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What metadata standard(s) and format(s) should I select to comply with: “High-quality article level metadata in standard interoperable non-proprietary format under a CC0 public domain dedication?”

Published on: 02/06/2020

Here, and elsewhere in the guidance, cOAlition S has left many detailed implementation decisions to those best placed to make them. We do not see cOAlition S as designing a detailed specification for the scholarly communications system, though the funders may facilitate some discussions in some cases. We would hope that communities can come to agreements and common practices on standard formats via the usual channels such as standards bodies, joint projects, etc.

Does any delay of import of metadata into repositories mean that items in my repository are no longer compliant with Plan S’s definition of ‘immediate Open Access?’

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

Plan S describes immediate OA as “All scholarly articles … must be openly available immediately upon publication without any embargo period.” cOAlition S recognises that some repositories are notified of publication using 3rd party systems and services and that there may be a short time lag in notification. Whilst not in favour of such delays, and whilst waiting on improved notification services, cOAlition S funders accept such short delays of a few days, on the understanding that efforts are made to mitigate such delays, and repositories continue to aim toward 100% of cOAlition S funded scholarly articles being made OA on publication. Delays of weeks will be viewed dimly by cOAlition S funders.

Does the Author’s Accepted Manuscript” (AAM) of an article deposited into an institutional repository have to have a DOI assigned to it?

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

For cOAlition S articles all AAMs in repositories must have a unique persistent identifier (PID) assigned to them. cOAlition S does not specify the choice of PID. The PID should take the form of a recognised standard, for example, a DOI, Handle, or URN. The PIDs in use should comply with the requirements of that selected PID scheme.

Do I have to embed the article OA status and licence in the actual article?

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

Plan S requires that publishers and repositories embed metadata describing the OA status and licence of that article within the article itself. cOAlition S recognises that some, particularly smaller publishers and some repositories, are not currently set up to facilitate this. In these cases metadata describing the OA status of the work and the licence assigned to it must be included in the item description metadata (such as repository item record or web page metadata for the item). Such item metadata should be in a common, non-proprietary format.

My university uses the Pure system (Elsevier). Is the metadata compliant?

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

cOalition S does not make recommendations about systems to publishers and repository owners. Instead it requires that metadata should be open and in a non-proprietary format under a CC0 public domain dedication, leaving the decision as to actual format, and the system(s) adopted, to the service owner. See Guidance on the Implementation of Plan S. Specifically, the guidance requires: “High-quality article level metadata in standard interoperable non-proprietary format, under a CC0 public domain dedication. Metadata must include complete and reliable information on funding provided by cOAlition S funders (including as a minimum the name of the funder and the grant number/identifier).”

Is JSON-LD (with schema org) considered to be equivalent with JATS and compliant with Plan S requirements for repositories?

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

Plan S does NOT designate full text stored in a machine-readable community standard format such as JATS XML as a mandatory requirement for repositories. If repositories choose to store the full text of an article in a machine-readable format, the choice of standard machine-readable format is left to the repository owner.

Should supplementary information and data be supplied in JATS-XML?

Published on: 22/05/2020 - Updated on: 02/06/2020

Plan S does NOT designate full text (including supplementary text and data) stored in a machine-readable community standard format such as JATS XML as a mandatory requirement. If publishers or repositories choose to provide the full text of an article (and supplementary information) in a machine-readable format, the choice of standard machine-readable format is left to the publisher or repository owner.