Plan S is an initiative by a group of research funders to make publicly funded research outputs fully and immediately open access. The international consortium (cOAlition S) is coordinated by Science Europe and includes Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), UK Research and Innovation, Research Council of Norway and others and is supported by the European Research Council and the European Commission. cOAlition S aims for a new model of publishing, characterised not only by immediate, free online access to, but also by largely unrestricted use and re-use of scholarly publications.
The key principle of Plan S is:
After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.
Ten further principles apply, including:
Full details of the principles here.
Implementation guidance has been provided by cOAlition S to flesh out the details of the principles and to include technical requirements. Feedback was sought from interested parties and based on this feedback, a new edition of the guidance is expected in Spring 2019.
CONUL (Consortium of National and University Libraries) Response to Guidance on the Implementation of Plan S
The Office for Scholarly Communication in the University of Cambridge have published a blog post called Plan S – links, commentary and news items, which attempts to compile a list of discussions and documents around Plan S.
cOAlition S recognises that the new model calls for research funders, institutions, researchers, learned societies, librarians and publishers to work together towards a system of scholarly publishing that is more accessible, efficient, fair and transparent.
The Green Open Access route satisfies open access mandates by funding agencies such as SFI, HRB and HEA. This model allows you to deposit a version of your article in an institutional repository such as the RCSI Repository.
Knowing which version of your work you can deposit can be difficult to ascertain. Sherpa Romeo can be useful in helping to determine what your rights are; this online resource aggregates and analyses publisher open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis. Information from here must be double checked against the policies of individuals journals however as policies change over time.
Terminology can differ from publisher to publisher; the table below should help you to decide which version is necessary for your particular needs.
|
Version Stages |
Definition |
Alternative terms |
|
Submitted Version |
The version originally submitted to the journal before peer review and corrections |
Preprint, Author's original draft |
|
Accepted Version |
The accepted version, after peer review but prior to the final copy-editing and layout |
Postprint, Accepted Manuscript, Author’s Accepted Manuscript |
|
Published Version |
An exact digital replica of the published article |
Postprint, Version of record, Publisher's version |
ontent credit RCSI Library, Image credit: Ryan Regier, CC BY. Book image by Benny Forsberg.
Paywall: The Business of Scholarship (Full Movie) CC BY 4.0 from Paywall The Movie on Vimeo.
Paywall: The Business of Scholarship, produced by Jason Schmitt, provides focus on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google. For more information please visit: Paywallthemovie.com
Following a wide consultation exercise revisions have been made to Plan S, the Science Europe-led funder initiative launched last year to push for more open access publishing.
