Plan S frequently asked questions

A Fully Open Access journal is an online journal in which all content is open to readers with no requirement to pay a subscription, or sign up for access. Some Fully Open Access journals may charge authors an APC charge to publish articles (Gold OA), others may allow both free access and publication (Diamond OA). The latter is typically funded by societies, or institutions, or may significantly reduce publishing costs as academic led titles. We are also starting to see new models emerge which fall under the Full OA category. For example, some publishers have adopted a model known as Subscribe to Open. So long as libraries maintain their current subscription spend with those publishers, they will guarantee that all articles published in all / a subset of their journals will be free to read for everyone and will not make additional charges for authors to publish with them.

A hybrid journal is a journal which contains some Open Access content and some that requires payment or a subscription, to access.

The traditional publishing model for journals has been one of pay to access. The content of journals is only available to those who pay a subscription fee to the publisher for access. Over recent years, many subscription-based publishers have allowed authors to pay a fee (APC) to allow individual articles to be made freely accessible online with no fee at the point of publication. These sit alongside paywalled articles only accessible to subscribers in the same issue of a journal - a hybrid approach. In a hybrid journal only some of the content is Open Access and publishers support the journal through a mixture of subscription and APC charges.

Transformative Arrangements replace the traditional multi-title and big-deal subscription arrangements that Libraries sign up to and which provide access to journal content for staff and students at their institutions. Transformative agreements aim to transition funds currently paid to publishers for access to such pay walled content, to pay for Open Access services. In doing so they will increase the proportion of Open Access content that a publisher makes available. The aim is that over time Library Subscription budgets will shift from paying for access to content, to paying to allow authors to publish OA at no additional cost. Transformative agreements are viewed by Plan S as a stop gap solution and until 31 December 2024 cOAlition S organisations will contribute to the OA costs of transformative agreements in proportion to the number of papers acknowledging their funding.

In reality transformative agreements vary considerably both in terms of what proportion of content they will allow to be made OA in any one year, and in terms of the initial cost for entry (for example in several cases, publishers have set a starting cost based on current subscription spend plus current OA spend. This is problematic as much of those current OA costs have historically been met by UKRI and COAF block grant spend, and as noted above funder support for those agreements will end on 31 December 2024.

It should also be noted that while the OA publishing element of transformative agreements may apply to all authors at a University irrespective of funder, some agreements restrict that element to papers acknowledging certain funders, while other agreements put a cap on the number of OA articles they will accept for publication each year.

In the UK most large publisher agreements and an increasing number of small society agreements are negotiated by JISC on behalf of FE and HE Libraries. JISC have designed a set of Plan S approved criteria for what they refer to as Transitional Agreements. The library community is consulted on the negotiations for each agreement.

There are usually three stages a journal article goes through ahead of publication

1. Pre-print: the version originally submitted to the journal by the authors before any peer review has taken place.
2. Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): the version that has undergone peer review and has been accepted by the publisher, typically sent to the corresponding author once a final version of the content is agreed (also sometimes known as the post-print)
3. Version of Record (VoR): the version that has been published and has undergone typesetting and layout to bring it into the publishers standard format and style for that journal.

There are usually three stages a journal article goes through ahead of publication

1. Pre-print: the version originally submitted to the journal by the authors before any peer review has taken place.
2. Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): the version that has undergone peer review and has been accepted by the publisher, typically sent to the corresponding author once a final version of the content is agreed (also sometimes known as the post-print)
3. Version of Record (VoR): the version that has been published and has undergone typesetting and layout to bring it into the publishers standard format and style for that journal.

Creative Commons (CC) licences is a copyright licence that provide a standardised route for creators of content to grant permissions to others to use their creative work. They are designed to ensure creators retain copyright ownership while allowing others to copy, distribute and make use of that work with or without constraints determined by the specific licence applied. They don’t impinge on freedoms granted under the law to users of creative works otherwise protected by copyright (for example ‘fair dealing’).

While each Creative Commons licence is underpinned by a legal description, they are also presented in both a user friendly ‘human-readable’ form, and are designed to be machine-readable.

There are 4 ‘building blocks’ to Creative Commons Licences which can be used in different combinations to grant different types of permissions and to limit the reuse. Go to Creative Commons for a full description of each licence.

The ‘building blocks’ are:

• BY – Any reuse must give credit to the original creator
• NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
• ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
• SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms as the licence on the original work

So, for example a CC BY-NC-SA licence allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the original work in any medium or format for non-commercial (NC) purposes only, only so long as attribution is given to the original creator (BY) and any adaptations must also be licensed under the same terms (SA).

