Editorial: 10th Anniversary Special Issue “PUBMET2023 Conference on Scholarly Communication in the Context of Open Science”

Over the past decade, the Open Science movement has profoundly transformed the way research is conducted, communicated, and assessed. What began as a call for open access to publications has expanded into a comprehensive framework, encompassing research data, infrastructures, peer review, metrics, and engagement with society.

Guided by global and regional initiatives, such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO, 2021), the European Commission’s Open Science Policy (European Commission, 2022), Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) Agreement (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, 2022), and national Open Science policies, openness is now embedded as a core value of research policy and practices. These developments underscore a shared vision: that transparency, inclusivity, and collaboration are crucial to enhancing the quality and credibility of science and its social impact.

Over the same period, the PUBMET Conference on Scholarly Communication in the Context of Open Science has evolved into a vibrant meeting point for researchers, editors, publishers, librarians, and policymakers. Since its inception in 2014, PUBMET has anticipated and accompanied these changes, offering a space where global trends meet local realities. The 2023 conference, hosted by the University of Zadar, marked its tenth anniversary with a focus on openness, equity, and sustainability in scholarly communication. Discussions spanned a broad range of interrelated topics: diamond open access, open research infrastructures, FAIR data, responsible research assessment, ethics, and the growing role of artificial intelligence in scholarly workflows.

This Special Issue of Publications includes selected papers presented at PUBMET20231, providing a snapshot of current research and practices in Open Science. These nine contributions highlight the diversity of approaches and the complexity of the challenges faced by the scholarly communication ecosystem, from institutional publishing and data management to citizen science and digital literacy.

The opening paper by Jadranka Stojanovski and Danijel Mofardin explores the diamond open access landscape in Croatia, based on the results of the Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communications (DIAMAS) project survey (Kramer & Ross, 2024). The study reveals how institutional publishers operate within community-owned, non-commercial models, balancing Open Science principles with limited financial and human resources. Their findings underscore the crucial role of shared infrastructures and public support in sustaining the diamond model.

From a complementary perspective, Jane Mahoney presents the PublishOA.ie (Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College Dublin, 2023) initiative, which examines the feasibility of a shared diamond open access platform across Ireland and Northern Ireland. The project illustrates how collaboration among institutions and funders can overcome fragmentation and strengthen open access publishing at national and regional levels—particularly across differing policy frameworks within and outside the European Union.

A recurring theme across several papers is the management and reuse of research data in alignment with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. Radovan Vrana analyses the data practices of Croatian scientists, identifying both progress and obstacles in research data management. Ljiljana Poljak Bilić and Kristina Posavec focus on the FAIRness of humanities data at the European level, emphasising the heterogeneity of data types and the need for domain-sensitive approaches to ensure accessibility and reusability. Luca De Santis, reporting on the GoTriple (OPERAS, 2021) discovery platform for the social sciences and humanities, offers a practical illustration of FAIR-by-design infrastructure development and lessons learned in building interoperable systems that support openness from the outset.

Ethical and disciplinary specificities of data sharing are further addressed by Olga Orlić in a study of ethnological and anthropological research practices. This paper highlights the tension between the ideals of openness and the ethical imperative to protect participants and cultural contexts. By proposing a combined FAIR/CARE framework (balancing reusability with collective benefit, authority, responsibility, and ethics), the author reminds us that Open Science must remain sensitive to the diversity of research traditions.

Several contributions expand the discussion towards education, engagement, and the societal interface of Open Science. Jelena Madunić and Matija Sovulj examine the application of ChatGPT 3.5 in information literacy instruction, exploring both the potential and the limitations of generative AI in educational contexts. Their findings point out the need for human oversight, critical thinking, and pedagogical adaptation when integrating AI tools into academic practice. Dolores Mumelaš and Alisa Martek, in their paper on the benefits of citizen science for libraries, show how libraries can become active partners in participatory research, leveraging citizen involvement to advance both scientific literacy and institutional missions. Mirko Duić adds another dimension by analysing academic attitudes towards Wikipedia, suggesting ways in which researchers can engage more proactively in shaping open and reliable public knowledge.

Taken together, these contributions illustrate how the principles of Open Science are being implemented, negotiated, and reinterpreted across disciplines and contexts. They demonstrate that openness is not a uniform condition, but rather a dynamic and evolving process shaped by infrastructure, policy, culture, and ethics. The integration of FAIR data principles, the advancement of diamond open access, and the emergence of AI as a transformative tool all signal that the future of scholarly communication will depend on continued collaboration, experimentation, and critical reflection.

The 10th anniversary of the PUBMET conference offers an opportunity not only to celebrate a decade of dialogue and community building, but also to look ahead. The studies and reflections presented in this issue reaffirm the importance of inclusive infrastructures, responsible innovation, and capacity building for Open Science. They also remind us that openness is most meaningful when it enables trust between researchers, institutions, and society.

This Special Issue thus serves as both a record and an invitation: a record of how far the scholarly community has come in reimagining research communication, and an invitation to continue this journey towards a more transparent, ethical, and sustainable research culture.