With the latest release of RightsLink for Scientific Communications, Copyright Clearance Center has further enhanced support for transformative agreements with a new “Touch-free” workflow option. With this update, RightsLink for Scientific Communications lets institutions and funders streamline Article Processing Charge (APC) payments by automating the process. This enhancement fundamentally changes the way publishers can manage their workflows, making author involvement optional, while increasing efficiencies and speeding the time to print.
What is a “Touch-Free Workflow?”
The touch-free transaction workflow streamlines the APC payment and funding process by removing the need for involvement by the author and, optionally, the institution or funder. It also promotes publisher mandate adoption through support of transformative agreements. There are two ways that the workflow can be touch-free:
- The publisher sets a flag on the special billing profile alerting RightsLink that an APC transaction should be automatically created based on the pricing and discount rules associated with the profile.
- The institution or funder partner can set an automatic-approval flag on the special billing profile, eliminating the need for individual funding approval on the APC transaction.
What Do the Experts Say?
Leaders from across the publishing industry have weighed in on the impact that the RightsLink’s touch-free workflow will have on the industry.
“Keeping our business in sync with the evolving OA mandates is a priority for scholarly publishers of all sizes,” said Christiane Notarmarco, Publisher at BMJ Group. “By offering a touch-free workflow through RightsLink for Scientific Communications, we simplify the author, institution and funder experience when processing APCs for our OA journals.”
“Many Open Access agreements require immediate and automatic OA publishing of eligible manuscripts without author involvement in a funding or payment workflow,” said Gretchen Gasser-Ellis, Vice President and Managing Director, Publisher Solutions, CCC. “RightsLink allows this to happen in a seamless manner, enabling compliance with institution- and consortium-specific agreements as well as broader funding mandates such as Plan S.”