The UB is getting ready for the effective date of the Plan S for open access

Since the approval in the Governing Council, in June 2011 -of the open access policy, the University of Barcelona has increased notably the amount of open access publications, which reached about 57% of the total in 2019. The 2011 policy was updated in July 2019 with the proposal of adding indicators to measure the percentage of available articles in the institutional archive and use them in internal assessment processes, explained during the seminar.

How will the Plan S effective date go?

The first participant to speak in the session was Johan Rooryck, professor at Leiden University,  nominated the open access champion by the Coalition S. This group is formed by twenty-four public and private funding entities, in the national, European and global field, that promoted the Plan S, an initiative to promote open access to be effective in January 2021. 

The main idea in Plan S is to “accelerate science by making its results immediately accessible”, said Rooryck, who also noted that this acceleration has been seen in the COVID-19 case: research revolving around these aspects of the pandemic has been conducted as open and this has allowed many advances to take place in a short time. Rooryck also highlighted that this system will enable a better transparency in research communication, as well as an improved visibility. Moreover, he mentioned that 52% of the consulted articles are in open access and about 70% of the publications are expected to be by 2025.  

The Plan S will allow, among other things, to end with embargo time periods and authors to keep the rights of their articles. Another relevant aspect is that “the payment for publications will not fall on the researchers”, insisted Rooryck. Research funding will include publication fees in the economic aids.  The Plan S will also provide with different routes for open access and defends a more transparent and reasonable price system. “The Plan S is reaching a transformation of the model of science publications”, noted the expert. This means editors will present a budget of the whole publication. Moreover, the Plan S has the support of several associations, such as LERU. 

One of the pending topics to treat in this open access system is the need to change the research assessment process, beyond bibliometric data. In this sense, Rooryck invited the attendants to share ideas on how they can carry out a more qualitative assessment for research and present it via the platform DORA.   

Rooryck also talked about the model of the transformative agreements, contracts between library consortia and publishers to change the current subscription payments at zero cost into open access publications, maintaining reading access. In Spain, these university agreements are carried out through CRUE for four main science publishers: Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and American Chemical Society.   

Although the effective date for Plan S is January 1, 2021, there will be a 4-year period to conduct its transformation. After this day, the Journal Checker Tool will be launched as well. This is a tool to enable researchers see the journals that are aligned with the Plan S in order to identify predator behaviours from other publications. 

How to publish in open access at the UB

Ignasi Labastida, head of the CRAI Unit of Research and Innovation of the UB, provided the updated data of the Open Access Observatory, which show how the increase of open access publications from different fields at the UB reaches 28%. Regarding the tools of the UB for open access, the recommendation is to submit publications in the institutional repositories. The  UB Digital Repository, which has been active for fourteen years, has a collection with more than 32,000 documents. Also, during the lockdown, the amount of submitted articles has increased notably.

Regarding the publications that can be published, Labastida explained the researcher should submit the accepted version or the published version of the article, according to the publishing policies stated in the GREC Curricul@. Although the repository accepts preprints, most of the requirements and policies from funders want the revised versions. Labastida also reminded the attendants that metadata from publications submitted in GREC are automatically collected in the repository and therefore, there is no need to submit it again.  

The CRAI member recommended attendants to send the accepted version of the articles even if there is an embargo, since the repository considers the journalsʼ embargo conditions. The CRAI libraries and Research Unit detect the publication of published articles in open access journals daily to include these in the archive automatically. 

When publishing in an open access journal, people can check the list of journals that are included in the Directory of Open Access Journals to validate its quality and identify predator or mala praxis journals, as well as to follow the criteria from think, check, submit.  

Open access support policies at the UB

Xavier Roigé told the UB has a support policy for article publication which is permanently open, and so far has provided support to almost all articles that applied for it. He also highlighted that this 2020, the budget to help these publications has increased by 25%. “The UB will provide researchers with the maximum support”, noted the vice-rector, but he also said that albeit this help, resources have to come from the same research projects as well.   

Roigé noted that since 2011, the UB has an open access science committee formed by researchers and representatives of the governing council, CRAI, the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit and Publications and Editions of the UB. One of the actions promoted by this committee was that of suggesting strategical lines of open access policies at the UB. In this sense, the Governing Council in July 22, 2019, approved an update of this policy which states that every year, the UB will fix certain goals to reach a minimum rate of open access publications. “Regarding 2020, we wanted a minimum of 50%, which we already reached, but we need to aim higher for the upcoming years, about 75% and more”, said Roigé. As part of the commitment of the University to the open access, there is also the possibility to publish books through Publications and Editions of the UB.  

As said by the vice-rector for Research, Domènec Espriu, one of the initiatives to promote open access was the approval -in the last research commission on May 6- of an indicator related to open access with a weight of 5% in the contracts in the research program of the faculties. This indicator will not affect the academic plan of the teaching staff. “During the next years, there may be an acceleration that can change the paradigm of science publications, and we have to be ready to respond to this challenge”, said Espriu.  

The attendees of the seminar were very active in participation, asking and presenting ideas, mainly on how this change of system can have an impact. Among the proposals was one on increasing support for UB science journals in order to improve their positions.

The Rector of the UB, Joan Elias, closed the session stating that “the UB policy wants to promote open access with actions so that the researchers are aware of its importance”. “Open access is an essential tool now, and it will be even more in the future”, he concluded. 

More information

Given the high demand of registrations, over the maximum amount allowed by the platform, the webinar was recorded and will be soon available in the website of the Doctoral School. 

Link to the Johan Rooryck' presentation: "El Pla S dʼopen access: reptes i oportunitats"

Link to the Ignasi Labastida' presentation: "El suport a lʼaccés obert a la Universitat de Barcelona"