The transition from subscription-based reading models to full and immediate Open Access (OA) publishing is complex and varies by discipline, geography, and publisher. From APCs to Transformative Agreements, Subscribe to Open models and Pure Publish deals, each organization must choose a framework that meets its community’s needs.
As the scientific publishing ecosystem evolves, sustainable, scalable infrastructure is necessary to support this paradigm. In order for OA publishing to be viable in 2020 and beyond, researchers, institutions, publishers and funders agree that there must be solutions that can address the needs and concerns of all stakeholders
Customer Experience First
Customer Experience First (CX1) is a core operating principle for CCC. We work with all stakeholder groups to build workflows in RightsLink for Scientific Communications that simplify and enhance the user experience–whether the user is an author, institution, funder, or publisher. For example, our Touch-Free workflow is the only solution on the market that removes the researcher from the funding request process at the publisher’s request, which is often a requirement of emerging OA agreements and terms of compliance. We have gained broad adoption across the dozens of publishers and more than 300 institutions who are using RightsLink to manage their increasingly complex agreements.
A Fresh, Intuitive Author Experience
We also recognize not all authors are funded. To avoid placing unnecessary burdens on researchers at the point of APC payment, our Summer 2020 RightsLink release introduced a major redesign of the payment workflow. This updated workflow streamlines the user experience at every stage of the payment process.
Our payment workflow redesign is not just about new styles and page outlines. Any OA program has to balance the needs of funded and unfunded authors–there is no single workflow that meets the needs of all stakeholders. RightsLink adapts to the user based on contextualized information such as whether an agreement exists, whether an author need to submit a funding request, and who ultimately pays the bill.  This new author payment workflow streamlines the payment process and removes unnecessary decision points from each stage.
Agreement Management Enhancement for Clarity, Transparency, and Analysis
The Summer release also enhances Agreement Management capabilities for connecting unique payer profiles to a parent agreement. Because of decentralized billing needs, decentralized funding approval needs, or other funding terms that may vary at the journal level, many publisher-institutional deals require multiple billing profiles to honor the terms of a single agreement. This change lays the foundation for easy filtering, reporting, and analytics so all stakeholders can measure the health of their deals in a common, scalable, and transparent way.
The pressure on publishers to innovate is high. To stay viable, they need automation and tools for testing and facilitating the transformation of their businesses at the pace their partners require. With our ongoing investments in technology and support, RightsLink helps them adapt to an ever-fluid landscape of mandates, priorities, and business opportunities.