From: Velterop <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2018 17:08:50 +0100 Rick, There are at least four big issues related to science publishing, all to do with sustainability of the system: pre-publication peer review, publication-based researcher assessment, open access, and the subscription model. Plan S addresses the latter two, and unfortunately doesn't seem to clearly separate them, and even conflate them (though they are, of course, related). First open access (true OA, i.e. CC-BY or equivalent). That is the core principle of Plan S. Science is not sustainable in the medium and long term without it. Given the relentless increase in articles being published every year, the cost of subscriptions (incl. access licences) would grow beyond the capacity to pay for them of most, possibly all, institutions. It makes the subscription system unsustainable. And given the uniqueness of every article, making choices on the basis of financial considerations isn't a realistic prospect. Because access to all published material in a given field is needed if one wants to avoid "searching for the key under the lamp post where there is light, instead of where the key might be found." In fact, the developments of semantic analyses of large volumes of scientific content can bring significant benefits to scientific discovery (see, for instance, this already decade-old article about the discovery of novel protein-protein interactions from the literature: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774517/). It goes without saying that such analyses are best done on comprehensive corpora of articles, and to be able to do that, access to the full text is a necessity. If open access were nigh universal, the benefits to science in terms of knowledge discovery would be significant, even phenomenal. Plan S then also wants to get rid of the unsustainable subscription system, and that seems to include in the way they presented that as a ban on 'hybrid' journals. Except, it isn't. What the funders behind Plan S do not want, is pay for hybrid journals, not even in the form of APCs for OA articles, because of the subscription-supporting role that those journals still have. That's their good right as funders and guardians of public research funds. As said, the Wellcome Trust is clearer about these matters. I am confident that Plan S will soon provide that clarity as well. The confusion I mentioned seems to concern the question of why hybrid journals are considered part of the subscription problem instead of part of the OA solution. Jan Velterop On 23/11/2018 04:01, LIBLICENSE wrote: From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2018 01:25:05 +0000 > Perhaps not all 'hybrid' journals offer proper CC-BY OA, and confusion about what > 'hybrid' actually means and the possibility that hybrid journals might not accept the > APC cap, may have led to the statement that "the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing is not > compliant with the above principles". So Jan, are you suggesting that the explicit prohibition on hybrid publication that is currently embedded in the terms of Plan S arises from confusion on the part of Plan S’s creators as to what “hybrid” means? If so, it sounds like you’re suggesting that you believe this confusion will be rectified and the terms of Plan S subsequently clarified such that publication in hybrid journals is no longer prohibited – is that correct? > Constructive engagement with the initiators of Plan S and the supporting funding > agencies should be the way to make progress and achieve clarity. I couldn’t agree more. I and several other people have been asking Robert-Jan Smits (very respectfully, I might add) to clarify the position of Plan S on this question, and so far have received no response. Some constructive engagement would be most welcome. --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication Marriott Library, University of Utah Desk: (801) 587-9989 Cell: (801) 721-1687 [log in to unmask] ******* From: Velterop <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2018 13:25:14 +0100 The key principle: “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.” and the first additional principle: "All publications must be published under an open license, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY." seem to leave the option open. An article in a hybrid journal that is CC-BY-licensed and immediately published on a "compliant Open Access Platform" as well as in the journal (as should be possible if the hybrid journal offers true open access), would satisfy these principles. Perhaps not all 'hybrid' journals offer proper CC-BY OA, and confusion about what 'hybrid' actually means and the possibility that hybrid journals might not accept the APC cap, may have led to the statement that "the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing is not compliant with the above principles". The Wellcome Trust seems clearer. They say "We will no longer cover the costs of OA publishing in subscription journals. [These are hybrid journals, because those are the only subscription journals that publish paid-for OA articles. JV] Grant applicants cannot ask for these costs in their grant application, and grantholders will not be allowed to use their grant funds to pay for these costs." Which, to me, means that researchers are allowed to publish in hybrid journals, but that they'll have to find the funds to pay for the APCs elsewhere. Their core requirement is open access: "All research articles supported in whole or in part by Wellcome must be: 1) made freely available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final publication date, and 2) published under a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC-BY)." Constructive engagement with the initiators of Plan S and the supporting funding agencies should be the way to make progress and achieve clarity. Jan Velterop Plan S: https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Plan_S.pdf Wellcome Trust Open access policy 2020: https://wellcome.ac.uk/sites/default/files/wellcome-open-access-policy-2020.pdf On 20/11/2018 04:45, LIBLICENSE wrote: From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2018 02:52:26 +0000 Given that the “key principle” of Plan S is that funded research “must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms,” and that the ninth principle says that “the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing is not compliant with the above principles,” can someone explain where the idea comes from that there exists an optional compliance method that would allow funded authors to publish in hybrid journals? --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication Marriott Library, University of Utah Desk: (801) 587-9989 Cell: (801) 721-1687 [log in to unmask]