Many publishers’ open access workflows don’t work as efficiently as they should. What do we mean by that?
January 26, 2023
Copenhagen, Denmark
Many publishers’ open access workflows don’t work as efficiently as they should. What do we mean by that? One example is that authors aren’t recognized as being part of a read & publish agreement, and by the time they notice it, the invoice has been issued already. As a result, a lot of manual work is required to address the issue – and reliance on retrospective open access is high.
Another issue can be related to confusing language and terminology, and lack of clarity to authors who are eligible to publish open access via an agreement, if applicable, and at what cost.
We hear publishers, institutions, and frustrated authors complain about this.
The question is, why do some open access workflows fail? And how can they be improved?
Lack of agreement uptake in the post-acceptance flow can be related to inadequate design and lack of clarity for authors when it comes to making their publishing choice.
At ChronosHub, we believe that authors should be made aware of what they are eligible for in a clear and simple way to encourage them to select the path that’s best for them.
Some open access processes fail because they happen too late – an open access workflow that relies solely on post-acceptance processing is ‘just in time’ as opposed to ‘just in case’ - and by then it’s usually too late.
At ChronosHub, we do some of the crucial things like confirmation of APCs, institutional affiliation matching and agreement eligibility checking earlier on in the process – whether that’s at pre-submission, during submission, or immediately after submission depends on publishers’ other workflows.
We notify authors pre-submission and during submission of expected APC costs and agreement eligibility to ensure they’re aware of what’s coming, and our platform continues to run automated checks in the background to alert the people involved should anything change in the process.
The other issue is that matching an author’s chosen affiliation to the right institutional identifier that will trigger an agreement recognition often results in a low matching ratio which then requires manual checking on the publisher side, as well as complaints from authors.
The reason for this is that many publishers rely on a single identifier system – usually either RingGold or ROR. Both have their advantages: RingGold for the depth and detail it offers, linking departments to institutions, and ROR for having a much broader geographical coverage. Yet on their own they are insufficient. In addition, some publishers and peer review systems allow free text entries for affiliations – which makes matching to an identifier in an automated way even harder.
At ChronosHub, we use the best of both worlds, namely RingGold and ROR, and add our own magic on top with the help of our AI powered platform to make sure that every institution is matched with an ID. With our method, we can match 93% of all given institutions to a known identifier.
When it comes to matching institutional identifiers to agreements, we also travel up the hierarchy, to make sure that if an author lists a department, our platform can find the corresponding agreement at the university level.
If you’re interested in working with us to provide your authors with a clear and simple workflow pre-submission, during submission and immediately after submission – in addition to any post-acceptance workflows – please get in touch so we can schedule some time for a chat.
Romy is specialized in the academic online publishing industry, with a focus on publisher relations. And she’s one of our key experts in Open Access publishing terms.
