Royal Society of Chemistry

Read & Publish Program

Dr. Jennifer Griffiths

Editorial Development Manager, Americas

• Who we are

• Driving forces for Read & Publish

• Read & Publish license in detail

• Opportunities, challenges, workflows

Agenda

• Largest European chemical society

• Founded 1841

• Not-for-profit

• Professional body

• Education facilitator, science leader, campaigner

• International publisher: ~35K articles/year

London

Cambridge

RSC OA position & initiatives

“We want to shape OA publishing in the chemical sciences, as well

as to support and inform our community during the transition to a

more open research environment”

– Dr Emma Wilson, Director of Publishing

• Find sustainable and affordable models to support the

transition but ensure we are financially sustainable to

support our charitable activities

• Support our authors during the transition and provide

the options they need to comply with their publishing

requirementshttp://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2016/oct/open-access-week/

RSC Gold OA journal options

Plus 42 hybrid journals…

Currently waiving APCs

22% of our total articles are published Gold OA

5% of the content of our hybrid journals is published Gold OA

The situation is complex

Europe, 463

Americas, 198

Asia, 49

Oceana, 40Africa, 19

Number of OA policies (ROARMAP)

Europe has been a leader in Gold

• Growing landscape of Open Access international initiatives and networks.

Examples:

– Finch Report (UK, 2012)

– Max Plank Digital Library OA Transformation White Paper (2015)

– Launch of OA2020 (2016)

– Amsterdam Call for Action on Open Science (2016)

– EU Council Conclusions on the transition to an open science system

(2016)

– Wellcome Trust & UKRI policy reviews (2018)

– cOAlitionS (2018)

• Recent demand from European countries for a combined subscription offer

with a dominant OA component

Max Planck Society

• One of the leading research organizations in Germany and

Europe – an influential player in OA

• Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL): Host of the international

initiative “Open Access 2020”

• MDPL White Paper: “Disrupting the subscription journals’

business model for the necessary large-scale transformation

to open access”

• Dedicating resources toward promoting OA2020 internationally –

presentations, webinars

• Our first Read & Publish partner in 2016 – spurred development

of our automated processes

Why are we experimenting with Read & Publish?

1. It is integral to our purpose as a society: to advance excellence in

the chemical sciences

2. Many customers are asking for it – we want to work with them to

give them what they want

3. Authors have a strong preference for hybrid journals. We want to

make sure they retain the choice to publish in their preferred

journals

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/09/24/guest-post-why-a-

society-publisher-is-moving-toward-read-and-publish-models/

Transparency in fees

• Publishing Fee increases year by year as we decrease the transition

discount (assuming that customer has the same publishing output)

• As more customers join R&P and authors publish OA, the Reading Fee

decreases (assuming the RSC has the same publishing output)

Read & Publish Customers in 2018

44 institutions

6 countries

MIT – first outside of Europe!

• Two-year agreement

• First of its kind in North America

• Language of the deal affirms that it is a “transitional business model” and will

be adjusted based on progress toward open access

Read & Publish at MIT

"This is an important move toward the kind of

transformation we want to see in the scholarly

communication landscape. Working with a partner like

the Royal Society of Chemistry, which shares many of

our values, helps us evolve toward new business

models that better align with our mission."

– Chris Bourg

Director of MIT Libraries and co-chair of the Institute’s Task

Force on Open Access to MIT Research

http://www.rsc.org/news-events/articles/2018/jun/mit-read--publish-deal/

Read & Publish at MIT

“At MIT we are very pleased with our experimental partnership with RSC… We see universities and scholarly societies as natural partners in transforming the scholarly communication system towards openness, working together to harness the full potential of the digital age to democratize access to science and scholarship.”

– Ellen Finney, Head of Scholarly Communications & Collections StrategyPersonal correspondence, Sept 2018

Supporting OA workflows

We had changed… our systems had

not

So we worked with authors and

libraries to develop our OA Author

portal

Desired outcomes

• Support the Read & Publish model

• Provide reporting for institutions

• Improve the author experience

around licensing and OA payments

• Automate the process for

managing OA payments

User testing

Contacted Librarians• Imperial College

• Bath University

• Open University

• Leeds University

User testing with researchers at • Bath University

• Cambridge University

• Imperial College

• Open University

Live releases up to 4 times a week

Over 6500 real users had used the system before it was complete

Impact

….Ongoing

• Raise the visibility of Open Access

• Educate and consult researchers

• Analyze and monitor publication

output

Automatic identification

of authors (email

domain)

Improved submission

process

Streamlined licensing

Automatic identification of funders (Crossref)

3 weeks to sign a

license to 3 mins!

Reporting tools for librarians

Completed

Workflows and services

1• System automatically identifies author from Read &

Publish institution based on author email domain

2• A emailed link takes them to a page with the details

of the manuscript they provided at submission

3• Author clicks “Start Now”

4• They are taken to the licensing system

• Monthly reporting

• Notification emails for opts out

Summary

• A strong push in Europe for Gold OA is driving new experimental models

• We are committed to supporting our authors during the transition to a more open research environment

• Read & Publish gives authors the option to easily publish open access in their preferred journals

• Automated workflows create a smooth process for everyone

• Transparency in the partnership is key!

Questions?

Jennifer Griffiths

griffithsj@rsc.org