PLOS and the Big Ten Academic Alliance announce publishing deal

SAN FRANCISCO — The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and the Public Library of Science (PLOS) today announced an agreement for BTAA members to participate in PLOS’ Community Action Publishing (CAP) program. The agreement ensures time to test and evaluate this new community-based model and allows BTAA researchers to publish in PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine without incurring fees. The BTAA and PLOS will also collaborate on future data, metrics, and tools for institutions to evaluate Open Access publishing agreements.

The BTAA is the largest consortium globally to participate in both CAP communities, meaning that every member has committed to the full three-year pilot. As some of the largest research institutions in the world and major contributors to both journals, the BTAA commitment ensures this new collective action-based model kicks off with a strong foundation.

The Big Ten Academic Alliance members are: Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Iowa, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Chicago. PLOS has extended the benefits of this agreement to include most system, regional, and branch campuses of these universities.

“The Big Ten Academic Alliance’s commitment to this community-driven model demonstrates the power of collectives to transform scholarly publishing. This collaboration has been a partnership from the beginning and BTAA’s members and administration have been vital in helping us build and execute on this new experiment in sustainable highly selective publishing.” said Sara Rouhi, Director of Strategic Partnerships for PLOS.

Maurice York, BTAA’s Director of Library Initiatives, adds: “One of the key strategic questions in front of us is how to advance the growth of open science and open scholarship through collective and intentional action. We are actively seeking pathways to create a sustainable, scalable open knowledge ecosystem for our researchers and scholars. We are pleased to join together with PLOS to take up this pilot in common cause.”

PLOS’ Community Action Publishing (CAP) is PLOS’ effort to sustain highly selective journal publishing without Article Processing Charges for authors. More details about the model can be found

here

and

here

.

The BTAA publishing deal continues the momentum for PLOS in 2020, following other agreements with the University of California system, Jisc (including University College London, Imperial College London, University of Manchester) and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network

among others

.

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About the Public Library of Science

PLOS is a nonprofit, open access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. Since our founding in 2001, PLOS journals have helped break boundaries in research communication to provide more opportunities, choice, and context for researchers and readers. For more information, visit

http://www.

org

.

About the Big Ten Academic Alliance

Headquartered in the Midwest, the Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the Provosts of the member universities, Big Ten Academic Alliance mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters.