How do the offerings of open-access.network and SeDOA complement each other? Where do they possibly overlap? What support do different users and seekers of advice already find at these two points of contact – and where might gaps still exist?
The two projects addressed these questions in a joint workshop at the Open-Access-Tage (Open Access Days) in the Austrian city of Linz on 30 September 2026. In the course of the workshop, the participants not only reviewed the projects’ existing offerings but also adopted the perspectives of those seeking support and guidance with the open access publishing process.
Two Projects, One Common Goal
With the projects open-access.network and SeDOA (Service Centre for Diamond Open Access), there are two platforms in the German-speaking area that provide and further develop information and support offerings for all aspects of open access. Both projects promote networking and offer informational, advisory, and training formats.
However, the priorities of the two projects differ: open-access.network focuses on the entire breadth of open access and, as an established information and networking platform, provides a diverse range of offerings on various aspects of open access publishing; SeDOA concentrates on diamond open access, focusing in particular on the professionalisation and further development of the field.
Getting to Know Each Other
To break the ice, the workshop began with a game of “Diamond Bingo”. Each participant received a printed bingo card (see below). The challenge was to collect as many signatures as possible in the boxes from participants who matched the respective descriptions – for example, “… has already subscribed to the SeDOA newsletter”, “… regularly uses repositories/preprint servers (e.g. arXiv, Zenodo)”, or “… has already published in a diamond open access journal. The first person to complete a horizontal row, vertical column, or diagonal line could shout “(Diamond) Bingo!”. The game gave participants a first opportunity to share their experiences of diamond open access.
Looking into the Future Together
The substantive part of the workshop began with a brief introduction to the projects open-access.network and SeDOA. This was followed by the presentation of a previously prepared visual mapping of the offerings and services of both projects. The mapping provides an overview of each project’s current informational, advisory, and training offerings and tools and services, as well as the areas where the offerings complement each other or overlap. The mapping was supplemented with external stakeholders or their offerings.
Examining Needs from the Perspective of Different Users
The mapping formed the starting point for the interactive part of the workshop. The participants were invited to review the offerings landscape from the perspective of different users and to examine it for possible gaps and support needs.
To do so, the participants used various personas that reflected the different perspectives and support needs in the area of diamond open access. They separated into three groups across three tables. Each group was assigned one persona and engaged with that persona’s perspective using the following previously developed questions:
- Where does the person find support in the landscape mapped here?
- Via what channel does the person find out about the offering?
- Where are starting points?
- Where does the person find support?
- What stands out to you, against the backdrop of your own experience?
- As this person’s adviser, who can I contact for help?
- Where do gaps exist?
The change of perspective was intended to help examine the existing landscape of offerings from the viewpoint of concrete users, thereby also making blind spots and overlaps visible.
What Do Different Users Need? Concrete Wishes from the Workshop
The three groups discussed the support that the respective personas needed with their publishing process, and the gaps in the existing offerings. When doing so, they formulated concrete wishes for future offerings.
One obvious gap is apparent in the target group of the two projects. Whereas open-access.network acts as an information and networking platform for the entire German-speaking area, SeDOA’s scope is limited to Germany. For Switzerland, Diamond Open Access CH (DOACH) plays the role of the National Capacity Centre (NCC) in the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) and provides information and networking services for diamond open access. There is no comparable contact point in Austria yet.
The wishes mentioned included more intensive support that is more closely oriented towards the concrete publishing process. The workshop participants also expressed the wish for process support and direct coaching as a possible supplement to existing informational and advisory offerings. Although the latter can provide selective support on a conceptual level, they are not a substitute for practical support with concrete problems that crop up on a regular basis.
In addition, participants expressed the wish for more structured continuing education and training offerings. Especially compared with other subfields of open science, such as research data management, it is striking that only a few certificate courses in the area of open access are comparable to, for example, the data steward qualification. One example is the certificate course Wissenschaftliches Publizieren und Open Science (Scholarly Publishing and Open Science) offered by Saarland University. Offerings such as this not only promote the development of skills but can also result in a solid basis for the recognition of (diamond) open access expertise, for example for one-person publishing services or Open Journal Systems (OJS) experts from the library and academic fields.
Thinking Ahead Together
For open-access.network and SeDOA, the workshop was an important opportunity to review their own offerings together with the community, to learn from each other, and to identify further starting points for cooperation. The discussion in Linz made it clear that a strong open access infrastructure does not depend on individual offerings alone but also on the networking of these offerings.
Therefore, the two projects want to continue working together to visibly and accessibly tailor the offerings for open access – and especially for diamond open access – to the needs of those who use them, and thus to reach the target groups from the areas of research and infrastructure even more effectively.
The mapping, the descriptions of the personas, and the “Diamond Bingo” have been published on Zenodo under a CC BY 4.0 licence: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23665884
Suggested Citation
Benz, M., Flaig, S., Kindling, M., Strauss, H., Westphal, S. (2026). Together into a Diamond Future. A Workshop Report. open-access.network. DOI: 10.64395/0f01b-47s25
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
