KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Plan S architects cOAlition S have released the results of a global consultation on their latest open access proposal, “Towards Responsible Publishing”.
• Broad support exists for preprint posting, permissive licensing, and open peer review, while challenges remain around incentives, infrastructure, and implementation.

Earlier this year, cOAlition S welcomed the findings of a consultation with global stakeholders on their “Towards Responsible Publishing” (TRP) proposal. A detailed report reveals broad support for aspects such as preprint posting, the use of permissive licences, and open peer review, yet challenges remain.  

The proposal

Originally published last year, TRP builds on the principles of Plan S, which calls for the academic community to move towards “full and immediate” open access. cOAlition S proposes to reform academic publishing away from “highly inequitable” funding models, such as subscription charges and (over time) article processing charges (APCs), towards a scholar-led publishing ecosystem. These principles are aimed at allowing authors to decide when and what to publish.

The consultation

Over 11,600 respondents contributed to the consultation, including:

• 440 responses to an initial stakeholder feedback survey
• 72 focus group participants
• 11,145 responses to an online global researcher survey.

The report acknowledges that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were underrepresented in the initial stakeholder feedback survey data. To mitigate this, the report authors solicited 10 organisational feedback letters from LMICs.

Key findings

There was general support across regions and academic disciplines for:

• preprint posting, to increase research transparency
• permissive licensing, albeit with some concerns that open licence adoption is imposed by funders rather than the academic community
• open peer review (where reports are published alongside a published article), with a preference for reviewer anonymity.

Despite this support, the traditional journal ecosystem remains dominant, with researchers reliant on journal indexes and impact factors when deciding where to publish. The report suggests that researchers in LMICs may be more dependent on these metrics currently. Along with inequities in relation to APCs, this could lead to TRP being seen as an imposition by wealthier nations.

There was general support across regions and academic disciplines for preprint posting, permissive licensing, and open peer review.

The way forward

The report suggests that cOAlition S should pursue a phased approach to implementing TRP goals:

• Short term: encourage preprint posting and open licensing
• Medium term: promote open peer review
• Long term: reform incentives at a global scale to encourage open access publishing, and reallocate resources from legacy funding models towards scholar-led publishing infrastructure

cOAlition S aim to publish a full response to the findings by the end of 2024.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• In a recently published review of Plan S, cOAlitions S describe key initiatives that aim to meet the changing needs of the evolving open access landscape.
• New features of the practical ‘Journal Checker Tool’ were discussed, as well as the latest advancements towards diamond open access.

2023 marked the 5th anniversary of the launch of Plan S by cOAlition S, a group of mainly European research funders with a mission to achieve “full and immediate open access (OA) to research publications”. Although much progress has been made, the group recognise that there is still work to do, with a substantial proportion of new research articles sitting behind paywalls. In February 2024, the latest review of Plan S was released, with a rundown of new and ongoing plans that aim to turn the dial further forwards full OA.

The state of open access

OA rates for research funded by cOAlition S members remained high (~80%), particularly compared with the global average (60%). Gold OA was most widely used among cOAlition S member-funded research, along with an increasing number of OA publications made available via ‘hybrid’ journals. It was suggested that this increase was likely due to transformative agreements, and that this number may fall following the decision by cOAlition S to halt financial support for these agreements after 2024.

Strategic initiatives

The review detailed 4 key initiatives that will have an impact over the course of the next year:

• A study to assess the impact of Plan S was launched, which aims to evaluate how Plan S has contributed to OA and its global effects on the scholarly landscape.
• A public consultation is ongoing to further develop the “Towards Responsible Publishing” proposal, which aims to move to systems where authors control how their work is shared.
• The organisation Information Power was commissioned by cOAlition S to devise a proposal for a fairer pricing system for publishing. A working group was also convened in partnership with PLOS and Jisc to create a framework to move away from article processing charges.
• Support for diamond OA, which cOAlition S “see as the most equitable OA publishing model on the planet”, continued, and a framework for a Global Diamond Federation was outlined.

Useful tools

As well as new proposals, the report reviewed practical tools already made available to researchers, including:

• the Journal Comparison Service, which allows comparison of journal publishing services and fees
• the Journal Checker Tool, which is used to identify Plan S compliant routes to publishing OA. New features of this tool mean that users are also now able to check if a transformative agreement is in place for a particular journal or institution.

Future perspectives

Executive Director of cOAlition S, Johan Rooryck, highlighted that these initiatives look “forward to a bold vision for the future of scholarly communication”. Indeed, updates on many of the latest initiatives, such as the Plan S impact study, are expected in the coming months. It will be interesting to see how these new developments impact on OA research in 2024 and beyond.

