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Open Access Publishing

Self-Archiving

One dependable way to provide open access to your work is to self-archive in the UNCW Institutional Repository. Most publishers allow you to place a version of your published work in an open access repository, provided that you follow a few stipulations. For journal articles, this often means depositing the “accepted version” of the manuscript (i.e. the word document that has gone through peer review but has not yet received aesthetic copyediting and typesetting by the journal) and providing a DOI link to the published version of the article. If you’ve published through another open access pathway, you’re still welcome (and encouraged) to deposit a copy in the UNCW Institutional Repository.

  • If you’re wondering about the sharing and distribution terms of a particular academic journal, search for the journal in the Open Policy Finder.
  • For more about how to deposit an item in the UNCW Institutional Repository, check out this LibGuide.

Another way to self-archive is to submit your work to a disciplinary/subject repository. Some repositories accept pre-print versions of manuscripts and others accept post-print versions, like those described above in reference to the UNCW IR. If depositing to a disciplinary repository, make sure to understand their copyright terms and open sharing policies.

No-Fee Open Access Journals

Every year, new journals are established without fees for authors or readers, and many editorial boards are seeking ways to transition their journals to a fee-free model, often referred to as Diamond open access. What these journals may sometimes lack in recognition and long-term citation attention, they try to compensate for via the well-documented citation advantage associated with open access publishing and through flexibility to innovate the publishing process.

If you’re wondering about Diamond open access options in your field, explore the Directory of Open Access Journals. For those concerned about predatory journals, indexing in DOAJ is a good indicator that a journal is not predatory.

UNCW Library Read-and-Publish Deals

Through membership in the Carolina Consortium of academic libraries, UNCW Library has agreements in place with several publishers that waive article processing charges for UNCW-affiliated authors whose work is accepted in their journals. Note: for all agreements, the article’s corresponding author must be affiliated with UNCW.

Elsevier

UNCW-affiliated authors can publish open access in a wide selection of Elsevier-owned hybrid journals without paying article processing charges. “Hybrid” refers to a journal’s publishing model that allows authors to publish either open access or behind a paywall. Through this agreement, UNCW-affiliated authors can draw from a pool of credits that waive processing charges. This pool of approximately 1,100-1,300 credits is shared between all participating Carolina Consortium institutions. Although the pool is substantial enough to cover many eligible articles, credits may thin near the end of each calendar year. UNCW authors interested in publishing through this agreement near the end of the calendar year are advised to confirm the status of this agreement with our Open Knowledge & Research Impact Librarian.

  • Click here for a list of participating journals.
  • If you’d like to browse journals or explore through a more filterable interface, you can use Elsevier’s JournalFinder tool. For accurate results, make sure to mark your affiliation with UNCW on the main landing page, and then after searching for keywords, in the lefthand toolbar, toggle “Journals that offer gold OA” off, so that you’re only looking at results for “Journals with subscription.”

John Wiley & Sons

UNCW-affiliated authors can publish open access in a wide selection of Wiley-owned hybrid or fully gold open access journals without paying article processing charges. “Hybrid” refers to a journal’s publishing model that allows authors to publish either open access or behind a paywall, whereas “fully gold open access” refers to a publishing model in which all articles require article processing charges and are published open access. Through this agreement, UNCW-affiliated authors can draw from a pool of funds to cover processing charges. This pool of $375,000 is shared between all participating Carolina Consortium institutions. Although the pool is substantial enough to cover many eligible articles, funds may thin near the end of each calendar year. UNCW authors interested in publishing through this agreement near the end of the calendar year are advised to confirm the status of this agreement with our Open Knowledge & Research Impact Librarian.

Wiley has divided the list of eligible journals by publishing model:

Cambridge University Press

UNCW-affiliated authors can publish open access in a wide selection of CUP-owned hybrid or gold open access journals without paying article processing charges. “Hybrid” refers to a journal’s publishing model that allows authors to publish either open access or behind a paywall, whereas “fully gold open access” refers to a publishing model in which all articles require article processing charges and are published open access.

Association of Computing Machinery

UNCW-affiliated authors can publish open access in any of ACM’s journals, conference proceedings, or magazines.

  • For more information about the terms of this agreement and/or an article’s eligibility, see ACM OPEN’s FAQ page.

Company of Biologists

UNCW-affiliated authors can publish open access in all five of Company of Biologists’ Journals without paying article processing charges: Biology Open, Development, Disease Models & Mechanisms, Journal of Cell Science, and Journal of Experimental Biology.

SAGE (discount)

UNCW-affiliated authors can receive a 10% discount off article processing charges when publishing in fully gold open access journals. “Fully gold open access” refers to a publishing model in which all articles require article processing charges and are published open access.

To take advantage of this discount, complete the following steps:

For articles accepted for publication in a fully gold open access journal, the author should email APCqueries@sagepub.co.uk when they are asked to arrange payment of the APC. The author should include the following information:

  • Article ID
  • Article title
  • Journal
  • Institutional affiliation
  • A statement that they are eligible for the Carolina Consortium 10% discount.

The SAGE open access team will verify that the institution is a member of the Carolina Consortium and will provide the author with a discount code and instructions on how to apply the code at checkout in the payment system.

Reserving Grant Funds for APCs

For those seeking grant or fellowship funding, it may be worth including a line-item in your future proposed budgets to account for open access article processing charges. This allows for more freedom in selecting any venue for your work. Federal funders now require grant recipients to make their research outputs publicly available. Including APC costs in a grant budget is a common route by which to meet these requirements, although self-archiving is also approved by most agencies. For questions on federal funder requirements, contact our Open Knowledge & Research Impact Librarian using the links to the left.

Simon Fraser University offers some stock language to include a grant for this purpose:

I expect to publish [number] peer-reviewed journal articles based on the research directed under this grant. Sample journals in my field that are possible places for publication include : [journals]. Article processing charges for these journals currently range in cost from [$xx.xx-$xx.xx]. Therefore, I am requesting [$xx.xx] in funding to cover the expected APC costs for peer-reviewed journal articles from this grant.

 

UNCW’s Research Development Office and Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance can help support more in-depth discussions about grants.

Status of UNCW Library’s APC Fund

In the past, UNCW Library has offered limited funding to defray APC costs for UNCW-affiliated authors seeking to publish open access. The library’s Open Access Publishing Fund is currently inactive as we consider how best to invest in sustainable open access models.