You may also see CC0 which is not technically a licence. It allows creators to irrevocably give up their copyright and put their work into the worldwide public domain with no conditions on reuse, including no requirement, from a copyright perspective, to cite the original creator.

Plan S requires works to be Open Access under a CC BY licence. So long as attribution is given to the original authors, it allows anyone to read, distribute, remix, adapt and build on the material in any medium or format. This includes commercial use. Providing such a permissive licence on reuse maximises the ability of other researchers and commercial entities to build on the original research. cOAlition S funders argue that this is the most efficient use of public funds for both the progress of research and economic growth.

You will often see a copyright notice on a traditionally published article in the form “© Publisher. All rights reserved”. This means the publisher owns copyright in the paper and the statement reminds the reader that the publisher asserts all rights granted to it under copyright law - the publisher owns and controls access to and use of the article. It is achieved via a copyright transfer agreement signed by the author before publication which transfers the authors copyright in their work to the publisher. Such agreements may grant the author limited ability to use their own work (e.g. limited use in teaching, deposit of the AAM in a repository after an embargo). However, a third party will need to apply for bespoke permission from the publisher to reuse the work, or rely on legal exceptions to do so. This may require a payment, or may be refused.

On the other hand a CC licence is publicly displayed and pre-licences the work for certain uses. There is no need to ask, wait and pay for further permission to reuse the work within the terms of that licence. Any use beyond the confines of the licence will still need to be granted by the copyright owner in the work, or rely on legal exceptions.

Under Plan S rights retention, publishers will continue to place an ‘all rights reserved’ notice on the final published version. However, by placing a CC-BY licence on the AAM, that version of the article can be freely read, downloaded, re-circulated and re-used so long as the original author is attributed, with no need to request further permission.

UKRI are a signatory to Plan S, however, they are consulting on their future policy and have stated that their new policy will not come into force until January 2022. UKRI authors should continue to follow their existing OA policy and may be eligible for payment of APCs via the UKRI block grant managed by Library Services.

The Plan S Journal Checker Tool will allow you to search for any title and identify which, if any, route to compliance can be used. We know that some publishers will not provide a compliant route via either Fully OA or Transformative arrangement. In such cases the journal checker will inform you whether the publisher will accept articles submitted with a Rights Retention statement. Where such a publisher refuses to accept papers with the Rights Retention statement, you will need to seek an alternative publication venue.

To date we know that this will only be possible if the funder grants an exception. Wellcome have indicated that authors will need to complete a CC BY-ND exception form and receive approval before submitting the paper. They aim to have the form available on their web page from December 2020.

Wellcome state that papers will only be compliant if made OA with either a CC BY or CC BY-ND (by approved exception) licence. However, we are aware that Plan S have suggested that a CC BY-SA licence may also be acceptable. We strongly recommend you consult directly with your funder before relying on such a licence.

In the UK the Open Government Licence (OGL) provides equivalent reuse rights to a CC BY licence. We are aware that UKRI are considering use of the OGL under their forthcoming policy, however, current Plan S aligned policies are silent on the use of the OGL. Again we recommend you consult directly with your funder before relying on such a licence.

The ERC Scientific Council pulled out of Plan S in July 2020. Their statement along with the Plan S response are available from the links below:

• ERC Scientific Council calls for Open Access Plans to Respect Researchers’ needs
• cOAlition S response to the ERC Scientific Council’s statement on Open Access and Plan S

Wellcome have stated that non-compliance will result in sanctions against researchers and their organisations which may include:

• Not accepting new grant applications
• Suspending funding to organisations

So long as you have followed the guidance and the publisher has accepted the paper for publication, you are not obliged to abide by any more restrictive general policy the publisher applies around Green OA and you should not need to remove the AAM from repositories.

Plan S have asked that authors / institutions approached to subsequently take down AAMs in this way consult directly with the relevant funder. You must also inform Library Services should you receive such a request.

This is a statement included by the author during submission stating that the authors or their institutions retain their right to use their AAM as they please, including depositing it in an open access repository under a CC BY licence immediately.

Further guidance is available on our Plan S funder policies page.

Unfortunately if a publisher does not offer a compliant Fully OA or Transformative Agreement route and they also choose to reject any paper submitted under the Plan S Rights Retention strategy, you will need to identify a different venue for publication of the paper. 

cOAlition S believe this will be rare. Nevertheless, it would be useful if you could inform Library Services of any such occurrence.