Plan S is an initiative launched by a group of research funders, known as Coalition S, to accelerate the transition to open and immediate access to scientific publications. For its implementation, it is essential that all stakeholders rely on infrastructures and platforms that adhere to internationally recognised best practices. The CCSD provides HAL users with the information necessary to assess the platform’s compliance with Plan S requirements.
Best practices aligned with FAIR principles
Funding agencies participating in the Plan S aim to accelerate the transition to open and immediate access to scientific publications. The main objectives are to ensure that all scientific publications funded by public or private grants are freely available, without embargo, and under licences that allow re-use. In France, the National Research Agency (ANR) is a member of the Coalition S and supports Plan S.
Depositing in an open archive is one of the ways in which researchers can meet these requirements. Coalition S has outlined a set of recommendations and requirements for archives that are essential to ensure that publicly-funded research is accessible to all, thereby promoting the broad dissemination of knowledge and greater transparency.
Some of these criteria are mandatory, such as the assignment of a unique identifier or an helpdesk, while others are strongly recommended, such as the management of author identifiers like ORCID. Most of the criteria aim to make data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, in line with the FAIR principles.
Information Transparency
HAL complies with internationally recognised best practice for open repositories and archives, as set out by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). A careful examination of HAL against the Plan S criteria is essential in order to inform researchers submitting to HAL.
The information pages about HAL have been updated with the details of this evaluation, including:
- the use of persistent identifiers for deposited versions of publications,
- high quality metadata in a standard, interoperable and non-proprietary format,
- machine-readable information on Open Access status and licence embedded in the article in a standard, non-proprietary format,
- continuous availability.
This information will be updated as improvements are made, in particular through the HALiance project.