Swansea University and the Springer Nature Read and Publish Negotiation

Key Points

• JISC / UK Universities are currently engaged in negotiations with Springer Nature to agree a sustainable ‘Read & Publish’ deal.
• Springer Compact, Nature research journals and Palgrave titles are included in the publisher portfolio.
• Springer Nature have confirmed that there will be a grace period of read access to subscription content and a continuation of Springer Compact open access publishing until the end of March 2023.
• An agreement is important for researchers to fulfil funder open access policy requirements. If an open access journal or APC (article processing charge) payment is not available, authors can meet their obligations by using a rights retention statement at the point of submission in hybrid journals. Releasing the accepted manuscript immediately at the point of publication in the repository with a CC-BY licence will be compliant for UKRI.
• Individual payments by the University for all APCs in this portfolio may be withdrawn if negotiations conclude without agreement. Further information will be circulated if this scenario occurs.
• If the sector walks away from the negotiation and suspend subscriptions, we will provide additional inter-library loan services to provide research reading. Access to historical subscription materials will continue to be available under agreed retention rights. We recommend that you install a browser extension plugin to your device for seamless access to articles. Try CORE Discovery, or Unpaywall for open access versions, or LibKey to obtain access to articles provided by Swansea University Library.

Read more about the JISC / Springer Nature Open Access Agreement Negotiation for the UK

Why do I need to know about this negotiation?

The transition to open access publishing is fulfilled through a range of transformative agreements in consultation with a wide selection of stakeholders. This supports the wide dissemination and free access to our research and helps to constrain costs, accelerate open access and increase transparency. Universities in the UK spend around £30 million a year with Springer Nature, the second largest publisher of all UK research.

The current deal with Springer ended on 31 December 2022 and JISC are acting on behalf of the sector in the current negotiation for an expanded read and publish agreement. If successful, an acceptable agreement will cover the whole Springer Nature journal portfolio – Springer Compact journals, Palgrave journals, Nature journals and their fully open access titles.

Why do we need an agreement?

• To facilitate ‘read’ access to published journal content in their portfolio.
• A new transitional Read & Publish agreement will provide open access publishing for UK authors in Springer Nature journals at no direct cost to the individual researcher.

Many funders require their open access funding to be used in journals that are part of a transitional agreement. They are driving change from an individual and institutional payment model (article payment charges and library journal subscriptions) to one where the library budget fairly supports the publishing services at institutional level. Springer Nature will be paid for providing access to their journal portfolio and for corresponding authors to publish reviews and primary research articles under one single agreement.

However, most funded researchers are not required to pay for open access in Springer-Nature portfolio journals. The self-archiving route for the author accepted manuscript (AAM) via a repository is still available for publishing in hybrid (open access and subscription) journals. To meet funder requirements UKRI authors should continue to use a rights retention statement at the point of submission. This will enable immediate open access by depositing the accepted manuscript with a CC-BY licence in Cronfa via the Research Information System (RIS).

Rights Retention
Include this statement in your submission cover letter and the acknowledgement statement:

“For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript arising from this submission.”

We strongly encourage all authors to utilise this zero-cost publication route in order to support the ongoing negotiations. Nature open access costs are remarkably high compared to the average cost of APCs and price restraint is required.

What happens next?

Springer Nature have confirmed that there will be a grace period of ‘read’ access to subscription content and a continuation of Springer Compact publishing until the end of February 2023. Individual payments by the University for APCs in this publisher portfolio may be withdrawn if negotiations conclude without agreement. Further information will be circulated if this occurs.

We will continue to update our website and the Effective Research Publishing Handbook as information becomes available.
Contact us: LibraryResearchSupport@swansea.ac.uk

Rights Retention and Funder Open Access Policy Requirements

Open Access Banner

Several funders are revising Open Access (OA) requirements for peer reviewed research and Swansea University authors are encouraged to familiarise themselves with any OA policy that applies to their work.

For all disciplines, funded research articles need to be open access immediately upon publication via the green or gold OA route to improve the availability and impact of research .This ambitious change is part of a transitional shift towards sustainable and equitable open access. Wellcome and cOAlition S Funders endorsed this policy in 2021 and further funder alignment is imminent:

2022:
UKRI, AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC. (From 1 April 2022 – journal articles/reviews/conference proceedings with ISSN, or publishing platform)
NIHR, National Institute for Health Research (From 1 June 2022)
CRUK, Cancer Research UK (From 1 January 2022) 

2024:
UKRI (From 1 January 2024 – monographs/ book chapters/ edited collections) 

What is the Rights Retention strategy?

