i know that that pledging
institutions are always very interested in the actual usage of the of the services that that they
pledge for so this is also something that we asked our free free new infrastructures to to provide
to to our um to our future pleasures so this is also something that they will be talking about in
these upcoming webinars for now um we have three of them confirmed i will definitely um give you
some more specific dates um probably in january we will start in january and we will go for
three or four months so stay tuned uh this will be definitely advertised uh everywhere on discus
uh cost related website twitter account and so on thanks agatha and thank you for everyone thank
you judy thank you susan and thank you john for this uh very lively and lovely conversation
and i'd like to thank our viewers for tuning in thank you so much thank you
thank you very much everyone you