A case study on nonprofit platform partnership

A new case study published in Learned Publishing explores the early years of the nonprofit partnership between BioOne and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. The two organizations began collaborating in 2016, with BioOne migrating to a SPIE-hosted publishing platform three years later.

The open access article points to a great potential for organizations to form collaborative partnerships, particularly in the nonprofit environment, which can reduce costs and aid in strategic development. The authors also present "best practices" uncovered during the collaboration, among them the importance of regular and transparent communication and reciprocal service-level agreements with clear expectations.

"Over the past six years, we have found the most important lessons are also the least specific to the BioOne-SPIE partnership," notes Lauren Kane, BioOne President/CEO and case study co-author. "We believe strongly in the power of nonprofit collaboration and hope we can serve as a useful educational model for those within the scholarly publishing community—and beyond."

"This partnership is built to evolve, scale, and serve as a template for others considering similar collaborations. In fact, it has already begun to do so," said co-author Scott Ritchey, Chief Technology Officer, SPIE. "All of the work to date provides a strong foundation for future developments and fertile ground for those new ideas that will push both organizations forward."

BioOne and SPIE will continue to share their progress and lessons learned as the partnership matures. They welcome interest from other nonprofit organizations interested in collaborating.

More information:
Patrick Franzen et al, BioOne and SPIE : A reflection on the first 3 years of the nonprofit platform partnership, Learned Publishing (2022). DOI: 10.1002/leap.1503

Provided by BioOne