From July 2022 only publishers who adhere to the newly approved Plan S price transparency frameworks will be eligible to access funds from cOAlition

Adhering to Plan’s S key principle of transparent pricing, cOAlition S publishes today its guidance on implementing price transparency when Open Access (OA) publication fees are applied.

Specifically, cOAlition S announces that from July 1st, 2022 only publishers who provide data in line with one of the two endorsed price and service transparency frameworks will be eligible to receive OA publications funds from cOAlition S members. This covers funder contributions to any model of financing open access publications including, but not limited to, non-APC journals or platforms, article processing charges (APCs), transformative agreements, and transformative journals.

The two approved frameworks are:

• Breakdown of Publication Services and Fees developed by the Fair Open Access Alliance, which has been implemented by Frontiers, MIT Press, Copernicus and MPDI.
• Plan S Price and Transparency Framework developed by Information Power, which has been piloted by Annual Reviews, Brill, The Company of Biologists, EMBO Press, European Respiratory Society, F1000 Research, Hindawi, IOP Publishing, PLOS, and Springer Nature.

In line with the Plan S guidance, cOAlition S will only support open access publication fees which are fair and reasonable.

Robert Kiley, Head of Open Research at Wellcome and interim coordinator of cOAlition S comments: “Providing this information is an opportunity for publishers to demonstrate their commitment to open business models and business cultures, to build awareness of their services and value, to build trust with their customers and to be more responsive to their needs. Providing this data also enables publishers to qualify for OA funding under Plan S”.

When Open Access publication fees are applied, they must be commensurate with the publication services delivered and the structure of such fees must be transparent. Transparent price and services information will enable researchers, libraries and funders to better understand the various elements of open publication services (e.g. peer review, editorial work, copy editing) and judge whether the fees they pay are in accord with the services delivered. Similarly, educational and research institutions will be able to use these data while advising researchers about publishing options.

Although much of the information is already publicly available, providing access to these data in a central and standardised way will make it easier for all customers to compare services and prices, which in turn will stimulate competition between publishers.

cOAlition S foresees to provide details on where publishers should deposit data in line with either of the Frameworks no later than December 2021.

Further information about the Plan S Price Transparency Framework is available at https://www.informationpower.co.uk/launch-of-the-plan-s-price-transparency-framework