Jargon Buster
PLAN S: From 2021, all scholarly publications resulting from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies must be published with full and immediate access.
OPEN ACCESS (OA): Journal articles which are made available and free at the point of access. There are a variety of different licenses for open access, which allow different rules on re-use of the content.
OPEN RESEARCH DATA: The underlying data (supporting published research) that is deposited to and freely accessible via a data repository; ideally the published article will link to the relevant dataset(s) and the deposited data will carry information on how to cite the content.
OPEN SCIENCE: An umbrella term given to a change in scientific research culture enabled by developing technologies and opportunities for collaboration, meaning that research outputs can be made publicly available at the point of access.
In a wider context, this is also referred to as open scholarship.
cOAlition S: An initiative from an international group of national research funding bodies (including UKRI and Wellcome) that aims to enable full and immediate open access to research publications. The cOAlition S funders have agreed to implement the principles of Plan S.
ARTICLE PUBLISHING CHARGE (APC): A fee that is applied at the article level by the publisher for publishing articles open access so that the articles are freely accessible at the point of online publication on the publisher’s website, and re-usable per the terms of the OA licence. This is sometimes also called an ‘Article Processing Charge’.
TRANSFORMATIVE AGREEMENTS: The initiative for Efficiency and Standards in Article Charges (ESAC) broadly defines transformative agreements as “temporary and transitional” contracts negotiated between institutions and publishers “that transform the business model underlying scholarly journals from subscription to open access”.
HYBRID JOURNAL: A journal publishing both subscription and open access content.
GOLD OA: Where the published article (‘version of record’) is available open access at the point of online publication on the publisher’s website, and re-usable per the terms of the OA licence. Normally such publication is supported through the payment of an Article Publishing Charge (APC). Usually an APC only becomes payable after peer review, and only if the article is accepted by journal editors.
GREEN OA: Also called ‘archiving’ or ‘self-archiving’, this is where the accepted manuscript (revised paper that is accepted for publication following peer review) can be deposited to a repository; usually the deposit is only permitted after an embargo period. For most science journals, the embargo period is at least 6 to 12 months. No charges apply for Green OA, but the final ‘version of record’ of the article remains behind a paywall on the publisher’s website.
