http://www.mpslimited.com/

 

sponsor of the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing 2019 offers this insight into the

impact of PlanS on the industry.

 

 

“Starting

from January 1, 2021, all scholarly publications that result from research

funded by public grants or private grants must be published in Open Access

Platforms or Journals, or made available in Open Access Repositories without

any embargo period.”

 

 

Gaining

momentum and attracting feedback from researchers, publishers, funding

organizations, and others involved in scholarly publishing, Plan S has been a

topic of global debate since its launch in September 2018 and has led to a

revised version released by cOAlition S on 31 May 2019.

 

 

If

successfully implemented, Plan S will allow unrestricted use and access to

publicly funded research and redefine the ways scholarly publications are

published, read, and shared. Are you ready for this change?

 

 

The

absence of a detailed structure and steps to achieve the desired outcome brings

forth a lot of confusion. Various technical aspects of Plan S, including

publications and transition agreements, are not well defined. Though Plan S

implementation is supported by various organizations like the European Research

Council (ERC) and other funding bodies, some publishers believe that it’s an

impractical solution with no robust guidelines. This leaves researchers with

meager or no additional financial support, and many publishers are concerned

about the impact on future revenue.

 

 

A

collective observation of the feedback and comments received on the Plan S

implementation guidance reveals that individually and organizationally many

support Plan S’ goals. Agreeing to the broader perspective, publishers across

the globe are prepared to create a sustainable and “open accessible” scholarly

publication system.

 

 

So

what does it mean for different stakeholders?

 

 

The

noble cause of making publicly funded research freely available to the public

is generally feasible for researchers who are supported by grants for their

research and allied expenses. However, it has been noted that not all research

streams are uniformly assisted by funding agencies, and thus burdening the

publishers of less funded streams even further.

 

 

Publishers

have major concerns about the prohibitions by Plan S against publication in

hybrid journals and various other subscription models. This occurs as a major

downside, especially for small- and medium-sized scholarly publishers. They

anticipate that the projected revenue loss will have a more debilitating

effect.  Additionally, it increases the

need, to put it in its best light, to innovate in terms of finding sources of

additional revenues for publishers already struggling to make ends meet.

 

 

With an objective to

establish publishing and content sharing in the era of OA, platform providers

offer solutions that cater to the entire publishing life cycle. These platforms

are flexible and agile, and can be customized to suit the requirements of

modern publishers. Backed by an innovative and knowledgeable approach, these

solutions offer customer-centric interfaces and superior operational experience

to publishers and authors. As an example, with guidelines, processes, and

pricing in a transparent Platform as a Service environment, APC’s pricing can

be kept transparent as authors pick and choose from the authoring services and

tools affordable to them.

 

 

About MPS

Limited

 

 

 

 

 

platforms help solve complex business problems through intuitive and scalable

technology. Our Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings are powered by domain

expertise, scalable architecture, and highly secure hosted environments. These

offerings include Content Workflow and Production, Content Management, Hosting

and Delivery, Usage Analytics, and also Custom Development. Strengthening and

innovating our platforms in line with OA objectives, we also cater to the

entire publishing value chain, starting right from manuscript submission

through production to content delivery.

Web: https://www.mpslimited.com

 

 

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mpsltd

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mps-limited/

 

 

See the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing

Finalists lightning session at our Annual

Conference on 11-13 September, where the winners will be announced.