Group behind open-access initiative wants to learn about its impact on publishing
The international consortium of research funders behind the Plan S open-access initiative has opened the first of a series of surveys to gauge the impact of the initiative on researchers.
Under Plan S, funders are requiring the researchers they support to make resulting papers openly available immediately under certain conditions. The initiative, which has proved controversial with some researchers and publishers because it respectively constrains their publishing choices and could affect their business models, is intended to speed the transition to open-access publishing.
A call for anonymous feedback for the first impact survey was announced on 2 March and will be open until 16 March. Its focus is on how Plan S has affected researchers’ publishing habits and their views on open access more broadly.
The survey includes questions such as, “Do you believe that Plan S will have an impact on your career trajectory?” and “Have you found Plan S-compliant routes to publish Open Access?”
Funders also want to know whether researchers are aware of the Plan S requirement that they should retain the rights over their papers, and whether they have yet submitted papers in line with this policy.