Open Access APC Discounts Guide Ask Us

UNB Libraries are engaged in several initiatives to shift the scholarly communication environment toward open access (OA) for all. Our institutional repositories UNB Scholar and UNB Dataverse are platforms for collecting, preserving, and providing open access to UNB's scholarly work. We also support the development of an open access infrastructure to build platforms for sharing OA documents across repositories and to provide descriptive metadata for this purpose.

However, many researchers prefer to publish in specific journals. We work to support this option while shifting the underlying business model of scholarly publishing from subscription-based access to open access, remunerating publishers fairly for their services.

As we work toward achieving an open scholarly publishing environment, we have entered into several "transformative agreements (TAs)" with publishers, that combine subscription costs with discounted article processing charges (APCs). UNB Libraries have negotiated -- through CRKN or directly -- the following discounts on APCs  to enable publishing articles as open access in cases where the corresponding author is affiliated with UNB. To avoid confusion, it is very important that the corresponding author does not use a generic email address (@gmail.com, @hotmail.com) for communicating with editors or publishers. Please contact Joanne Smyth or Mike Nason for assistance.

American Chemical Society 

APC discount of $250.00 USD is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation to qualify for the discount. 

Procedure:  

Follow instructions here: https://acsopenscience.org/open-access/purchasing-open-access/publish-open-access-author-funding/

Licensed through: 

CRKN 

Cambridge University Press (2022-2024)

Corresponding authors affiliated with CRKN participating members will be able to publish an unlimited number of their articles as open access in Cambridge hybrid and gold journals at no charge for the duration of the agreement.  

Procedure:

The discount is applied when an author submits the article to RightsLink and selects institutional affiliation. A step-by-step guide is available here: https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2022-03/Step-by-Step-Guide-to-Publishing-OA-2021_EN.pdf

Licensed through: 

CRKN 

The following five article types are included in this Open Access publishing portion of this agreement:   

• Research Article
• Review Article
• Rapid Communication
• Brief Reports
• Case Reports  

Canadian Science Publishing (2023-2025)

As of January 1, 2023, corresponding authors affiliated with UNB will be able to publish an unlimited number of their articles as open access in the following five journals at no charge for the duration of the agreement:

1. Biochemistry and Cell Biology
2. Canadian Journal of Physics
3. Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
4. Genome
5. Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering

UNB authors are also eligible to receive a 25% discount on the article processing charge (APC) for all CSP Hybrid journals. Authors must indicate their institutional affiliation upon submitting of their manuscript in order to benefit from the discount.

Procedure: 

APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation to qualify for the discount. More information is available here: https://cdnsciencepub.com/open-access/open-access-options 

Licensed through: 

CRKN 

Company of Biologists 

Eligible journals:  

Corresponding authors  can publish Open Access research articles free of charge in five subscription journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science,  Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open without incurring charges.

Procedure: 

The Company of Biologists uses CCC RightsLink to process APC charges. Please indicate your institutional affiliation when submitting your article. 

Licensed through: 

UNB Libraries 

Elsevier 

UNB authors are eligible to receive a 20% discount on the article processing charge (APC) for all CSP Hybrid journals. Authors must indicate their institutional affiliation upon submitting of their manuscript in order to benefit from the discount.

• See the full list of inclusions and exclusions here: CRKN-Elsevier_2021-2023_APCDiscountTitleLists_2021-03-22.xlsx

Procedure: 

Please review the author workflow.

• The 20% APC Discount is applied to any articles submitted to eligible Elsevier journals between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023. Unfortunately, this discount cannot be applied in addition to any discounts offered by individual journals.

• For hybrid journals, if the corresponding author declares affiliation with a CRKN institution, they will be presented with the option to publish as a subscription article, or to publish open access. 

• For gold OA journals, the article is open access by default.  

• The author is then given the choice of license – CC BY or CC BY NC ND. 

• Once the author has chosen a license and completed the remainder of the acceptance process, CRKN is provided with a notification of validation within 48 hours. The Corresponding Author’s eligibility for APC discount must be validated within 15 working days after a Corresponding Author has selected the open access option in Elsevier’s journal workflow. 

• Upon validation by CRKN, the author (or whomever they have designated as receiver of the invoice) will receive the invoice with the discount included. 

Licensed through: 

CRKN 

Institute of Physics (IOP)

As of December 15, 2021, corresponding authors affiliated with CRKN institutions participating in the CRKN-IOP Open Access agreement will be able to publish an unlimited number of their articles under an open access license in select IOP hybrid and gold journals at no charge for the duration of the agreement.

The following article types are included in the Open Access publishing portion of this agreement (intended to cover all original research and review-type content):  

•  Paper
•  Special Issue Paper
•  Review
•  Letter  

Please note that there are a select few journals for which IOP cannot offer an open access option that are excluded at this time. A complete title list is available here: CRKN-IOP_2021-2024_TitleList_2021-12-17_0.xlsx  

Procedure:

Authors submit articles to IOP using Scholar1, which includes an autofill field for corresponding authors to indicate their affiliation. Instructions are available here: https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/submit-under-a-transformative-agreement-guide/

Licensed through:

CRKN

PLOS 

Beginning Feb. 01, 2023, corresponding and contributing authors affiliated with an institution participating in the CRKN agreement are able to publish an unlimited number of articles in the following fourteen PLOS journals:

• PLOS Biology
• PLOS Climate
• PLOS Complex Systems
• PLOS Computational Biology
• PLOS Digital Health
• PLOS Genetics
• PLOS Global Public Health
• PLOS Medicine
• PLOS Mental Health
• PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• PLOS ONE
• PLOS Pathogens
• PLOS Sustainability and Transformation
• PLOS Water

There is no cost to authors for open access publication. Authors must indicate their institutional affiliation upon submitting their manuscript in order to benefit from open access publishing at no cost.

