New Forms Management in RightsLink for Scientific Communications

A Q&A with Shannon Reville (Part 2)

Authors have numerous options for publishing their research, and scholarly publishers prioritize making their author experience smooth and efficient in order to be the publisher of choice. Publishers need to balance flexibility for authors with a streamlined workflow for all involved—and they need powerful tools to do so.

In part one of this two-part Q&A series on recent updates to RightsLink for Scientific Communications, I spoke with Shannon Reville, Senior Product Manager at CCC, about self-service affiliation discounting and a new Profiles and Agreements Report.

In part two, Reville highlights the ability to now manage key publishing forms through RightsLink and why this is important to authors and publishers alike.

In the May 2026 release, CCC introduced the ability to manage key publishing forms through RightsLink. Why was adding forms management functionality important? What problem was the RightsLink team looking to solve?

We’ve spent many years working on OA workflows with dozens of publishers and identified many best practices. One key observation is that OA decisions, funding implications, and license selection influence one another and impact the entire workflow. These are all OA workflow elements that should come together in an OA solution. Early presentation of OA options made sense when OA was happening less often, and before OA publishing agreements became so common. Now, asking an author if they want to publish OA or what license they want to publish under before you’ve identified their agreement eligibility is putting the cart before the horse.

Here’s a common, frustrating scenario: Let’s say I’m an author. At submission, I choose not to go OA because I see a basic APC quote and it’s not something I can pay for on my own. Later, my article is accepted, and I get halfway to publication, only to learn that my institution has a publishing agreement, and I am required to publish OA. Now my publisher has to make changes in the manuscript system, the editorial system, and the production system, and I need to go back, request coverage from my institution, wait for them to confirm my eligibility, and sign different forms.

The opposite is also true and common. I may decide to publish OA at submission, or select a certain license at submission, only to find that my institution will not cover the fees or does not cover that license type. Similar retroactive changes are required, delaying publication and putting unnecessary burden on everyone involved.

This is why we added forms management functionality, and recommend bringing all critical OA decisions into RightsLink post-acceptance. With this workflow, when an article is accepted, RightsLink can reach out to the author, make them aware of agreement requirements or limit their options in accordance with agreement requirements, ask them to make a decision about OA in hybrid titles, ask them what OA license they want to publish under, and allow them to acknowledge the license form at the same time. RightsLink can also support acknowledgement of a copyright transfer agreement (CTA) if they’re publishing closed.

With this aggregated process, there’s far less rework.

Tell me more about the benefits of handling publishing forms specifically through RightsLink.

There are multiple benefits: First and foremost, RightsLink offers ideal timing for author engagement. Our author-facing workflow is typically invoked at acceptance or immediately after acceptance. This is the time in the publication lifecycle when the author is the most engaged. By incorporating necessary forms near acceptance and within the same workflow as other necessary steps to publication, we create an opportunity for successful forms acknowledgement and mitigate the back and forth that happens with the more manual process many publishers follow to get forms completed today.

Another reason why it’s beneficial that the workflow is in RightsLink, and not just any post-acceptance workflow, is that RightsLink is able to conveniently bring together OA agreement eligibility and terms, OA choice in hybrid titles, license choice for OA, and the actual terms of that license or a CTA. By coupling everything together all at the moment when we have peak author attention, we give the author the relevant information to make an informed decision and reduce the likelihood of those choices changing later in the publication process.

We know that publishers are under pressure to save costs and to be efficient in the use of their resources. This new capability provides RightsLink publishers even more value from our platform and out of their existing engagement with authors in RightsLink.

Ultimately, a simplified workflow with the right actions grouped together improves the author experience. Including forms acknowledgement in RightsLink saves time and reduces potential for error for both the author and the publisher. It’s a win-win.

Why is this functionality important to RightsLink’s continued growth?

We are committed to helping publishers use best practices wherever they can, and that means providing the tools and the systems that we know will save them time.

Forms acknowledgement might not seem like it’s directly related to OA workflows, but so much rework is done when that step is disconnected from OA options, agreements, and license choice. There are efficiencies in tying these processes together at acceptance; at the stage in the workflow where the manuscript information is final and funding eligibility is known.

OA workflows have become strategically critical for publishers to support their relationships with institutions and funders. Publishers are also experiencing the effects of shrinking library budgets and so they need lean processes and effective automation. RightsLink creates agility and simplifies complexity in OA workflows, and forms management is a natural, necessary extension of that.

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