Executive Director of cOAlition S, Johan Rooryck, highlighted that these initiatives look “forward to a bold vision for the future of scholarly communication”.

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KEY TAKEAWAY

• Five years after its launch, Robert-Jan Smits calls on the scientific community to remain committed to Plan S.

In an opinion piece for Research Professional News, Robert-Jan Smits emphasises the importance of adhering to Plan S, the revolutionary initiative launched in 2018 by cOAlition S to ensure that publications resulting from publicly funded research are immediately available for all to read. He highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic saw a significant rise in open access publishing, fostering hope that this ‘new normal’ could be sustained. However, despite these initial gains, the journey towards full open access remains slow.

Despite initial gains, the journey towards full open access remains slow.

Key achievements:

• cOAlition S has grown to include 25 organisations, including the World Health Organization.
• The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy adopted an open access policy closely aligned with Plan S principles.
• Transformative agreements between academic institutions and publishers were conceived to speed up commitment to immediate open access.

Despite these successes, significant challenges persist:

• 61% of scientific papers published each year remain behind paywalls.
• Persistent myths equate open access with low-quality, predatory journals.
• Academic libraries struggle with the shift from ‘pay to read’ to ‘pay to publish’.
• Article processing charges (APCs) are often prohibitive.
• Some journals have been too slow in transitioning to open access.

Smits argues for a hard 2024 deadline for transformative agreements to deliver results. He suggests capping APCs to control costs and advocates for transparency in publishing expenses.

Ultimately, Smits is concerned that the course may be changing and fears that initiatives such as diamond open access and not-for-profit open access publishing platforms will not facilitate the significant shifts needed to make full open access a reality.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• cOAlition S announces a new proposal – ‘‘Towards Responsible Publishing’’ – to improve and speed up the dissemination of research findings.
• The initiative would give more power to authors to choose what they publish and when, including a wider range of scholarly outputs.

Following the implementation of Plan S, cOAlition S now looks set to drive open access publishing even further forwards, with a new proposal, “Towards Responsible Publishing”. The group aims to transform academic publishing into an “open, scholar-led communication ecosystem”.

In a recent blog post, Bodo Stern and Johan Rooryck (Executive Director of cOAlition S) outlined their view that key challenges persist within academic publishing, in particular:

• substantial lead times from article submission to publication of research
• inequitable access to publishing in some journals due to costs
• the pre-publication scientific discussion and critical feedback that form the basis of peer review are not made public.

cOAlition S is calling for a shift away from the current journal-led model of disseminating research findings to a system led by researchers, in which more outputs are made available and at a quicker pace.

To this end, ‘‘Towards Responsible Publishing’’ outlines 5 principles, built on 2 key concepts:

1. Authors should decide which research is published and when their work will be shared. Third-party organisations would only be able to offer their services in facilitation of peer review and publication, rather than selecting which research is shared and when.
2. Contributions throughout the research process should be shared to show progression over time and allow wider scrutiny. This includes early (pre-review) versions of articles and peer reviewer comments, not just final articles. The group argues this would end the role of the final journal-accepted article as the primary output of research.

cOAlition S believes this proposal will benefit the research community: “Our vision is a community-based scholarly communication system fit for open science in the 21^st [century], that empowers scholars to share the full range of their research outputs and to participate in new quality control mechanisms and evaluation standards for these outputs”. Now, the group calls for researchers and stakeholders to share their thoughts in a consultation process on the new proposal.

“Our vision is a community-based scholarly communication system fit for open science in the 21^st [century], that empowers scholars to share the full range of their research outputs and to participate in new quality control mechanisms and evaluation standards for these outputs”.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• cOAlition S plans to drop 1,589 titles from its transformative journal programme due to insufficient progress towards open access.
• The move highlights the growing importance of accelerating the shift to open access in the scientific community.

cOAlition S has decided to part ways with 1,589 journals that have been too slow in transitioning to open access (OA), as reported by Jeffrey Brainard for Science.org. The decision serves as a wake-up call to the scientific community, emphasising the urgency to embrace OA publishing.

cOAlition S, an alliance of public agencies and research funders, aims to promote immediate and unrestricted access to scientific publications that arise from publicly funded research. Aligning with its mission, cOAlition S has offered to cover OA fees for hybrid journals, on the condition that they commit to transitioning to full OA according to specified milestones:

• an annual increase of at least 5% in the proportion of OA papers relative to the total number of papers, and
• a minimum 15% growth in the share of OA papers compared to the previous year.

Out of the 2,326 transformative journals enrolled, two-thirds failed to meet these targets in 2022, leading to their planned removal from the programme at the end of 2023.

