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National Open Access Desks activities

The backbone of OpenAIRE is its network, 34 National Open Access Desks, its members mainly consisting of institutions: national, academic and research libraries, cross-institutional organisations, information services and consortia.

OpenAIRE NOADs have been long involved in national efforts for Open Access, and recently for open science,   and together they provide a reliable element of the OpenAIRE infrastructure.  Their goal is to develop capacity at a local level, in order to put in place the relevant support structures for open science practice and to be able to provide expert advice on infrastructures that support the workflows for open science. The overarching aim is to create a set of experts on Open Science well placed to align policies from European to local institutional level and to act as key contact points for open science in their countries, with a prominent voice in the global scholarly landscape.

OpenAIRE coordinates this effort and ensures that NOADs have the relevant materials to approach national e-infrastructures and that they identify possible synergies with OpenAIRE in terms of interoperability services and work towards harmonisation.

NOADS specific activities explained (from OpenAIRE-Advance project)
Task Description
Promote Open Scholarhip Promote open access and open science of all research outcomes. Inform researchers, data librarians and national infrastuctures about OS tools.
Outreach to national key players Identify national key players, NCPs, National Funders, Discipline-specific Research groups, Research Infrastructures, Open science (or Open Access, Open Research Data, RDM) working groups and initiatives, and promote and advise on OS, especially on how align and take up of OA policies and take up of OpenAIRE services.
Align OA/OS policies Contact policy decision makers (funding bodies, ministries, RPO heads) to align OA / Open Research Data / RDM / OS policies.
Organize national workshops Coordinate high-profile workshops on topic of open science with key scholarly infrastructures and funders in region.
Engage with funders Getting funder buy-in to OpenAIRE infrastructure to reach economies of scale.
Gather research outputs Oversee the gathering of EC open access (OA) peer-reviewed publications into the OpenAIRE information space. Publications should be linked to EC funding information and national funded research (where relevant) as well as links to any underlying research data associated with the publication.

Assist EC-funded project coordinators and national funders for OA compliance.
Support Research Data Pilot Support Institutions and national funders adhere to the EC’s Research Data Policy and national RDM policies. Support projects with data management plans by pointing to appropriate resources. Ongoing awareness of national data activities. Include policies at national or funder level and an overview of research data repositories. Where possible, seek to promote EC’s Open Data Policy, to align EU, national and institutional policies. Contact project coordinators, gather a list of where these projects are depositing data.Identify any links between the OA publication in OpenAIRE and underlying datasets.
Train for RDM Share experiences and expertise on local or institutional RDM activities. Activate local RDM training. Participate, or lead webinars to train the OpenAIRE community.Provide feedback on the DMP template.
Provide expert advice Participate in Training, webinars on expert topics. E-research support: connecting researchers with tools. Digital Preservation and repositories: good practice.
Support community Assist repository managers (literature and data), CRIS managers and PA journal publishers to make their repositories and journals compliant with the OpenAIRE Guidelines. Promote the OpenAIRE guidelines for literature and data repository managers and for OA journal editors/publishers/aggregators-      Contact CRIS implementers to promote uptake of OpenAIRE’s CRIS guidelines-      Inform about OpenAIRE’s text mining services to identified funded publicationsOutreach to EC funded projects.Answer helpdesk queries.
Disseminate national and EU results Promote OpenAIRE and dissemination materials at key events. Contribute to OpenAIRE Blog and Newsletter Updating portal pages with key information.