cOAlition S

Diamond Open Access study commissioned by cOAlition S

Please, help us get to know the open access journals and platforms that are free for readers and authors.

We are pleased to invite you to fill in a survey dedicated to gaining in-depth understanding of open access journals that don’t charge author-fees, often known as the “diamond model”; journals that are free to both readers and authors.

This survey is part of the Diamond Open Access Study commissioned by cOAlition S and intends to explore and deepen our understanding of collaborative non-commercial publishing models for Open Access.

We need to assess the depth and breadth of OA diamond offerings across the globe, and we need to make the case for this kind of OA if we are to gain stronger support from funders.

The survey will be open until the 25th of August 2020

Take me to the survey (English version).
There are translated versions of the survey as well:

DE : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=de
FR : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=fr
IT : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=it
ES : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=es
PT : https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5?lang=pt

Rationale

The landscape of open access journals and platforms that do not charge authors to publish is broad and diverse. These journals and platforms serve specific research areas in different languages, and are attuned to local or regional needs specific to various publishing cultures.

This variety results in a multi-faceted publication offering that is often characterized by a lack of connection and collaboration between publishers. This, in turn, can result in the unintended duplication of efforts or inefficiencies. This survey aims to draw a more complete picture of the diamond journal and platform offering to identify concrete ways to coordinate and support this sector in the future.

Objective

We plan to gain a deeper understanding of this landscape and bring greater visibility to it. Furthermore, we will provide insights that will help Coalition S and other stakeholders develop effective policies and funding mechanisms that more strategically support this sector.

How you can help

  • If you belong to the scientific or editorial team of a journal, you can take the survey  on behalf of your journal: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GZQDBT5

  • We’d like to ask you to disseminate this message to your community to increase our outreach to as many quality journals as possible. This message is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese.

Contact
If you have any questions, please contact us: operas@operas-eu.org

About us
The study is commissioned by cOAlition S, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), committed to making full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality.

The Consortium is coordinated by OPERAS, the infrastructure for open scholarly communication for SSH in Europe. Its partners in this study are: SPARC Europe, Utrecht University, DOAJ, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, LIBER, OASPA, ENRESSH, Redalyc-AmeliCA and the CSI.

cOAlition S chooses DOAJ’s technical partner, Cottage Labs, to deliver their Journal Checker Tool

PRESS RELEASE

As announced today, cOAlition S has awarded the tender for the Plan S journal checker tool (JCT) to Cottage Labs LLP, DOAJ’s existing technical partner. Cottage Labs became DOAJ’s technical partner back in 2013. 

The announcement is welcomed by DOAJ. Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director and Founder of DOAJ, said: “Working with Cottage Labs on this project means that DOAJ can focus on what it does best: reviewing applications from journals and making sure those continue to move through the system, without us having to spend huge amounts of time explaining how we work, what we do, and why. Cottage Labs already know how we work, understanding the editorial processes and realising the full extent of what we do.” 

The JCT will be a tool built for measuring how a journal meets different requirements under the three different Plan S compliance routes: Gold open access, Green open access, and transformative journals. For Gold open access, being indexed in DOAJ is the baseline criteria. DOAJ already indexes the vast majority of the journals used by cOAlition S-funded authors and already collects information about the two criteria contained in the first iteration of the JCT:

  1. The journal allows the use of a CC BY license on its articles
  2. Copyright is retained by the author

Richard Jones, a founder of Cottage Labs and technical lead for DOAJ, said: “Plan S is a key step forward for the Open Access movement, and DOAJ is central to that.  Our extensive knowledge of DOAJ makes us ideally placed to deliver a high-quality Journal Checker Tool for cOAlition S, and we’re very excited to be a part of it.“

Work on the JCT is expected to commence immediately as cOAlition S are expecting the first iteration of the tool to be publicly available by November. 

For more information:

A statement regarding the JCT tender for Plan S

In the recent tender document published by cOAlition S for the development of a Journal Checker Tool (JCT), it is stated very clearly that DOAJ is the preferred source of data for the gold open access journal compliance route. DOAJ already collects and publishes the 3 pieces of metadata which must be included in the first iteration of the JCT. 

DOAJ has decided that it will not officially partner with any provider bidding for the tender and neither will it submit a joint bid with a provider. Instead, the DOAJ team is focusing on the changes needed to the platform so that it is ready for future iterations of the JCT. Providers submitting a tender to cOAlition S should be aware that these changes have costs and these will need to be covered. 

DOAJ will gladly work with all parties submitting a tender and provide them with a breakdown of those costs, as is stated as required on page 6 of the tender document.

The 10 Principles of Plan S

The welcome announcement last week from Marc Schiltz‘s Science Europe about cOAlition S and the publication of The 10 Principles of Plan S was well received at DOAJ Headquarters. The key principle of Plan S is:

“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.”

The document continues to outline important factors surrounding the desired model of open access and this model sometimes follows closely DOAJ’s preferred model for open access:

  1. Authors will retain copyright.
  2. Content will be published under an open license which fulfils the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration.
  3. All scientists should be able to publish Open Access even if they have limited means.
  4. Publications fees should be standardised or capped.
  5. The hybrid model of publishing is not compliant with the principles.

DOAJ is pleased to see these principles so in line with the DOAJ criteria.

Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Founder and Managing Director, said: ‘While we should remember that these principles only cover Europe and focus on science and that they may not be applicable on all continents or to the humanities, they will hopefully have a positive impact. Their announcement is timely and they are a welcome move in the right direction. DOAJ is proud to support their implementation.’