Over 230 people registered for the open-access.network workshop on 7 February 2024 entitled "Erste Schritte zum Informationsbudget: Publikationskosten erfassen und sichtbar machen" [First Steps Towards an Information Budget: Recording Publication Costs and Making Them Visible], which was conducted by Bielefeld University Library and the Helmholtz Open Science Office within the framework of the BMBF-funded project open-access.network. The participants had the opportunity to acquire first-hand insights from four invited speakers into trans-institutional approaches to determining publication costs as a basis for the financial organisation of the open access transformation.

The first workshop speaker, Julia Bartlewski from Bielefeld University, provided a comprehensive insight into the search options and structure of OpenAPC, an open data project dedicated to the transparent reporting of the costs associated with open access publications.

OpenAPC, which has been in existence since 2014, serves to record and publish data on article processing charges (APCs), book processing charges (BPCs) and transformative agreements with the aim of creating maximum cost transparency and comparability, and thus also making it possible to track cost trends over time. To make the data submission process easier for institutions, the goal is to achieve a high degree of automation. Data can be submitted, for example, via email, pull request, OAI harvesting, or notification to the DFG funding programme "Open Access Publication Funding". Furthermore, using the openCost metadata schema, it is planned to expand the infrastructure of OpenAPC to include further relevant costs, such as page charges or colour charges.

For each submission, an automatically generated data analysis is published in the project blog. Julia Bartlewski described the entire cost data workflow at Bielefeld University with the help of practical examples, which she then discussed.

The presentation concluded with a demonstration using interactive treemaps that visualise the collected data and offer various possibilities for viewing and filtering them.

The second speaker, Gernot Deinzer, presented the development and implementation of a centralised system for recording publication costs at the University of Regensburg. He looked back on the road travelled, from its starting point in January 2011 with the DFG funding programme "Open Access Publishing" to the current situation with a central system for processing publication fees. He noted that although this road had been long and rocky, no one wanted to go back. Authors, faculties, and departments are now required to submit publication invoices to the accounting office of the University Library, where they are checked, recorded, and released for payment. Besides the systematic mapping of purchasing and licensing costs as well as publication fees, this has several other advantages, for example the possibility of linking the metadata of a publication to the DOI and analysing them at the touch of a button. In addition, the full text is ingested directly into the institutional repository. Deinzer concluded with an outlook on future developments, including the evaluation of publication costs and further improvements to the workflow.

The audience responded with interest to his presentation as an example of best practice, and a very lively discussion ensued about specific aspects of the recording of publication costs, for example the organisation of literature and learning resource orders, personnel expenses, adhering to budgets, dealing with transformative agreements, and recording other types of costs, such as printing subsidies or article processing charges (APCs).

The third speaker was Viola Foß from the University and State Library of Münster (ULB), where the process of gradually establishing an information budget has begun. Although her presentation focused on the challenges associated with introducing such a system, she could also report initial progress and obstacles that have already been overcome in Münster.

The starting situation is complicated because of the two-tiered system in Münster, where the university and the university hospital operate as separate corporations with different SAP systems and tax numbers, and each have their own structures and departments. Instead of central funds for open access publications, costs for publication funds, publishing agreements and transformative agreements are shared with departments. The ULB, which is participating in the DFG funding programme, and which switched to the library management system Alma in 2022, is preparing for the introduction of an information budget, for example through reporting for the DFG and participating in the open-access.network focus group "Information Budget". In September 2023, a new cost centre was introduced at the university in order to be able to distinguish between open and closed access publications; at the university hospital, a cost centre was established especially for publications.

Through these measures the ULB now has an initial overview of the costs for articles, books, and publishing agreements. However, the standardised recording of invoices is challenging because of technical limitations and organisational framework conditions. The integration of different systems – for example connecting Alma to SAP – is still pending, but the ULB is confident that it is on the right track.

The subsequent discussion focused on topics such as the sharing of information with departments, the posting process, the role of Alma in the administration of publication costs, and the integration of the openCost metadata schemas into the research information system.

The final speaker, Lisa-Marie Stein from Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, outlined the workflow at DESY to centrally record and reuse cost data in the institutional repository with the aim of taking steps towards an information budget and creating cost transparency on all levels to enable sustainable transformation.

At DESY, all publications are recorded at an early stage in the institutional repository and, in the course of time, supplemented with information on authorisation and payment processing. The publication costs module within the repository enables recording at the article level and a common definition with JOIN². Aspects such as data harvesting, DFG monitoring, and the expansion of the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) catalogue to include information on publication and publication costs were also addressed.

Lisa-Maria Stein stressed the importance of centrally recording cost data in the institutional repository and described the challenges associated with this process. What was especially important was that openCost is not just a collection of data but rather a defined exchange format that can be connected to different systems.

In the subsequent discussion, questions regarding the integration of data into SAP, the format of the data, and cooperation with library systems and repository providers were addressed.

In the closing discussion, the range of the various local starting situations was stressed once again. Although best practices are often not readily transferable, they inspire new ideas for one's own institution. Nonetheless, exchange formats such as this workshop are particularly important in order to learn from each other – for example regarding the arguments in favour of a central accounting office. What was important was to never lose sight of the goal of the transformation: A meaningful information budget is not an end in itself but rather an essential prerequisite for the evidence-based allocation of funds – also and especially in view of the increasing pressure to cut costs and make savings at many institutions. Concrete figures are also of central importance as an argument for diamond open access and the discussion on the costs and benefits of transformative agreements such as DEAL. The great interest in the workshop and the positive evaluations confirm that the topic is and will remain important for the open access community.

All presentations at the workshop are published on Zenodo and linked on the event web page.

Flemming, D. (2024). Die ersten Schritte zum Informationsbudget gemeinsam gehen. open-access.network. doi.org/10.64395/4rqnf-s5z09.