February 5, 2019 Journal article Open Access

Feedback to Coalition S on Plan S Implementation Guidelines

Jonathan Tennant; Mark C. Wilson; Dmitri Zaitsev; Christian Gogolin

Feedback to Coalition S on Plan S Implementation Guidelines

• (Dr) Jonathan Tennant, Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education

• (Dr) Mark C. Wilson, University of Auckland; cofounder Free Journal Network and Publishing Reform Forum, board member MathOA

• (Dr) Dmitri Zaitsev, School of Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin; cofounder Publishing Reform Forum and Free Journal Network, strategy at MathOA

• (Dr) Christian Gogolin, University of Cologne, cofounder Quantum - the open journal for quantum science; board member Free Journal Network

We argue that Coalition members should favour, both in words and via their spending decisions, community-controlled, no-author-fee journals over commercially owned journals charging APCs. This is for reasons of fairness, economic efficiency, and sustainability. We see Plan S as a strong statement and step in the right direction, but encourage Coalition members to be more forward-thinking about how they want the future scholarly publishing market to look, and make sure that they are giving due consideration to the non-commercial elements of the ecosystem.