4 How to use the Upskilling Curriculum

The curriculum is organised in thematic blocks, which summarise technical gaps faced by the Open Access journals and are largely based on the findings of the Craft-OA Deliverable 3.2. The blocks are as follows:

• Publishing systems and their features (§ 5.1)

• Metadata I: quality through standards (§ 5.2)

• Metadata II: identifiers (§ 5.3)

• Metadata III: licensing , OA and self-archiving policy (§ 5.4)

• Content accessibility (§ 5.5)

The first chapter (x.1) of each block is entitled “Suggested training topics” and presents a list of the relevant training topics, organised thematically into sections. For example, the thematic sections of the block “§5.5 Content accessibility” include “Content provisioning”, “Content harvesting and indexing”, “Content depositing and export” and “Content long-term archiving”.

The second chapter (x.2, “Notes on training topics”) explains in detail the reasons for choosing particular topics, their naming conventions, and the logic of their assignment to specific sections.

The third chapter (x.3, “Modules build-up”) takes on combining the topics into different training modules. Apart from the thematic blocks, it stipulates that a concrete build-up and the scope of the upskilling training might depend on:

• The knowledge level of the audience

• The type of the audience

• The practical objective of the training

• The theoretical framework (e.g., FAIR principles)

• The publishing system the audience uses.

• etc.

The chapter therefore assigns topics to the following training categories:

• Knowledge level of the target group:

  • Foundational

  • Advanced

• FAIR aspects:

  • “F” for Findable

  • “A” for Accessible

  • “I” for Interoperable

  • “R” for Reusable

In addition, the curriculum designates a potential target audience for each topic, taking into account that the “division of labour” within smaller OADJs may not be precise: individuals may belong to more than one target audience and the responsibilities may overlap. For example, editors may also fulfil the duties of technical professionals. Alongside the different roles it also includes a list of potential institutions whose members may be considered as target groups for upskilling training.

The schema for the audience types used in the curriculum derives from CRAFT-OA Deliverable 7.1 “Communication and Dissemination Plan” (Arasteh et al. 2023). The modular build-up of the curriculum will only include the roles as part of the audience attribution, leaving their institutional affiliations aside.

Role	Institutions
● Editors ● Reviewers ● Researchers ● Software developers ● Technical professionals	● Diamond OA Journals	● Institutional Publishing Service Providers (IPSPs) ● Institutional Publishing Technology Providers (IPTPs)	● Research libraries ● Publishing initiatives/projects in academia ● Research Infrastructures ● Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) / Funders ● Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) service providers in Diamond OA ● Policymakers

Table 1: Target audiences for upskilling training

For example, the topics of the block “5.4 Metadata III: licensing, OA and self-archiving policy” belong to the following modules:

Topic	Level	Audience	F-A-I-R
Introduction to open access models: Green, Gold and Diamond OA	Foundational	● Editors ● Reviewers ● Researchers	A-R
Introduction to license types: Creative Commons, MIT license, GNU	Foundational	● Editors ● Reviewers ● Researchers	A-R
Journal’s self-archiving policy	Foundational	● Editors ● Reviewers ● Researchers	A-R
Setting up the publishing system: Licenses and self-archiving policy in metadata.	Advanced	● Software developers ● Technical professionals	A-R
Setting up the publishing system: Licenses and self-archiving policy in content data (XML, HTML, PDF).	Advanced	● Software developers ● Technical professionals	A-R

The attribution is not binding, in fact, some of the topics may be taught on both levels, and the upskilling itself might be built with another perspective in mind. D3.2, for instance, additionally mentions whether given technical requirements are supported by the publishing systems such as OJS, Janeway and Lodel. The publishing software thus presents another potential axis for the training curriculum. It is therefore recommended to use the check-list in chapter § 5.6 and combine the desired topics into required modules.

Finally, chapter four (x.4) attempts to assign the existing training materials to the thematic blocks of the curriculum. Considering the interlocking of many topics and their scopes the assignment is not prescriptive but should be viewed as a recommendation. In the same vein, the learning material planned to be produced by CRAFT-OA is allocated to the curriculum sections. The reader is advised to keep in mind the existence of PKP Docs directory, containing the user guides, developer documentation and publishing tips for all of the Public Knowledge Project’s software .