Open Access Business Processes (OABP) Working Group

Public Comment Period Was Open September 2–October 17, 2025: Now Closed and In Review

The comment period for the the draft Recommended Practice, NISO RP-49-202X, Open Access Business Processes was open from September 2 - October 17, 2025. The Working Group is now reviewing the input. We'll update again as soon as possible. 

You may still access the draft and view comments received.

The OABP Working Group will review all comments in order to finalize the draft for approval and publication. 

Working Group Overview

The increasing adoption of OA policies and mandates has shifted strategy and business practices in libraries, scholarly publishing entities, and associated organizations. Meanwhile, the operationalization of financial transactions, compliance tracking with different policies, and related workflows has yet to be normalized. In the absence of established best practices there exists a sundry assortment of individualized solutions in libraries and publishers that rely heavily on publishers' workflows, systems, dashboards, invoices, and data. A number of organizations have defined local workflows to facilitate work but a shared recommendation would be of benefit to the entire community. 

The Open Access Business Processes (OABP) Working Group will develop a Recommended Practice on operationalizing OA business practices. As part of this effort, the working group will conduct a landscape analysis on current OA business processes and take into consideration current gaps in the infrastructure and needed protocols for data exchange.