The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) devised by cOAlition S has been introduced to ensure that funded research is subject to an open licence that allows researchers to retain the right to use and share their work.

Rights Retention Strategy One Page by cOAlitionS

There are two routes to funder compliance: 

1. Gold open access route 1: final published version of record (VOR) document on a journal website or publishing platform with a Creative Commons CC-BY attribution licence or equivalent*.
2. Green self-archiving route 2: researchers publish in a hybrid (subscription + open access) or subscription journal. When an author submits a paper using this route,  the manuscript should include a statement indicating that the author will apply a Creative Commons attribution (CC-BY) licence or equivalent* to any author accepted manuscript (AAM) resulting from peer-review. The AAM will be released in the repository with no embargo and means that your article is freely available to read without a paywall upon publication. Green open access is the preferred route for making outputs available as it is cost free.

* Open government licence (OGL) to any AAM subject to Crown Copyright. By exception some funders permit Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND).

Publishers have been notified of the rights retention strategy for self-archiving in repositories by the large funders. However, there are some publishers like Springer Nature that will not permit the AAM to be shared or distributed under a creative commons licence when self-archiving papers published in subscription journals. They expect authors to agree to a publishing licence that includes an embargo period. If a publisher refuses to honour rights retention you may wish to seek an alternative publication venue or route to publication in order to meet funder open access requirements.

Journal Checker Tool: https://journalcheckertool.org/
Add journal title + Funder name + Swansea University to view Plan S compliance status.
Sherpa Fact is also available: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/fact/
Add journal title + Funder name
You will also find a list of funder open access policy conditions on our research handbook.

What does an author need to do to ensure funder open access compliance?

Route 1. Open Access Publisher Agreements (gold) 

Swansea University has purchased agreements with some publishers to enable corresponding authors to publish their work open access at no additional cost. A list of transitional agreements (TA) is available from the Effective Research Publishing Handbook. These include selected titles from CUP, OUP, IOPScience, BMJ, PLOS, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. We also have membership schemes for discounted fees with SAGE, MDPI and ACS. By April, the current Swansea University UKRI open access block grant webpage for financial support, will be updated for hybrid journal payment applications that are not part of a Swansea University transitional publisher agreement. We can also support publication in other fully open access journals and platforms. For journals that do not meet the sector requirements for transition to open access authors will need to use alternative funding for payment of open access fees.

We emphasise that authors can still choose to publish in hybrid journals that are not part of a transitional agreement, or where their research organisation is not a participant in an existing transitional agreement. Authors can be compliant with UKRI’s open access policy either via self-archiving in a repository (where a journal accepts submissions acknowledging UKRI) or by using other funding sources for article processing charges. 

UKRI Open Access Policy – explanation of policy changes 08/2021

Route 2. Open Access via self-archiving in a repository (green)

• Upon submission, the author informs the publisher that the accepted manuscript (AAM) arising from the submission is licensed CC-BY in accordance with the grant’s open access condition.  You can use this form of words in the acknowledgment section.
  
  “This research was funded, in whole or in part, by [Organisation name, Grant #]. A CC-BY or equivalent licence is applied to [the AAM / the VoR] arising from this submission, in accordance with the grant’s open access conditions’’

• Upon acceptance following peer review, deposit the AAM in the Research Information System (RIS). RIS will be updated to capture rights retention activity and the AAM or VOR where the publisher permits will be released in Cronfa with no embargo upon first publication.
• UKRI require a data access statement even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.
• Your funder may require a Europe PubMed Central (EuropePMC) deposit. Most publishers complete this step automatically for biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding.

Key Takeaway
Route 1 – Check if there is an institutional TA publisher deal available to remove open access costs.
Route 2 – Use the rights retention statement at the point of submission. The elimination of embargoes and the use of open licensing will enable self-archived accepted manuscripts to be freely available in the repository upon publication.

