The pandemic united us in ways we'd never experienced. It blurred the lines between silos and helped us realize shared experiences where we may have thought "disparate" was a better descriptor of roles in the publishing community. We realized that we all want best-in-class in collaboration, problem-solving, and inclusion, even though our environment sometimes makes it difficult for us to imagine seeing eye-to-eye. || Speakers: Michele Avissar-Whiting; Dominque J. Moore; Ben Mudrak; Jennifer Regala; Alexa Colella; Willa Liburd Tavernier

The global infrastructure enabling Open Access and Open Science has come a long way over the past two decades to improve the user experience for authors, publishers, funders, and institutions. Yet isn't there more we, as publishers, can do for our users? Accelerating the adoption of OA through a variety of business models has led to growing complexity in stakeholder relationships and user expectations. We are learning that when the community shares an understanding of common challenges and embraces best practices, particularly consistent use of persistent identifiers, UX improves for authors and institutions, and customer satisfaction grows. In this interactive session, an author will interview three panelists to reflect on successful collaborations that streamline OA processes, remove unnecessary work for the researchers, and enable cross-stakeholder transparency. Attendees will leave the session with ideas to achieve a more unified user journey to satisfy the needs of authors, institutions, and funders.