Few Open Access Journals are Plan S Compliant

Abstract

Much of the debate on Plan S seems to concentrate on how to make toll access journals open access, taking for granted that existing open access journals are Plan S compliant. We suspected this was not so, and set out to explore this using DOAJ's journal metadata. We conclude that an overwhelmingly large majority of open access journals are not Plan S compliant, and that it is small HSS publishers not charging APCs that are least compliant and will face major challenges with becoming compliant. Plan S need to give special considerations to smaller publishers and/or non-APC-based journals.

Plan S: Funders are committed to open access to scientific publication

“…If the NIH support Plan S , this will likely drag almost all funders across the globe. Yet, journals and publishers should have to go a long way since, currently, even the vast majority of OA journals does not comply with Plan S requirements . The issue for investigations with no budget to pay article processing charge should be appropriately addressed.…”

“…Yet, journals and publishers should have to go a long way since, currently, even the vast majority of OA journals does not comply with Plan S requirements. 28 The issue for investigations with no budget to pay article processing charge should be appropriately addressed. An approach to be considered is what several journals and publishers (eg PLOS, BMC) are currently doing: the provision of individual or institutional fee support to facilitate publication of research with no funds.…”

Plan S: challenges and opportunities in Spain

“…• Journals While at an international level only 10% of the journals that are in DOAJ are compatible with Plan S, none at all are from Spanish publishers. 30 In addition, Plan S should consider small publishers and/or non-APC-based journals. In general, journals will need a moratorium to meet certain technical requirements, for example being listed in DOAJ, APC exemption programme, etc.…”

Some highlights from the PKP 2019 International Scholarly Publishing Conference

“…Many have a limited understanding of open access, technology, and the economics of publishing a journal. As reported in Frantsvåg and Strømme (2019), many smaller journals are lacking technical solutions such as DOIs, long term preservation plans, machinereadable fulltext and embedded license information -meaning that the journals do not comply with the demands from cOAlition S and do not satisfy the inclusion criteria of the DOAJ. Jan Erik suggests solutions such as higher use of article processing charges (APCs) or other ways of securing better funding, or establishing larger publishing entities to ensure more knowledge about digital publishing in each publisher/journal.…”