With Plan S coming into effect at the start of this year, cOAlition S have developed a web-based Journal Checker Tool (JCT) to help researchers funded by cOAlition S members to quickly identify Plan S compliant routes when publishing research articles open access.

“The JCT provides a simple, easy-to-use solution to check whether a journal or platform complies with the policies of Plan S.” Hans de Jonge, Chair of the JCT Implementation Group and Head of Open Science Policies at the Dutch Research Council NWO

To comply with Plan S, a journal must allow researchers to retain the copyright to their work, enabling open access publication of their article under a CC BY licence without embargo. Researchers can use the JCT to see whether their choice of journal is compliant, and if so, through which of three routes:

1. fully open access journals and platforms
2. self-archiving, either via the publisher’s self-archiving policy or the cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy
3. transformative arrangements.

How do you use the Journal Checker Tool?

By entering their preferred journal, cOAlition S funder and affiliated institution, the tool instantly provides researchers with all of the available routes to Plan S compliance and basic instructions on what to do next. If no compliant route is available, the tool will provide suggestions on how to edit the search to identify compliant options. 

For simple step-by-step instructions on how to search the JCT, you can watch the video below:

De Jonge acknowledges that complying with cOAlition S open access policies can seem confusing for researchers. By providing the JCT, cOAlition S aim to help navigate the complexities of open access publishing and support the delivery of immediate open access to research.

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