Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a global licensing and content solutions organization, announced the American Chemical Society (ACS) is the first publisher to implement its next generation RightsLink® for Open Access platform to manage article processing charges (APCs) for ACS Open Access (OA) publications. ACS, the world’s largest scientific society, is a congressionally chartered independent membership organization that represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry.
ACS’s use of RightsLink for Open Access will streamline and simplify the APC author payment workflow with new easy-to-use tools, facilitating institutional reimbursement to authors and delivering to ACS significant cost-savings in customer service, finance and operations. CCC’s RightsLink for Open Access securely manages Article Processing Charges, as well as page and color charges. Additionally, RightsLink complies with funding agencies’ mandates, and provides author support, billing and rapid collection services.
“The Open Access publishing model requires publishers to adopt and adapt to a new and evolving set of transactional requirements,” said Brandon Nordin, Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Web Strategy, ACS Publications. “Publishers will need interfaces that support efficiency, flexibility, scale, and 24/7 global availability, in order to simplify the user experience for authors and build seamless links to their own business support systems.”
“The rapid growth of Open Access has introduced new complexities into scholarly and scientific publishing,” said Bill Neuman, Vice President, Products, CCC. “As the Open Access opportunity evolves, publishers need efficiency and flexibility, authors and institutions need an easy process for paying Open Access and other charges, and funders need proof of compliance with their policies.”
Since RightsLink for Open Access can be integrated with any manuscript submission system and production system, authors can complete APC transactions from within their editorial workflows and publisher staff can track payment status from within their production workflows, streamlining the process of paying and managing author charges for all involved.
In collaboration with the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), CCC launched an Open Access Resource Center that links to the latest Open Access news, reports, industry whitepapers, webinars and websites. For the past ten years, CCC has been helping publishers improve the author experience in collecting APCs and is working toward standardization and transparency. CCC hosts webinars and podcasts on many aspects of Open Access and works with organizations like the National Information Standards Organization to create standards related to Open Access. It recently joined the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, working with its members on issues such as collecting APCs and Open Access-aware licensing. Named one of “10 to Watch” by information industry analyst Outsell in its 2013 Open Access Market Report, CCC has endorsed the Research Information Network’s call for cooperation among funders, universities and publishers.
