Gregg-Graniteville Library: Open Scholarship: How To Publish Open Access (Gold)

OA Publishing and APCs

"Gold" open access journals are journals that follow the typical processes of publication such as peer-review and typesetting, but publish their articles freely on the internet. These journals may be pure OA journals that only publish open access content, or they may be "hybrid" journals, which publish most of their content behind traditional paywalls, but allow certain articles to be publicly available.

Many, but not most, open access journal require article processing charges (APCs) from researchers to offset the cost of publication. While the majority of OA journals to not charge researchers, many high-impact hybrid journals can charge thousands of dollars in APCs.

How to avoid paying APCs when publishing your work OA:

Publish in journals that don't charge APCs
- While this will exclude many of the most well-known journals, there are plenty of high-quality, high-impact journals that do not charge APCs
Budget for APCs in your grant proposals
Take advantage of the library's agreements that allow free OA publishing with select publishers (more details below)

Free or Discounted OA Publishing through the Library

As an additional benefit to our faculty, students, and staff, the Gregg-Graniteville Library has entered into several agreements that enable USCA affiliated researchers to publish open access at no charge or a discount with the following publishers:

Publisher	Articles Covered	How to Publish Your Work Open Access
Elsevier	Accepted articles will be published by Elsevier core hybrid journals at no cost.* *There are a limited number of articles covered by this initiative each calendar year and publication coverage is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.	Corresponding authors must specify their institution and any relevant research funding source(s). Based on this data, Elsevier will provide relevant publishing options. For more details, please visit Elsevier's website.
Cambridge	All accepted articles are eligible for OA publication. Includes both pure OA and hybrid journals. There are no APCs and there is no per-article cost for either the author or for USCA. List of eligible journals (Select University of South Carolina Aiken to see list of journals)	Use your USCA email and list USCA as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to automatically qualify for free OA publishing. Cambridge OA Publishing agreement
Springer	Articles accepted in hybrid SpringerNature journals will be given the option of making their article Open Access (freely and openly available) at no cost. USCA shares a large pool of OA article entitlements that should cover most or all of our expected output during the calendar year. The pool is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Usage patterns are monitored to ensure that all authors have an equal opportunity to publish their works as Open Access. It is possible that we could run out of APC credits towards the end of a year. If that happens, authors will see a different message when their article is submitted. The entitlements will be replenished at the start of each year. List of eligible journals	Use your USCA email and list USCA as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Springer journals. Open Access Agreement
Wiley	Authors whose articles are accepted in gold and hybrid Wiley journals (and some Hindawi journals), will be given the option of making their article Open Access (freely and openly available) at no cost. USCA shares a large pool of OA article entitlements that should cover most or all of our expected output during the year. The pool is a first-come, first-serve basis. Usage patterns are monitored to ensure that all participating authors have an equal opportunity to publish their articles as Open Access. If entitlements run out authors will see a different message that says they are eligible for a discounted APC (instead of a fully funded APC via the shared entitlement program). Entitlements will be replenished at the start of each calendar year. Wiley Journal Finder can help you find the best journals to match your manuscript Eligible Wiley hybrid journals Eligible Wiley and Hindawi Fully Open Access Journals Exceptions: Not all Hindawi journals are part of the agreement, please check before you submit your article	Use your USCA email and list USCA as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Wiley journals. You will automatically qualify for free OA publishing. Wiley Fully OA Publishing Guide Wiley Hybrid OA Publishing Guide
American Chemical Society ACS Journals	Accepted articles can publish their article in any ACS journal free of charge. ACS Open Access Publishing	Use your USCA email and list USCA as your institutional affiliation when submitting work. When your work is accepted you will be prompted to publish open access under the ACS Sponsored Read and Publish agreement.
Sage	Authors publishing in SAGE Pure Gold Open Access journals, there is a 10% discount on APCs. These journals publish all content open access under a Creative Commons license. Visit Sage Journals to determine if your journal is included NOTE: While the USCA Library partners with certain publishers to provide discounts on Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access publications, please be aware that authors are responsible for any remaining balance after the applied discount. The library does not cover the full APC amount. Authors are encouraged to seek grant or departmental funds to cover these costs	Use your USCA email and list USCA as your institutional affiliation when submitting work to eligible Sage journals. Sage will contact all eligible authors to inform them of the agreement as soon as their accepted article has been received into Sage’s Production department. Sage OA agreement
MDPI	Affiliated researchers receive a 15% discount on APCs across all MDPI journals. This can be combined with other available discounts (e.g., reviewer vouchers). Researchers can also benefit from a 10% discount on the Book Processing Charges (BPCs) for MDPI Books and a 15% discount on Language Editing Services. NOTE: While the USCA Library partners with certain publishers to provide discounts on Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access publications, please be aware that authors are responsible for any remaining balance after the applied discount. The library does not cover the full APC amount. Authors are encouraged to seek grant or departmental funds to cover these costs	MDPI Journals MDPI Institutional Open Access Program When submitting, authors will be prompted to select their institute to obtain the discount. If an institutional email is used, authors will be pre-selected for the discount.

Benefits of publishing OA

Publishing open access has many benefits for the researcher, including:

Greater citation rates than non-OA articles
Greater media coverage of research
The ability to retain your author rights and control the reuse of your research
Compliance with funder OA requirements

Why Open Research?
Many researchers support the idea of increasing access to research, but worry about the implications for their career of sharing their work. This site was built primarily for researchers, to educate them about all the different ways they can be open and how sharing can be beneficial for their careers.

Open Scholarship

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