While this decision may have little impact on well-funded institutions, where researchers can afford hefty OA fees to publish in reputable journals, it will likely pose significant challenges for modestly funded scholars. Those relying on cOAlition S to finance OA publication in affected titles may need to consider publishing their findings in journals that fully embrace the principles of OA at no cost.

Those relying on cOAlition S to finance OA publication in affected titles may need to consider publishing their findings in journals that fully embrace the principles of OA at no cost.

Publishers are urged to prioritise the transition to OA to stay relevant in the ever-evolving research landscape. By doing this, they can strengthen their global reach, attract more readers, and increase the visibility and impact of the research they publish.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Diamond open access is a crucial facet of academic communication, but its implementation remains challenging.
• An action plan, focusing on efficiency, quality standards, capacity building, and sustainability, has been developed to further refine diamond open access.

Diamond open access (OA) is a scholarly publishing model with no fees for authors or readers. Although it is estimated that almost a tenth of academic articles are published using this practice, diamond OA is held back by certain challenges. To address these limitations, an Action Plan for Diamond Open Access has been prepared, and is currently undergoing endorsement, as described in a March article from cOAlition S.

The OA Diamond Journals Study, commissioned by cOAlition S, identified limitations associated with the technical capacity, management, visibility, and sustainability of diamond OA journals and platforms, and proposed a series of recommendations. Based on these recommendations, Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR) have prepared an action plan focusing on:

• efficiency
• quality standards
• capacity building
• sustainability.

Each of these central elements was reviewed and discussed by participants of the February 2022 workshop on Diamond Open Access and experts of the Science Europe’s Working Group on Open Science; a summary of the action plan was presented at the Open Science European Conference 2022.

To date, over 110 organisations have endorsed the initiative.

“Endorsing the Diamond Action Plan is a sign of commitment to work together towards a scholarly publishing model that is equitable, community-driven, and academic-led and -owned. The Action Plan provides a set of priority actions to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond scholarly communication ecosystem.” – Marc Schiltz, President of Science Europe

Strategies to operationalise the action plan, including the Horizon Europe’s DIAMAS project (Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication), will be discussed at the upcoming  Diamond Open Access Conference in September 2022.

The authors hope that the action plan will increase bibliodiversity and, ultimately, “enable the global research community to take charge of a scholarly communication system by and for research communities”.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• International research consortium cOAlition S has asked journals to make information on open access copyright agreements and fees more visible to potential authors.

On 1 March 2022, cOAlition S wrote to publishers as part of the Plan S initiative to drive open access publishing. Acknowledging recent progress made by publishers to increase open access to scientific publications, cOAlition S urged publishers to take further steps by making details of their open access policies and contracts more obvious for authors. The letter signed by Professor Johan Rooryck, Executive Director of cOAlition S, calls on journals to make the following information plainly available for authors at the point of submission:

• the copyright licence that authors would need to sign before their manuscript’s publication
• all costs associated with publishing the manuscript
• whether the journal will re-direct the manuscript to another journal based on reasons other than editorial rejection.

While details on these policies can often be found on a journal’s own web site or via the publisher’s web site, cOAlition S states that it would be helpful for authors if this information were displayed:

• prominently on the journal’s web site
• as a part of the ‘Information for Authors’ section
• at the start of the journal’s submission process.

The availability of clear terms and conditions at the beginning of the submission process would enable an informed decision on whether authors want to proceed with their submission.

Such information could also help avoid late-stage manuscript withdrawals due to access restrictions of published manuscripts not meeting pre-existing grant conditions.

Noting that the requested transparency regarding copyright, licencing and fees information is in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics Principles of Transparency guidelines and that such initiatives have the broad support of the research community, cOAlition S has asked for publishers’ responses to the letter in the hope that these will help inform its grantees on which journals meet their publishing requirements.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Publishers should address disparities in open access publishing across different academic disciplines and regions.
• Gold open access is the preferred choice for publishing research.

With the recent publication of its one millionth fully open access (OA) article, Springer Nature’s Chief Publishing Officer, Steven Inchcoombe, used a Guest Post for The Scholarly Kitchen to look back at over a decade and a half of OA publishing at Springer Nature. Inchcoombe summarised the progress made in the transition towards universal OA and provided some suggestions on how publishers can facilitate the move to sustainable OA publishing .

What does OA publishing look like now?

In 2020, one-third of articles published in Springer Nature journals were OA. However, this was largely driven by the academic disciplines of Medicine and the Life Sciences. Primarily due to lower funding levels, the humanities and social sciences have found it more difficult to meet the requirements of Plan S. That said, these disciplines have succeeded in doubling their OA share between 2015–2020.

Regional disparity in OA publishing is also apparent. While Europe and Asia were strong contributors to OA content in 2021, North America contributed substantially fewer OA articles, which may reflect the lower uptake of Gold OA by US funders.

