Monitoring & Reporting#

CODA currently provides exporting your publication and contract data in the openCost format (XML). You can access the export features by navigating the menu item of the same name.

Note

Additional monitoring and reporting features are planned for future releases.

openCost Export#

The openCost export feature allows you to generate standardized XML reports of your institution’s publication costs and publishing contracts. openCost is a community-developed standard for exchanging publication cost data, making it easier to share transparent cost information with funding organizations, libraries, and other institutions.

What is openCost?#

openCost is an XML-based format designed specifically for reporting publication costs in scholarly publishing. It provides a standardized way to represent:

  • Publication metadata (titles, DOIs, publication types, journals)

  • Associated costs and invoices

  • Publishing contracts and transformative agreements

  • Cost sharing arrangements between institutions

  • Publisher and funding information

By using openCost, your institution can easily exchange cost data with other organizations, funding bodies, or contribute to transparency initiatives in scholarly publishing.

Overview#

The Export overview page displays all previously generated openCost reports. Each item in the list shows:

  • Report title and generation date

  • Reporting period (start and end dates)

  • Number of publications included

  • Number of contracts included

  • Validation status (red exclamation mark; if there are any warnings or issues)

From this page, you can download existing reports as XML files, view detailed information, create new reports, or delete old ones.

Generating a New Report#

To create a new openCost report:

  1. Click the New button on the Export overview page

  2. Enter a descriptive title for your report (e.g., “2025 Q1 Publication Costs”)

  3. Select the reporting period by choosing start and end dates

  4. Click Generate Report

CODA will automatically gather all publications and contracts from your institution that fall within the specified date range and create an openCost XML report. Included are publications and contracts that are listed on paid invoices within the period of time you specified.

Understanding Validation Messages#

After generating a report, CODA will validate the data against the openCost schema requirements. You may see:

  • Success message: Your report was generated without any issues

  • Warning message: The report was created but contains some validation warnings (e.g., missing optional fields that would improve the data quality)

  • Error message: The report is missing information that is needed to generate a valid openCost report

Validation errors and warnings don’t prevent you from downloading and using the report, but they indicate fields that could be completed to provide more comprehensive data. You can view detailed validation information on the report detail page, where links are provided to fix the issues.

Note

After fixing any issue with the data in the report, you have to generate a new report to have the changes included.

Report Details#

Clicking on a report from the overview page will show you detailed information including:

  • Complete publication list with titles, DOIs, and cost information

  • Contract information with associated publications

  • Individual invoices and their positions

  • Links back to the original CODA records (funding requests, contracts, invoices)

This detail view allows you to review the data before downloading the XML file and provides convenient navigation back to the source records if you need to make corrections.

Note

openCost reports are snapshots of your data at the time of generation. If you update a publication or invoice after creating a report, you’ll need to generate a new report to reflect those changes.

Downloading the XML File#

To download an openCost XML report:

  1. Navigate to the Export overview page or open a specific report’s detail page

  2. Click the Download XML button

  3. The XML file will be saved to your device with a filename that includes the report title, ID, and generation date

The downloaded XML file can be:

  • Shared with funding organizations or library consortia

  • Imported into cost analysis tools

  • Submitted to transparency initiatives

  • Used for internal reporting and analysis

Deleting Reports#

If you no longer need a report, you can delete it:

  1. Locate the report on the overview page or open its detail page

  2. Click the Delete Report button

  3. Confirm the deletion when prompted

Warning

Deleting a report is permanent and cannot be undone. Make sure you’ve saved any XML files you need before deleting a report.

Cost Sharing and Multi-Institutional Publications#

CODA’s openCost export fully supports publications with cost sharing arrangements between multiple institutions. When a publication has costs split between several organizations, this information is automatically included in the openCost XML with the external_costsplitting field set appropriately. This information is set in the funding requests.

Contract and Invoice Grouping#

For publications linked to transformative agreements or other publishing contracts, CODA automatically includes:

  • Contract identifiers (ESAC Registry IDs)

  • Contract period information

  • Invoice groupings that link publications to their contracts

  • Individual invoice positions with detailed cost breakdowns

This comprehensive data structure helps track how publications relate to institutional agreements and enables better analysis of contract performance.

What’s Next?#

We’re continuously working to expand CODA’s exporting capabilities. Future releases intend to include:

  • Additional export formats (JSON)

  • Monitoring dashboards to visualize data

  • Custom report filters (by publisher, contract, funding source, etc.)