The following aims to clarify the intention of the CHORUS Open Research Principles. These clarifications have come from discussions with the CHORUS membership.

Principle #1 – We believe in sustainable Open Access practices and workflows.
No clarification

Principle #2 – We believe that it should be easy for researchers to understand how publishing in our publications will support them in complying with funder OA mandates.
No clarification

Principle #3 – We believe users should be directed to the best version of an article available to them, ideally the Version of Record on the publisher site, where they may find essential context, tools, and information.

Clarification: The intent of principle #3 is for users to be directed to the best version of an article to which they are legally or contractually entitled.

Principle #4  – We believe all parties should be able to track funded research literature with minimal administrative overheads.

Clarification: The reference to “funded research literature” refers to works reporting on funded research that have been either published on a publisher site, or posted to an institution/funder repository or recognized preprint server.

Principle #5 – We believe data associated with research, as well as methods and code, should comply with relevant FAIR principles, taking into account differences between fields and categories of research objects.
No clarification

Why did CHORUS create these principles?
These new principles intend  to further promote our Making Open Research Work goals that CHORUS announced in 2021. The wording of the principles came out of focus groups with potential society signatories and subsequent board discussions. 

Do these principles lead to or imply any changes to agreements or workflows with CHORUS?
These principles do not cause any change to member or subscriber commitments to CHORUS. Signing on to these principles is voluntary for all CHORUS constituents, including members, institution dashboard subscribers, partners and non-members/subscribers.

Why did CHORUS first send the principles to members?
We sent the first message about these principles directly to CHORUS members as the staff and board felt strongly that we should give our members the opportunity to sign onto these principles before sharing them externally. 

Will CHORUS be seeking more signatories to these principles?
We would love to have more organizations sign on to these principles. We will be seeking additional signatories from academic institutions, societies working with our member publishers, funders and others.

Last updated: 26 January 2022