#plan s

KIA, geleceği yeni logosuyla karşılıyor

KIA, geleceği yeni logosuyla karşılıyor 2020 yılının başında ‘Plan S’ stratejisiyle ulaşımın geleceğinde aktif rol alacağını ve 2025 yılına kadar 11 yeni elektrikli model geliştireceğini açıklayan KIA, dönüşüm yolculuğuna yeni logo, yeni slogan ve yeni kurumsal kimlik çalışmalarıyla devam ediyor.  “İlham veren hareket” mottosuyla yeni logosunu duyuran KIA, simetri, ritim ve yükselen değer…

La société Kia fait encore parler d’elle. En effet, la marque vient de partager sur le Net son « Plan S ». Elle envisage de lancer 7 voitures électriques sur le marché et le premier modèle sera dévoilé en 2021.

Zpráva přináší výsledky projektu, jehož cílem bylo popsat a vyhodnotit různé způsoby, jak mohou vědecké společnosti dostát požadavkům Plánu S. Na základě provedeného výzkumu zpráva přináší doporučení pro nakladatele a další zúčastněné strany. 

Pablo de Castro, Open Access Advocacy Librarian

On Fri July 5th the Wellcome Trust held a full-day workshop in London for their funded authors in Social Sciences and Humanities. Approximately 30 funded researchers attended the event, with a fairly homogeneous distribution across UK geographies and academic seniority. The only Open Access advocate in the room – attending the event on behalf of our institutional Wellcome-funded authors at Strathclyde – was yours truly.

The workshop meant a good opportunity to get a first-hand insight on researchers’ views on topics like Plan S and the Wellcome Open Research platform. Also, being an SSH-specific event, it provided the chance to explore to what extent the STM-centric compliance workflows can be tweaked to address the specific circumstances and needs of this community.

The agenda for the day included a few presentations (Robert Kiley and Diego Baptista, Wellcome, Steve Sturdy, Uni Edinburgh and Helen Saunders, Open Library of Humanities) and two lively breakout sessions to discuss (i) the main issues around Open Access and SSH and (ii) what the Wellcome could do to specifically support SSH authors and disciplines within the ongoing shift in the publishing landscape.

The discussions held at the event mostly focused on the Wellcome strategy to influence/press publishers in order for the publishing landscape to evolve towards more openness. A particularly hot topic was the perceived limitation1 in the choice of publishing venues arising from Plan S principles. This is part of a wider concern that the SSH disciplines may risk being dragged along a path that has been designed with mainly the STM publishing landscape in mind.

Robert Kiley’s presentation provided the rationale for the updated Wellcome Trust Open Access policy (to kick-off as of Jan 1st, 2021) and dispelled some of the most pressing concerns raised by SSH authors in the round of consultations held by cOAlition S. The main goals of this policy are:

to have all articles available Open Access upon publication (RK showed the current OA figures that prove it’s still a long way to go to achieve this objective), and

for all articles to be re-usable (meaning machine-readable for TDM purposes, with the “Mining the History of Medicine” project by the National Centre for Text Mining NaCTeM mentioned as an example).

Some concerns around Plan S mentioned in the presentation (together with the ways to mitigate them) were:

Limited choice of compliant publication venues: this needn’t be the case if publishers are capable of evolving their business models. Green Open Access (meaning deposit of accepted manuscripts in institutional platforms) is also an option for compliance, so the discussion doesn’t just need to focus on the suitability or otherwise of Article Processing Charges

Impact on international collaborations (see item 1 on the U Edinburgh feedback to cOAlition S): the Gates Foundation is also a Plan S signatory and they haven't seen any impact in terms of hampering international collaborations because of potentially limited eligibility of publishing channels

Issues with a strict CC-BY licence (also described in the Edinburgh response to Plan S): revision has softened the requirement for the SSH; “As an interim measure to address the concerns, particularly expressed by HSS communities, we recommend that funders should be willing to consider an exemption from the requirement for a CC BY license to allow the use of CC BY-ND on a case-by-case basis”

Too tight timeline for the transition: the first Open Access policy by the Wellcome Trust was issued in 2006. The transition has been going on for quite some time already, but the pace is too slow

Learned societies unable to find alternative business models for their subscription-based journals: the Wellcome Trust is working together with a number of learned societies in order to promote collaboration and explore various options in this regard – reporting expected on this strand later this year.

