From: Leyla Williams <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2018 17:36:56 +0100

Dear all,

The following statement was written by the members of OASPA’s Board of
Directors <https://oaspa.org/about/board/> and published on the OASPA
website today:

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) is a community of
publishers and related organisations committed to supporting the transition
to a world in which open access becomes the predominant model of
publication for scholarly outputs. OASPA therefore welcomes the launch of Plan
S <https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/>, recently announced by a
coalition of 11 leading funding agencies from across Europe, with the
support of the European Commission and the European Research Council, as an
important step in the transition towards full and immediate open access for
scholarly research.

The statement
<https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/moedas/announcements/plan-s-and-coalition-s-accelerating-transition-full-and-immediate-open-access-scientific_en>
 of Commissioner Carlos Moedas about Plan S puts forth a strong commitment
towards making open access the predominant model for communicating
scholarly research outputs. OASPA believes this announcement will further
strengthen fully open access journals and publishers, and accelerate the
transition of mixed-model publishers towards fully open access publication
models.

In the weeks since cOAlition S announced their 10 key principles for
supporting the transition to open access, those within the open science
community have engaged in numerous discussions about the possible
implications of this initiative as well as questions about how it will be
implemented. Last month at the 10th annual Conference on Open Access
Scholarly Publishing
<https://oaspa.org/conference/coasp-2018-program/>, members
of OASPA had the opportunity to discuss Plan S and to pose a number of
these questions directly to Robert-Jan Smits, the Open Access Envoy of the
European Commission, who has led the development of Plan S. The video
recording of Smits’ presentation, as well as the subsequent discussion, is
available here. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f02cMUo9Jjo>

In OASPA’s view, there are several important strengths of this initiative
that have the potential to drive meaningful change in the very near future.
Notably, cOAlition S already includes 11 leading funding agencies and has
invited others to join. Through this collaborative approach, the initiative
can help to coordinate open access policy at an international level, which
is in the interests of all stakeholders.

In the preamble to the announcement of cOAlition S, the President of
Science Europe, Marc Schiltz, emphasised the need to “fundamentally revise”
the current approach to research evaluation. Such reform is essential if
scholars are to be empowered to publish in journals that provide them with
the best quality of service, value, and wide dissemination, rather than
being judged on their ability to publish their work in a limited range of
high-prestige journals.

Since its launch 10 years ago, OASPA has played an important role in
ensuring that every member of our organisation meets a stringent set of
 requirements <https://oaspa.org/membership/membership-criteria/> with
regard to peer review and publication practices as a condition of their
membership. Therefore OASPA welcomes the comments about the need to ensure
that the journals and platforms that are used for open access publishing
exercise the highest quality policies and practices.

Additionally, OASPA welcomes the commitment to make the necessary funding
available to enable all researchers to publish their work under an open
access model without any undue financial burden. The details of exactly how
these funds will be made available is of critical importance, since there
is a risk that smaller publishers, scholarly societies, as well as
innovative new publishing platforms may be placed at a significant
disadvantage unless specific provisions are made to include them in any
centralised funding arrangements that are developed. A key element of
OASPA’s mission is to “ensure a diverse, vibrant, and healthy open access
market that supports a wide variety of innovative solutions and business
models,” and therefore we would welcome the opportunity to provide guidance
and recommendations for how the funding of open access publications should
be implemented within Plan S.

Another key aspect of Plan S around which important questions still remain
is how the APC price caps that are mentioned in the guiding principles will
be implemented. In addition to questions about the exact level of these
price caps, there are questions as to how these price caps will be
structured, and whether researchers will be allowed to use outside funding
to help cover any charges in excess of the price caps. OASPA fully supports
the aspiration of the cOAlition S funders to ensure the best possible value
for their scarce resources, while also recognising potential concerns about
the use of price caps as a means of ensuring value across a diverse range
of publication venues and formats.

Similarly, there are questions as to whether, and how, the cOAlition S
funders will make resources available to open access publications that do
not rely on an APC-based business model. There are a growing number of open
access publications, particularly those in the arts, humanities, and social
sciences, which rely on innovative non-APC funding models. While fully
recognising the challenges of developing policies to support a diverse
range of business models, OASPA wholeheartedly believes in the importance
of supporting a range of open access funding models. We would therefore
welcome the opportunity to provide input as the implementation plans are
being developed in order to help ensure adequate support for innovative
models beyond APCs.

One aspect of Plan S that has been the subject of wide discussion,
including multiple questions posed to Robert-Jan Smits at OASPA’s recent
conference, is the degree to which “green” open access will be permitted as
a means of fulfilling the requirements within Plan S. In response to these
questions, Smits raised a valid objection to the ambiguity of terms like
“green” and “gold” in describing open access models, and then went on to
clarify that any models that adhere to the 10 guiding principles within
Plan S would be permitted. Smits indicated that authors will be permitted
to publish in toll-access journals that allow them make a copy of their
accepted manuscript freely available at the point of publication, and under
a suitable open access license, with no embargo period. However, one of the
key principles announced within Plan S is that publication in “hybrid Open
Access” journals would not be permitted, which leaves unresolved questions
about whether any allowances for publication in journals that are not fully
open access will be permitted in the final implementation plan. While this
is likely to be one of the aspects of Plan S that will be widely discussed,
OASPA very much welcomes that the focus of Plan S is to implement and
support publication in fully Open Access journals.

In addition to the points discussed above, there are a number of other
practical questions that will need to be addressed as part of the upcoming
implementation process. The scholarly communications landscape is complex,
and in order for the cOAlition S funders to achieve their ambitious goals
they will need to work closely with the community as they begin to develop
their detailed implementation plans. OASPA is fully committed to supporting
the transition towards a future in which research outputs are made openly
available, innovative new models are allowed to flourish, and publishers of
all shapes and sizes are able to compete on a level playing field. As such,
we not only welcome the ambitious vision put forth by cOAlition S, but we
also offer our assistance in developing the forthcoming implementation plan
and helping to make this vision a reality.
Best wishes,
Leyla
—————
Leyla Williams
Events and Communications Coordinator
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA
oaspa.org | Twitter: @OASPA <https://twitter.com/OASPA> | Sign up
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