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Open for Comment: NISO’s Draft Revision of the Transfer Code of Practice

Open for Comment: NISO’s Draft Revision of the Transfer Code of Practice

March 2025

Baltimore, MD | March 18, 2025

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced today that its draft revision of the Transfer Code of Practice (NISO RP-24-202X) is now available for public comment through May 2, 2025, at the project web page, https://niso.org/standards-committees/transfer. 

The Transfer Code of Practice is a NISO Recommended Practice to ensure continuing access to journals when titles transfer from one publisher to another. Compliance with the code helps publishers make journal content easily accessible to librarians and readers when there is a transfer between parties. It also enables the transfer process to occur with minimum disruption to manuscript submission and production processes. Over 90 publishers have endorsed the Transfer Code of Practice since it was first established as a NISO Recommended Practice in 2015. 

The Transfer Standing Committee, composed of librarians, publishers, and other experts, maintains the Transfer Alerting Service, hosted by the ISSN Centre, that facilitates communication about journal title transfers between publishers. The Standing Committee is also charged with reviewing the Recommended Practice and recommending revisions. This latest draft revision addresses community needs around the transfer of open access titles and refines language to provide more clarity to readers. 

“This revision incorporates feedback we received regarding open access content, ensuring that the Code aligns more closely with current practices and expectations,” notes Sophia Anderton, Chief Executive, BJU International and co-chair of the Transfer Standing Committee. “We have also sought to clarify language throughout the document to ensure that readers have precise language for more effective implementation of the Code,” adds Émilie Lavallée-Funston, Contracts and Publications Licences Officer at the University of Stirling and co-chair of the Transfer Standing Committee.

NISO’s Standards Program Manager Keondra Bailey adds, “NISO extends its sincere appreciation to the Transfer Standing Committee for their dedicated efforts in updating the Transfer Code of Practice. We urge the community to actively share their insights and feedback, as their contributions are vital to shaping the future of this Recommended Practice."

The draft Recommended Practice is available for comment through May 2, 2025.

About NISO

Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO’s mission is to build knowledge, foster discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional communities. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages with libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire life cycle of information standards. NISO is a nonprofit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For more information, visit the NISO website (https://niso.org) or contact us at nisohq@niso.org.