PLOS has also prepared a publishing FAQ for authors.

Procedure: 

Submission instructions are based on the journal title. 

PLOS ONE, Computational Biology, Genetics, Pathogens, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Water, Climate, and Global Public Health articles are submitted through PLOS' Editorial Manager.  Detailed author instructions for these journals are available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/128jRfOE74wvzaFQa2-uzJZgodOzWW2E41Ri-HFIa0Ao/edit?usp=sharing 

PLOS Medicine, Biology and Sustainability and Transformation articles are submitted via RightsLink. Instructions for submission are available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k4A0vEI12Z6Cfd5aiV9yuSu0ysGkzWLxODPYTAQ3jws/edit?usp=sharing

Licensed through:  

CRKN 

Royal Society of Chemistry

A  15%  APC  discount  has  been  negotiated  for  CRKN-affiliated  authors  in  RSC  hybrid  journals.

Procedure:

• Author  submits  article  to  a  hybrid  RSC  journal  following  the  standard  process.
• On acceptance  of  the  manuscript,  authors  receive  an  email  with  a  link  to  the  licensing  system.
• The system automatically  identifies  the  eligibility  of  the  author  based on  the email  domain (authors  must use  their  institutional  email  in  order  to  qualify  for  the  discount).
• Next, the  author  selects  either  the  standard  license  (subscription  article)  or  open  access  license. o  If the  author  chooses  open  access,  they  are  given  the  option  of  two  creative  commons  licenses (CC-BY  or  CC-BY  NC) 

Licensed through:  

CRKN 

SAGE 

Starting on January  1,  2021,  all authors  affiliated with CRKN institutions  that  are participating in the  CRKN-SAGE Premier  Open Access  agreement  will be able to publish articles  in SAGE  Choice  journals  under  an open access license with no associated Article Processing Charge (APC).  As  the bulk  of  CRKN  institutional output  in  SAGE journals  currently  takes  place within their  hybrid subscription  journals  (i.e.  SAGE  Choice),  this  will effectively  mean the conversion of  roughly  Canadian 1900+  articles  per  year  to open access,  if  current  trends  in output  continue, and  subject  to  authors’  selection  of  the open access  option upon  article acceptance.  There is  no cap on  the number  of  articles  that  can  be published each year,  but  the publication output  during this  initial three-year  phase will certainly  impact  the renewal negotiations  for  future  agreements  beyond  2023.  

Articles  that  are published in SAGE’s  fully  gold open access  journals  are not  eligible at  this  time,  but  authors  that choose to publish in gold journals  will benefit  from  a  40% discount  on the APC.  The list  of  SAGE’s  gold journals can be found here: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/pure-gold-open-access-journals-at-sage

There are a few select  journals  for  which SAGE  does  not  offer  an  open access option that  are excluded at  this  time.  They are:

Procedure:  

A user guide describes the author's workflow here: https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2020-10/How%20to%20use%20SAGE%20Open%20Access%20Portal%20-%20Authors%20and%20GoldOA_v3%20%281%29.pdf

• Authors must indicate their institution affiliation upon manuscript submission. Authors are encouraged to also use an email with an institutional domain to facilitate the identification of eligible articles.
• Once an article is accepted, the author will receive an email notification if their article is eligible under the terms of this agreement. For articles accepted in gold open access journals, the APC discount is automatically applied upon acceptance of manuscript.
• Authors can accept or decline to publish their article open access from within the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP). If an author declines to publish in open access, their article will be published via the subscription route.
• Authors can also select their copyright license and assign a payer (i.e. funding agency, institution, or a different bill payer), and make the APC payment from within the Portal.

Licensed through:  

CRKN 

Taylor & Francis (and Routledge)

25% discount in T&F and Routledge Open Select Journals. 

 Procedure: 

1. Submit your article to an Open Select journal for peer review.
2. If it’s accepted for publication, you’ll be asked whether you wish to publish your research open access.
3. If you choose open, you can generate an article publishing charge (APC) quote which will automatically include a discount. When generating your open access quote please make sure that you indicate that you’re based at UNB, so that they know you’re entitled to a discount.The standard discount is 25%.
4. Once published your article will be available for anyone to read, anywhere, forever.

Visit Taylor & Francis' website for further details on the process.

Licensed through:  

CRKN 

Wiley

From January 16, 2023 to December 31, 2024, APC-free publishing in any Wiley hybrid journal. Authors will continue to be charged APCs for accepted articles in Wiley gold journals. A list of Wiley hybrid journals is available here: https://authorservices.wiley.com/asset/Wiley-Journal-APCs-OnlineOpen.xlsx .

Procedure:

Follow the step-by-step instructions for using the Wiley open access publishing platform: https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2023-01/CRKN-Wiley_2023-2024_Workflow%20Process_2022-12-15.pdf.

Upon article acceptance for publication in a hybrid journal, the corresponding author will begin the Author Services process within the Wiley Open Access Account system. A customized message notifies the author upon login that their accepted article is eligible for open access at no cost (will refer to their institution and CRKN as providers) and the default selection for the author is to publish the article open access at no charge.  

Authors must identify themselves as affiliated with a participating CRKN institution in order for their article to be verified and approved for no charge OA under the agreement. An autocomplete form will populate with institutional affiliations as the author types, and the institution names are pulled from the Ringgold institutional hierarchy.  

Once an author has completed the Author Services process and has successfully identified their affiliation at a CRKN institution, the article must be validated. For the two years of this initial agreement, CRKN has agreed to manage the validation process on behalf of members. Initially, manual article approval will occur as we test the process and ensure that automatic approval does not pose any risks. Automatic approval will be activated later in the year.  

Licensed through:

CRKN