Book Publishing

• There is an expectation that UKRI researchers will make monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from 1 January 2024 open access within 12 months of publication. Some exceptions apply (Point 17. UKRI)
• A CC-BY attribution license is required unless an exemption has been obtained in writing from UKRI to use an alternative creative commons license.
• A ring-fenced block grant will be provided to the sector to support UKRI monograph publishing.
• Policy exceptions apply to scholarly editions, textbooks and trade books.

Register for a short information session.
The focus will be on changes to the UKRI policy.

• Tuesday 8^th February at 2pm via Zoom: https://swansea-uk.libcal.com/event/3827560
• Thursday 17^th February at 10am via Zoom: https://swansea-uk.libcal.com/event/3827562   
  We will be running additional sessions throughout March and April (dates tbc).

• Quick Links
• UKRI Open Access Policy, April 2022
• NIHR Open Access Policy June 2022
• Wellcome Open Access Policy 2021
• cOAlition S FAQs
• cOAlition S Handout Flyer
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Swansea University Publisher Agreements and Memberships
• Swansea University UKRI Open Access Financial Support
• Swansea University Data Support Services

Contact Caroline Rauter or Ellie Downes via LibraryResearchSupport@swansea.ac.uk if you would like to discuss Right’s Retention or your funder’s Open Access policy.

Visit our Website

UKRI Open Access Policy Update

UKRI Logo

The UKRI Open Access (OA) Policy sets out the requirements for publications that acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. The new OA policy requires immediate open access to be the default for research articles. This positive change will ensure that publicly funded research is openly available at the point of publication. 

The new policy comes into effect for research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022 and is similar to the cOAlition S and Wellcome open access initiatives. In-scope monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024 are included for the first time. 

UKRI will provide a £46.7 million Open Access block grant to support implementation of this policy however, the ring-fenced budget for OA monograph publishing is not significant at £3.5 million for the sector. UKRI will release further information on the block grant and conditions of funding in December 2021 and in 2022 for monographs. Swansea University Library is responsible for supporting Faculties to achieve compliance with the URKRI Open Access policy and receives the block grant to support researchers.  

Requirements of the new policy 

For peer-reviewed research articles, reviews and conference papers with an ISSN, key requirements include: 

• immediate open access for research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022.  
• articles can be open through an open access journal or platform using the ‘gold’ route, or via ‘green’ self-archiving of the author accepted manuscript (AAM) in an institutional or subject repository without an embargo period. 
• authors can only access UKRI funds to publish in a gold open access journal or in a subscription “hybrid” journal covered by a JISC transitional agreement.  
• a  Creative Commons CC-BY licence or CC-BY-ND (by exception) is required, including a requirement to notify the publisher of this licensing at the point of submission. UKRI provide rights retention strategy (RRS) boilerplate text for ‘green’ self-archiving purposes. Using a rights retention strategy is a cultural shift for authors and will be a funder requirement. 

‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘CC BY-ND public copyright licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’ 

• articles must include a Data Access Statement, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. 

Key requirements of the new policy for monographs published on or after 1 January 2024 include: 

• the final version of a publication or accepted manuscript are made open access via a publisher’s website, platform or repository, within a maximum of 12 months of publication or the accepted manuscript must be deposited in a repository. 
• a  Creative Commons CC-BY licence is preferred, but NC and ND licences are permitted for monographs. 
• UKRI’s licensing requirements do not apply to any materials included within a long-form output that are provided by third-party copyright holders – see the policy exceptions. 

Preprints are not included within the new policy but the use of pre-print services across disciplines is encouraged. A statement on pre-prints is expected at some point. 

Read the new UKRI open access policy
Read ‘Shaping our open access policy’ by UKRI

Read the cOAlition S ‘Primer on the Rights Retention Strategy by Stephen J Elgin. 

The Library Research Support team will be adding policy updates to the Effective Research Publishing Handbook as they become available. Details of JISC transitional publishing agreements applicable to Swansea University researchers are also available from this resource. Faculty administrators and directors are encouraged to make contact for further guidance to ensure that researchers are able to comply with the new funder requirements.

Contact ISS-Research@swansea.ac.uk / openaccess@swansea.ac.uk

Publisher Deals and Discounts for Open Access

Swansea University Library (ISS) has signed up to several transformative deals* (TAs) with publishers that cover the cost of Open Access publication. Eligible corresponding authors submitting articles for publication in journals in these agreements will not be charged fees known as APCs (article processing charges).

