The July issue of Learned Publishing features an article by Fred Dylla and Jeffrey Salmon that details the collaboration between scholarly publishers and the US Department of Energy (DOE) to facilitate public access to funded research that became CHORUS. Dylla and Salmon outline the key issues around differing motivations, operations, and philosophies that CHORUS and DOE had to tackle in order to establish a public access solution that worked for both organizations. What Dylla and Salmon describe as a “candid and ultimately successful government/publisher dialogue” ultimately resulted in a partnership that has been in place now for five years. Today, the DOE represents nearly 22% of the total article set monitored by CHORUS for public access.

Using the DOE/CHORUS experience as a case study, Dylla and Salmon share some fundamental lessons about what makes public/private collaborations a success:

• Be clear on the fundamental interests of each side, and the points on which either side would find it difficult to compromise.
• Transparency and open communications are key.
• Starting with small steps builds confidence and trust.

You can read the full article in this month’s issue of Learned Publishing.

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Dylla, H.F. and Salmon, J. (2020), Collaborating for public access to scholarly publications: A case study of the partnership between the US Department of Energy and CHORUS. Learned Publishing, 33: 300-306. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1298