RK also highlighted a recent piece published by Jasmine Lange from SSH publisher Brill in the Netherlands ("Plan S and Humanities Publishing", Jul 2nd, 2019) where she states that an SSH exception to Plan S and/or the continuation of 24-month embargo periods would mean a high risk for the SSH being left behind on impact and funding.

Wellcome Open Research platform

This was followed by a presentation of the Wellcome Open Research (WOR) publishing platform by Diego Baptista. The success of this publishing channel (4th venue altogether by number of Wellcome-funded publications after Scientific Reports, Nature Comms and PLoS ONE) and its quick review process and affordability (average APC one third of the ‘externally paid’ one) are described in this Jan’2019 post. It’s also covering a wide range of outputs beyond articles (such as negative results, which happens to be the area for one of the two pieces published at WOR by Strathclyde authors thus far as shown on the figure below) and offering a safe publishing channel to Wellcome-funded authors in developing countries, thus tackling predatory publishing.

A number SSH researchers in the room raised issues with a publishing platform like the WOR, mainly focused on the lack of editors. The risk was highlighted for ‘toxic’ submissions akin to the Wakefield anti-vaccination paper in The Lancet to get openly posted on the platform while awaiting peer-review – even if the submission were eventually rejected, it could still collect a few citations while sitting in the WOR.

SSH disciplines are different

U Edinburgh Steve Sturdy (who has published an Open Letter on Biomedicine, self and society in the WOR himself) provided a wider context for the reluctance of SSH scholars towards publishing platforms by describing the specific role that well-established publishing venues play in the SSH disciplines in his presentation on ‘Open Access and HSS Disciplines’. He emphasised the ‘sociality’ of SSH journals, which act as knowledge producers and community drivers in a distinct way, see associated figure. A strategy for replacing publishing venues with a social mission in a specific discipline with either publishing platforms or new titles would put this mission at risk.

Four main issues were in fact raised – both in Steve’s presentation and in the subsequent breakout session to discuss OA in the HSS – with regard to the perceived threat for a restriction in publishing channels generated by the implementation of Plan S in the SSH:

Destruction of the current publishing landscape with ‘sociality’ at its core

Particularly bad consequences for ECRs: "I am not sure I would feel inclined to recommend my ECR to apply for a Wellcome grant should these restrictions be in force that will prevent her to progress in her career" – stated one researcher in the room

Implications for unfunded authors in a landscape where funding is scarce

Too tight implementation schedule: it will be very difficult for current publishing channels to come up with alternative business models in such a short time as the policy proposes

There was a further call for Wellcome to support the area of SSH as a whole and not just Wellcome-funded authors, for instance by ensuring the voice of SSH researchers is heard in the discussions around alternative business models. A widespread belief was expressed that a model based only on Article Processing Charges (APCs) will not succeed in the SSH and that there need to be multiple co-existing mechanisms for compliance, including Green Open Access and crowdfunded business models with institutions as supporters (the afternoon presentation on the Open Library of Humanities looked deeper into these crowdfunded models for both journals and books).

The breakout discussions touched on various specific topics such as the REF requirements and to what extent they may help evolving the landscape (including its eventual expansion to books), the specific relevance of languages other than English in the SSH or the role of institutions in providing information on and support for the implementation of Plan S (most researchers in the room admitted not being regularly in contact with their institutional Open Access support services at their libraries, and the Wellcome lead may consider a follow-up workshop to promote the engagement of institutions in the process).

The listening exercise was very valuable and key for building the 'bond of trust' that needs to exist in order for authors to take into consideration the funder's recommendations around the evolution of the Open Access landscape. A potentially very useful outcome could be the establishing of a regular information exchange mechanism that allowed researchers to stay updated on the way the landscape is evolving in their specific field (covering aspects such as evolving positions with regard to Plan S by different funders, steps taken by specific publishers in transitioning their business models, reporting on the discussions with learned societies etc). Communication is key as ever and institutions may have an important role to play here too. We will definitely try our best at Strathclyde, but it could make sense to make this a wider effort.