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

We currently have deals in place for Swansea University affiliated corresponding authors with:
Cambridge University Press (starts end of May 2021)
IOP Science
Oxford University Press
PLOS (selected titles)
Springer (selected Open Choice Springer Compact titles)
Wiley

We have discounts in place for:
MDPI (10% discount)
SAGE (substantial discount)

Full details and eligibility criteria are on the Effective Research Publishing: Open Research & Open Access Guide. https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/Research-Publishing/Home
The Publisher Deals and Discounts tab is updated each time the Library signs up for a new publisher deal. We anticipate that we will be adding additional publisher deals this year.
https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/Research-Publishing/PublisherDeals

Other Links
*Background to transitional publisher agreements
Plan S: Principles and Implementation

Contact the Library Research Support team if you have questions on an individual deal or would like to arrange a training session to publicise the deals with Swansea Researchers.

Academic Publishing Series

Academic publishing can be a confusing place full of conflicting policies from your institution, your funders, and the journal publishers, unclear processes from submission to publication, and it can be difficult to know where to start.

So, we have arranged a series of sessions on Academic publishing every Wednesday at 11am via Zoom on a range of topics from how the landscape has developed, book publishing, to predatory journals and how research is measured. The Registration links below will take you to the event pages which have more details about the topics each session covers.

11th March – Academic Publishing Series: How the landscape is changing Register Here

17th March –  Journal Articles from Submission to Publication Register here

24th March – Publishing Academic Books with Prof. Amy Brown Register here

31st March – Predatory Journals: What are they and how can you tell Register here

7th April – Measuring Research: an introduction to Metrics Register here

For a full view of our upcoming training sessions, check out the ISS Research Support Calendar

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please contact Ellie, Research Librarian at e.c.downes@swansea.ac.uk

SAGE Open Access

WHEEL (Wales Higher Education Electronic Library)

SAGE has an agreement with WHEEL (Wales Higher Education Electronic Library) from 2020 to December 2022.

The details of the agreement are as follows: 

Subscription journals
Corresponding authors publishing an article in 900+ subscription journals in the current SAGE Premier package which offers hybrid open access publishing (SAGE Choice) can be published open access at a highly discounted rate of 200 GBP.  

Authors do not need to take any action to benefit from this offer. SAGE will contact all eligible authors to inform them of the agreement and invite them to the SAGE Open Access Portal to take any additional steps needed to make their article open access under the terms of this agreement. 

Gold open access journals 
Corresponding authors publishing an article in a gold open access journal are also entitled to a 20% discount on the prevailing article processing charge (APC) for that journal. Click here for the participating Gold journal title list. This discount will be applied automatically in the SAGE Open Access Portal. Where an author is eligible for more than one discount, discounts cannot be combined but the highest discount available to the author will be applied to the APC due.

Eligible corresponding authors should use their Swansea University email address in all applications.

• The Author(s) can then accept or reject Open Access Publishing, and if selecting Open Access, digitally sign the publishing agreement. The Author(s) have 14 days to make the selection, otherwise the article will continue to be published in subscription format.
• The Author(s) then select a billing method for the £200 fee. They can pay directly by Credit Card or Invoice; or they can assign a third party bill-payer.
• Please note: this discount cannot be applied retrospectively (after the 14 days has elapsed).
• Some titles are excluded from this agreement and are listed here.

Corresponding authors who are funded by UKRI can apply for Swansea University financial support by completing the online application form at the point of acceptance. Full details are on the Open Access Library Guide.

SAGE Choice FAQs

Open Access Publishing with Wiley

                               

Publish Your Open Access Research Articles with Wiley
From March 2020 Swansea University is a participating UK institution in partnership with Wiley and the JISC Open Access Agreement for Institutions. This researcher support is provided by the Swansea University Library Service.

Image: WOCinTech Chat (CC-BY-2.0)

Author’s may publish articles in any of Wiley’s fully Gold Open Access, or OnlineOpen hybrid (subscription) journals with no open access costs to the author*. A list of Wiley’s Open Access and hybrid subscription journals is available from the Open Access Author Dashboard together with access to an Author Compliance Tool so you can check if you meet your funder obligations.

To publish without having to pay additional Article Publication Charges (APCs), the corresponding author must be from a participating UK institution and the article must have been accepted on or after 2 March 2020.

