--- title: My Draft Plan S Implementation Guidance Feedback layout: post --- I write to provide feedback in an individual capacity on the Plan S implementation guidelines. I am extremely supportive of the cOAlition’s goals and Plan S in general. I disagree with those who say that the timeline is too short; many of these actors have not taken the opportunities over the last decade to experiment with open access or new business models and have only begun dialogue under the threat of immediate action. That said, I welcome the recent engagement by the Wellcome Trust and UKRI to speak with Learned Societies and to evaluate routes to their transition to Plan S compliance. Developing alternative revenue streams to support the activities of these bodies is not a small task, but it is crucial for the wellbeing of these disciplines, and for open access to prosper. There are a few areas where the document could provide greater clarity. First, it is unclear whether scholarly articles can be compliant by being published in hybrid venues, but without funding coming from a Plan S funder. In other words, at present, the implementation guidelines do not specify whether an article that is CC BY, gold open access, but in a non-compliant journal (e.g. hybrid) would fulfil the terms. By themselves, at present, I would read the implementation guidance to state that such articles are not compliant. However, this is in conflict to the policy of the Wellcome Trust, which has billed its policy as Plan S-compliant. For Wellcome, such an article would be acceptable under its terms, but the Trust itself would not fund such an article’s publication. I would urge the authors to clarify whether their terms pertain to openness of the article or to the uses that funding for publication from members of cOAlition can be put. Second, it would be helpful if more guidance could be provided on third-party material and licensing. This remains a crucial stumbling block in the humanities disciplines, especially, for instance, art history. While I appreciate that open licensing can be selectively applied to documents, this becomes difficult in the case of sharing and containerisation of third-party materials. For instance, if a PDF file contains third-party material, and a CC BY license is applied to the document, excluding the third-party material, the entire PDF cannot be shared. This may not be entirely obvious from the metadata provided, say, in a repository, which could lead not only to copyright violation but also to documents where the CC BY license has no effect whatsoever, in practical terms. Specific guidance on this – e.g. such as: the compliant version should be the AAM without third-party material – would greatly ease diplomatic relationships with the affected disciplinary communities and provide a route forward. Third, I am unclear on the legal status of government funders requiring transparency of costs from corporate suppliers. While I am personally deeply opposed to the profit motive in scholarly communications and sickened by the oligopolistic behaviours of large corporate publishers, I am unaware of any other industry that is obliged to provide its costs as opposed to its prices in the commissioning of services, even when funded by the taxpayer. Certainly, I understand that governments feel they should secure the best “value for money” return on public investment. Having a benchmark of the costs vs. overheads can here be helpful in determining whether the value proposition is sound. However, if it is believed that cartel-like price-fixing of standardised rates have emerged that are uncompetitive, then surely a competition inquiry would be the better way to resolve this? I would also note that transparent costings for publication are very difficult to provide and evaluate as the majority of costs are indirect and substantially affected by unit volume. That is, the cost-per-article can be a highly misleading way of characterising the operation of a publisher. Asking for costs in this way could also perversely incentivize publishers to take on more articles, with fewer staff, certainly driving down costs, but also potentially and problematically motivating poor review standards and quality control. In the bid to present a cost-effective front, there may be unintended and negative behavioural consequences. The recent tender for the ORE platform, for instance, seemed to me to ask a lot for very little and was unrealistic in its requirements against its budget: https://eve.gd/2018/04/01/the-tender-document-for-the-european-commissions-open-access-platform-asks-for-an-awful-lot/ Fourth, the requirement for XML/JATS deposit in the green route is doable, but will require substantial intervention. At present, most researchers are unaware even that their articles are typeset in XML (and do not currently get access to these files from most publishers) and as the current largest green policies – such as Research England’s REF mandate in the UK – have deferred the burden to researchers or mediated deposit by librarians, this is a substantial workflow alteration. Fifth, while not an ambiguity, I would praise the inclusion of CC BY-SA 4.0 as an acceptable license, which was my recommendation in Eve, Martin Paul, Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) . Sixth, I would recommend a broader and more inclusive set of terminologies than “science” throughout. While the European context within which Plan S originated has the humanities disciplines bracketed under “science”, this is not a globally accepted grouping. Seventh, I believe that, at present, although there is not a focus on a single business model, the implementation guidelines only mentions one: APCs. If the cOAlition is serious about a diversity of business models, then these should receive equal mention, with conditions attached. Further, the cOAlition should consider how its funding streams could be supplied to organisations that run such models. At the moment, there is no accepted way of supporting these organisations when most project funding discretely parcels out outputs and funding into APC-sized chunks. What is the APC-equivalent mechanism for funding non-APC models in Plan S? These models are critical in disciplines where much work is conducted on a non-project-funded basis and also where substantial cost-concentration of APCs can apply. Such models could also, though, provide a solid route to transformation for Learned Societies. See: https://eve.gd/2018/01/21/how-learned-societies-could-flip-to-oa-using-a-consortial-model/ . In the name of transparency, I would note that I have an interest (that may be conflicting) in such models, as I founded and run the Open Library of Humanities. Eighth, I believe that the implementation guidelines and notes should stress the seriousness of the green, zero-embargo approach as a route. This is a really powerful driver for those Societies or others who feel unable to alter their business models immediately to finally do away with embargoes. I note that several publishers, including Cambridge University Press, already have zero-embargo deposit for scholarly articles in the humanities disciplines but have not seen a collapse in their model.