After all potential participants were contacted in spring 2020, 9 out of 10 Universities of Applied Science and all 16 Universities of Teacher Education were able to provide data about their publications for the years 2017 to 2019. We are very pleased with the success of this response and as a first look at the data already indicates, the key questions of the research project should be able to be answered. We also found a great heterogeneity in the data of the individual institutions, which makes it challenging to harmonize it for a detailed evaluation.
In the meantime, the project team, which works at different locations in Switzerland, also came together effectively in digital meetings, so that the project goals can still be actively pursued despite Covid-19.
The next step is data harmonization to highlight the most important information. After that we will develop an analysis script for RStudio so that the data relevant for the evaluation can be extracted from the supplied data records. At the same time, the guidelines for the expert interviews are being drawn up and the first discussion partners are being identified and contacted based on the data. In addition, further steps regarding public relations and communication of the project are planned, for within and outside the Open Access community, and including active participation in meetings and conferences.