Eligibility criteria:

• Your manuscript must have been accepted on or after 2 March 2020
• You must be the corresponding author who is affiliated with a participating UK institution at the point of acceptance
• You must publish open access in a fully gold OA journal or a hybrid (subscription) journal that offers OnlineOpen
• If publishing in a hybrid (subscription) journal, you must order OnlineOpen at the point of acceptance by using the Wiley Author Services workflow 
• As the Wiley Open Access Account holder, the Library Research Support team will authorise your request provided you meet the eligibility criteria. Please use a Swansea University email address to help us authenticate your application. We will contact you directly if we need additional information before approving your request
• This agreement cannot be used to cover additional charges (e.g. cover, color, and page charges), which individual journals administer separately
• Please ensure that you acknowledge your funder and provide details for any supporting data in the published article. This is a requirement for research articles supported by many funders, including UKRI

Quick Links:
How to Order Online Open
Author Compliance Tool

*subject to availability of sufficient funds and approval from eligible institutions’ Wiley Open Access Account holders.

You can find further details on our Open Access Library Guide.

Do you want to publish an Open Access journal? Publish with us!

We are an institutional online publisher of Open Access electronic journals. Our catalogue of titles allow readers to access and use the content free of charge under a Creative Commons licence.

We are growing this service and welcome enquiries from Swansea University researchers considering starting an academic journal. We do not charge the editors of journals for publishing with us on the Open Journal Systems platform (OJS). Editors wishing to transfer established journal titles to Swansea University are welcome to apply.

If you would like to find out more why don’t you come along to the next Academic Publishing Coffee Morning?

At this event, you can:

• Speak to experienced academics and professional services staff who already publish journals
• See what is really involved in editing and publishing academic publications
• Learn about OJS, the journal publishing platform supported by Swansea’s Digital Humanities team
• Find out what support we can offer you to set up your own peer-reviewed academic journal as part of Swansea’s digital press

Wednesday February 12th, 11:00 – 13:00 – Nanhyfer Workzone Sem Rm 01 on the Bay Campus

Contact: digitalhumanities@swansea.ac.uk for further information.

Swansea University Digital Press – Open Access Journal Proposal
You can provide information about your prospective publication by completing the online form.

The Game of Open Access – Training in 2020

What is it?

The Game of Open Access is a board game developed by staff at the University of Huddersfield. The aim is to engage researchers with the key concepts and tools required to meet Open Access mandates. Through the use of playful learning, it aims to develop an understanding of the role of Open Access through the initial idea for an article to its acceptance for publication.

In essence, you play as a researcher making your way through the research process landing on square where you pick up a card with a question about Open Access at Swansea University, then discuss and answer the questions to make your way around the board.

The Game is ‘customizable’, so if there are specific questions relevant for your department, we can include them.

Why should you take part?

The Game of Open Access is a fun way of getting to grips with points of confusion around open access (the difference between Green and Gold for example, or which type of manuscript to upload to RIS), in contrast to sitting listening to me talk for an hour. Also there are sweets.

Who is it for?

The game is relevant to researchers at any stage of their career, whether it’s your first introduction to open access or you need a refresh on Swansea’s specific policy. It can also be useful for professional services staff who support researchers. We have previously run the session in the College of Engineering, and the main feedback was not enough questions!

Interested? Get in touch with us to arrange a session in your college by emailing Ellie Downes, Research Librarian at e.c.downes@swansea.ac.uk

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Publish Your Own Open Access Journal Drop-In Event

Are you thinking about starting a new open access journal, perhaps in an emerging field of research? Swansea University supports the open source software Open Journal Systems (OJS)

OJS Logo

Come and meet us for coffee and a chat
Wednesday December 4^th  2019, 10 am – 12 noon
Taliesin Mall Room, Singleton Park Campus

• Learn about OJS, the journal publishing platform supported by Swansea’s Digital Humanities team
• See what is involved in editing and publishing an open access academic journal
• Speak to experienced academics and professional services staff who already publish journals
• Find out about the support on offer to help set up your own peer-reviewed academic journal as part of Swansea’s digital press
• You can get customized support from the university for the installation and implementation of this software, including the server space, at no cost

Digital Humanities Lab

Library Research Support