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I publish a journal that does not charge any publication fees (aka ‘Diamond’ OA). Do I have to submit Price Transparency data?

Published on: 22/06/2020 - Updated on: 22/06/2020

The Plan S requirements for price transparency state “When Open Access publication fees are applied, they must be commensurate with the publication services delivered and the structure of such fees must be transparent” [Principle 5].

By operating a no-fee model, there is no Plan S requirement to make your pricing openly available. Such publishers may choose to make their pricing data available.

What publication charges will cOAlition S funders cover?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

cOAlition S funders commit to the following for their grantees:

  • Financial support for Open Access publication fees – such as article processing charges (APCs) – for peer reviewed articles in fully OA journals (or fully OA publishing platforms) that fulfil the Plan S requirements.
  • Funders do not support the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing. However, as a transitional pathway toward full OA within a clearly defined timeframe, funders may contribute financially to OA publishing under transformative arrangements; check your individual funder’s conditions. If you are based at a higher education institution, your library may offer advice.
  • Check with your individual funder to find out whether they cover other publication charges that are not related to OA such as page, colour, image or submission charges.
Who can apply for publication charges support from cOAlition S funders?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

cOAlition S funders only financially supports the publication fees incurred by researchers benefitting from their own grants, and cannot commit to paying the publication fees of other researchers.

My research has multiple collaborators at different institutions? How do I divide the APC charge?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

How the charge is divided is left to the discretion of the PI/researchers/institutions involved, in line with the rules of their funder.

My research is funded by multiple funders. How do I split the publication charge?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

Where a piece of research has been supported by several grants and possibly several funders, all of these should be acknowledged. How the charge is divided is left to the discretion of the PI/researchers/institutions involved, in line with the rules of their funder.

In order to comply with Plan S, do I have to publish in a fully Open Access journal and pay a fee?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 15/10/2021

No.

  • Publishing in a fully OA journal or on an OA platform is only one of the three routes to compliance with Plan S. Not all of the routes to OA require the payment of an OA fee.
  • As a second option, you could publish in a subscription journal (pure subscription or hybrid) and make a copy of your article (either the Author Accepted Manuscript or the Version of Record) immediately available OA via a repository under a CC-BY licence.
  • Finally, as a third option, you could publish OA in a journal that is under a transformative arrangement.
  • For full details see Part II of the Plan S Implementation Guidance.
  • If you are based at a higher education institution your library may be able to advise.
What is a transformative arrangement?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

cOAlition S supports a number of strategies to encourage subscription publishers to transition to Open Access. We call these approaches ’transformative arrangements’, for which there are currently three strategies: Transformative Agreements, Transformative Journals, and transformative model agreements.

What is a transformative agreement?

Published on: 19/05/2020 - Updated on: 04/06/2020

Transformative agreements are those contracts negotiated between institutions (libraries, national and regional consortia) and publishers that transform the business model underlying scholarly journal publishing, moving from one based on toll access (subscription) to one in which publishers are remunerated a fair price for their open access publishing services. (Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges, ESAC)