The landscape of scholarly publishing is constantly evolving. Thanks to new subscription models known as Transformative Agreements (TAs) or Read and Publish (R&P) agreements, CSIR researchers can now publish their articles in an open access (OA) format in hybrid journals without paying article processing charges (APCs). TAs are designed to transition the publication landscape from the traditional subscription-based model, where readers pay to read or access articles behind a paywall, to a R&P model, which enables articles to become openly available at the time of their publication. For gold (fully) OA journals there may only be a discount on the APCs.
Through the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), CSIR Knowledge Management and Information Services (KMIS), South African university libraries and research libraries of other SA science councils have access to a diverse range of TAs that have been negotiated to date. CSIR KMIS has secured eight TAs with the following publishers:
There may be a limit (cap) on the number of OA articles that can be published by authors affiliated with the participating institutions. The article entitlement is shared across the consortium on a first come, first served basis. The current balances can be seen at the SANLiC website when you click on the publisher links.
CSIR employees are therefore encouraged to publish OA for free, provided that they check the R&P agreements with above specific publishers and their journal lists at the SANLiC website. Make sure that the:
All articles submitted through these agreements will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence by default. Be careful not to choose other licenses (e.g. CC-BY-ND-NC), because you often give exclusive rights back to the publisher preventing CSIR from commercially exploiting its article. For licences other than CC BY make sure that you give non-exclusive or limited rights to the publisher in the subsequent wording.
For more information, please contact your Cluster Information Specialist or KMIS at eresources@csir.co.za