The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nonprofit publisher of the six Science family journals, is announcing an update to its terms of open access (OA) publication. On a trial basis, AAAS will allow authors funded by cOAlition S organisations to place a CC BY or a CC BY-ND license on their accepted manuscripts.
AAAS has long held green OA policies for all of its subscription-based journals, in addition to facilitating OA publication through its gold open access journal Science Advances.
This approach reflects AAAS's concern that facilitating OA by gold routes alone puts undue financial obligation on authors, which could freeze in place or further exacerbate longstanding inequities for authors across race, gender, geographies, disciplines, and institutions.
The pilot for cOAlition S-funded researchers ensures these researchers can continue to publish in the Science family journals.
AAAS believes that contributions from a diverse pool of scientists are essential to advancing science, and is committed to helping lead the evolution of OA publishing in a manner consistent with guiding commitments of supporting a more inclusive publishing ecosystem, while continuing to publish discoveries that change a field, advance the progress of science, and are of the highest quality of vetted research.
The OA policy will apply to any research submitted to the Science family subscription journals on or after January 1, 2021 that was funded by those cOAlition S organisations that indicated adoption of the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy. This provision from cOAlition S states that an author's accepted manuscript, to comply with green OA routes, must be licensed for free distribution via a CC BY 4.0 license or a CC BY-ND license.
Recognising that the OA landscape is evolving, AAAS will actively monitor how the change to support cOAlition S-funded authors impacts the scientific community - including effects on maintenance of the accurate record of published scientific content.
Click here to read the original press release.
