Non-profit science publisher Annual Reviews has successfully converted the first fifteen journal volumes of the year to open access (OA) resulting in substantial increases in downloads of articles in the first month.
Through the innovative OA model called Subscribe to Open (S2O), existing institutional customers continue to subscribe to the journals. With sufficient support, every new volume is immediately converted to OA under a Creative Commons license and is available for everyone to read and re-use. In addition, all articles from the previous nine volumes are also accessible to all. If support is insufficient, the paywall is retained.
This breakthrough comes in the “Federal Year of Open Science” in the United States, which recognizes the benefits of open science for a number of U.S. strategic interests and delivers evidence-based results for the American people. These same benefits apply to other parts of the world and crucially to addressing the global challenges confronting everyone.
Unlike other OA models, there are no fees for authors to publish in journals supported by S2O. This means that researchers in relatively poorly funded areas of research, such as the social sciences, and researchers in LMIC have the same opportunity to publish OA as their colleagues from better-funded disciplines or institutions.
The model makes use of existing scholarly publishing processes and infrastructures and follows new principles on pricing transparency. It is being adopted by other publishers with the support of the S2O Community of Practice, a diverse group of librarians, researchers, publishers, and funders working together to advance the model. In 2023, including Annual Reviews, fifteen publishers will publish 151 journals using S2O, establishing it as a viable approach to OA alongside Article Processing Charges and Read and Publish agreements.
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