D3.2 Extensible Quality Standard in Institutional Publishing (EQSIP) V2.0 for Diamond Open Access

The Extensible Quality Standard in Institutional Publishing (EQSIP) for Diamond Open Access is one of the main outputs of the DIAMAS^[1] project. EQSIP sets out standards for institutional publishing (IP) of scholarly journals in the broadest sense, with a special focus on those publishing models that do not charge fees to authors or readers.

An Institutional Publisher (IP) is an entity engaged in academic publishing, characterised by the dissemination of scholarly content (journals and books) conducted by an institution, its subunits, or an individual associated with the institution^[2]. IPs have ownership of publishing titles/assets, decide on governance of these titles/assets, or at least have editorial responsibility for their publishing titles. In other words, IPs have legal, ethical, or/and scientific responsibility for academic publishing, irrespective of whether they also have editorial control over what is published. Although they often provide different services, IPs do not belong to the category of Service Providers (SPs), i.e. commercial or non-commercial entities inside or outside the institution that provide specific services to IPs. SPs have limited responsibility for specific activities in the publishing process, and do not have final responsibility for the published titles.

‘No fee’ publishing models are collectively known as Diamond OA. Many IPs in the European Research Area (ERA) are already fully in line with the Diamond model, which is considered as the ideal, most equitable, end state of institutional publishing. At the same time, the institutional publishing landscape also includes a varied subset of IPs who are not yet fully Diamond OA, and partly rely on subscriptions, print sales, and, marginally, Article Processing Charges (APCs) for their diverse revenue streams. Some publishing initiatives may also restrict publication for authors, for instance to authors funded by a specific funder. The scope of the DIAMAS project extends to all such IPs as well. We coin the term ‘diamondisation’ for IPs that are moving towards fully Diamond OA. EQSIP and its subsequent iterations include a set of quality criteria for Diamond publishing initiatives, though most of the items apply as quality hallmarks for any publishing business model.

The objective of EQSIP for Diamond Open Access is to set a common quality standard for IPs that publish scholarly journals, based on the seven core components of scholarly 

publishing outlined in the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access^[3] (Ancion et al. 2022, 4), which were subsequently revised and modified by the DIAMAS project team. These are:

1. Funding
2. Legal ownership, mission and governance
3. Open Science
4. Editorial management, editorial quality and research integrity
5. Technical service efficiency
6. Visibility, communication, marketing, and impact
7. Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB), multilingualism and gender equity

EQSIP for Diamond Open Access applies to scholarly journals. EQSIP's underlying goal is to set a common quality standard for publishing as a public good, i.e. defined and controlled by the public through expert communities, thus guaranteeing that academic contributions in scholarly journals are also a public good.