Inchcoombe highlighted the value that authors derive from making their research OA, noting an average of 2,600 downloads for each of the one million articles in the last 5 years.

In the last 5 years, these one million OA articles were downloaded 2.6 billion times – an average of 2,600 downloads per article.

Where next for OA?

Notwithstanding the progress made since the first OA article was published back in 2005, Inchcoombe suggested three steps that could ease the transition to OA:

1. The industry as a whole needs to accelerate the adoption of OA. Springer Nature is aiming for 50% of their published articles to be OA by 2024.
2. The barriers some academic disciplines face in publishing OA articles need to be addressed. Transformative Agreements between publishers and research institutions are one mechanism that can help, ensuring that OA publishing is available to all academics, irrespective of their field of research.
3. The regional disparity in OA publishing should be overcome. Journals should consult across geographic regions to understand and remove the barriers to OA publishing.

Going for Gold

Inchcoombe emphasised that publishers need to ensure that suitable OA options are available to all authors. Springer Nature is working towards this through their provision of 600 fully OA journals, and a further 2,000 journals available through their Transformative Journal commitment. Furthermore, he suggests that it will take the combined efforts of publishers, funders, institutions, and consortia to ensure sustainable OA publishing options. Warning that Green OA is not a sustainable model – as the version of record remains behind a paywall – Inchcoombe hopes that the industry can move rapidly towards the adoption of Gold OA as the preferred publishing model.

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Earlier this year, Science published a guide to the new open access (OA) landscape that has emerged since the Plan S initiative came into effect in January 2021. The initiative requires research funded by cOAlition S members to be published OA,  which has led to a number of subscription journals changing their OA policies.

Some journals, such as Nature, introduced a Gold OA option in which authors pay a fee to have their papers published OA and immediately available to all. The top fee charged by Nature for this option is €9,500, which has been criticised by some for being too high. Such high fees can make publication financially out of reach, particularly for early-career researchers or those in lower-resource countries, further exacerbating longstanding inequalities for authors. Therefore, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the publisher of the Science family of journals, announced an alternative Green OA policy. This option allows authors to deposit near-final, peer-reviewed versions of papers that have been accepted in pay-for-view journals in publicly accessible online repositories (previously, manuscripts could only be shared on personal or institutional webpages). Importantly, authors funded by cOAlition S organisations will retain the rights to share their accepted manuscript openly, a condition stipulated in Plan S, and a right that will not be extended to all authors. AAAS will pilot the policy for a year to determine whether the approach is sustainable.

AAAS follow other publishers and journals, including The Royal Society and the New England Journal of Medicine, which have either had a Green OA policy for some time or have introduced them in response to Plan S. Although this approach does have its advantages, such as avoiding high publication fees, some have voiced concerns. The near-final drafts of manuscripts that are archived may lack useful sections of the final version or may not include subsequent corrections or retraction notices, making it more difficult to ensure the integrity of the scientific record. Others have argued that a focus on Green OA undermines progress to full OA. Rick Anderson, university librarian at Brigham Young University commented:

“Every open-access model solves some problems and creates other problems.”

Approximately 31% of articles in Science and 35% in Nature acknowledge grants from a Plan S funder and would therefore be able to utilise the new OA options. It is hoped that shifts in OA policies, like those driven by Plan S, will allow new findings to be disseminated faster and ultimately accelerate scientific discovery.

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With Plan S coming into effect at the start of this year, cOAlition S have developed a web-based Journal Checker Tool (JCT) to help researchers funded by cOAlition S members to quickly identify Plan S compliant routes when publishing research articles open access.

“The JCT provides a simple, easy-to-use solution to check whether a journal or platform complies with the policies of Plan S.” Hans de Jonge, Chair of the JCT Implementation Group and Head of Open Science Policies at the Dutch Research Council NWO

To comply with Plan S, a journal must allow researchers to retain the copyright to their work, enabling open access publication of their article under a CC BY licence without embargo. Researchers can use the JCT to see whether their choice of journal is compliant, and if so, through which of three routes:

1. fully open access journals and platforms
2. self-archiving, either via the publisher’s self-archiving policy or the cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy
3. transformative arrangements.

How do you use the Journal Checker Tool?

By entering their preferred journal, cOAlition S funder and affiliated institution, the tool instantly provides researchers with all of the available routes to Plan S compliance and basic instructions on what to do next. If no compliant route is available, the tool will provide suggestions on how to edit the search to identify compliant options. 

For simple step-by-step instructions on how to search the JCT, you can watch the video below:

De Jonge acknowledges that complying with cOAlition S open access policies can seem confusing for researchers. By providing the JCT, cOAlition S aim to help navigate the complexities of open access publishing and support the delivery of immediate open access to research.

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