Frequently asked questions: Open Access publishing

The following are frequently asked questions about open access publishing and related support provided by the Libraries.

General questions

Grants and open access

OA fees information (including coverage and discounts)

General questions

What is open access (OA)?

Open access represents content that is "Digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (Suber, 2012). Open access journals do not charge subscription fees to libraries or individuals. There are a variety of models publishers use to support open access publishing. Some publishers use article processing charges (APCs) to maintain publisher income. APCs are used in both the gold journal and hybrid journal models. Some publishers turn to institutional or non-profit funding models to support the journal, using the diamond journal model. Others yet maintain subscriptions, but offer all content for free to readers and authors, using the subscribe-to-open model to maintain publisher funding.

How do the Libraries support OA publishing?

The Libraries are a member of organizations that support Open Access, such as arXiv, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the Open Library of the Humanities. The Libraries also have agreements with select publishers that offer discounts on or coverage of article processing charges (APCs) for 蓝莓视频 researchers. Information about all the Libraries鈥� OA support is available on the Open Access fees, discounts, and support page.

How do I self-archive my work/deposit in UWSpace?

The Libraries' maintain the University's research repository, . Self-archiving your work in UWSpace satisfies Tri-Agency policy compliance. The UWSpace Self-Archiving Support page and the 蓝莓视频 Research Deposit Help page provide guidance on depositing your paper.

If a publisher requires payment to publish in their journal are they a predatory publisher?

Not necessarily.

Predatory publishers deceive authors and readers about the quality of the research they publish (usually by not facilitating the peer review process properly or at all). Using an open access model which charges the author instead of the reader makes it easier for predatory publishers to stay in business, but there are many legitimate, high quality journals that are open access or give authors the option to publish open access using an APC.

You should never be charged an APC before your article is accepted and any APC costs should be clearly stated on the journal鈥檚 website.听

It is important to avoid publishing in a journal from a predatory publisher. Given the large number of journals that exist across the quality spectrum, it can be difficult to tell. The module can help you understand how to evaluate journals. You can use the as well, and reach out to your subject librarian with any questions.

Will I get more citations publishing open access?

Much research has been conducted on what is called the Open Access Citation Advantage (OACA). In a systematic review of 134 studies of OACA, Langham-Putrow, Bakker & Riegelman (2021) found that 鈥淭he majority of the studies (n = 64, 47.8%) found that there was OACA while 27.6% (n = 37) found that it does not exist. 23.9% (n = 32) of studies found that, while there was no overall OACA, there was an advantage in subsets, such as for specific journals, certain periods of time, or subdisciplines. One study (0.8%) was inconclusive in its findings鈥� (p. 6).

More information about research impact is available on the guide.

I've been asked to choose a Creative Commons license, which should I choose?

The Creative Commons (CC) licenses you are presented with may differ between publishers. Below is an adaptation of (2019, ) of the most common Creative Commons licenses used by publishers. For most cases, we recommend CC-BY-NC as the license that allows for a great deal of openness, while providing authors with control over how their work is used commercially.听

The choice is yours; choose the license you and your co-authors feel most comfortable with. You can use the to help you decide, keeping in mind that the license chooser will provide more options than you may have from the publisher.

License summaries

: This license is the most permissive of the CC licenses used by publishers. This license enables users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

: This license enables users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Use this license if you want users to reach out to you and/or the publisher before making commercial uses of your work. Note that you can still allow commercial use (for free, if you like!) you are just requiring commercial users to ask you first.

: This is the most restrictive CC license. This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. As above, you can still allow commercial uses and adaptations, but these users must reach out first.

Note: We generally recommend avoiding CC-BY-NC-ND, as it has a chilling effect on use of portions of the work 鈥� users are unsure what counts as adaptation. Use CC-BY-NC-ND when you are concerned about adaptations of your work being dangerous to users; for example, if your work describes a medical procedure or construction standard that could be unsafe if changed, you might use CC-BY-NC-ND.

Grants and open access

How do I comply with the Tri-Agency (NSERC, SHRC, and CIHR) Open Access Policy?

Complying with the requires making peer-review journal articles freely available within 12 months of publication. The main ways of providing this access, are either to deposit the accepted manuscript (the peer-reviewed version of your paper) in an OA repository (like ) or by publishing in an OA journal.

If you choose to deposit in an OA repository it is important to check a journal鈥檚 policies about self-archiving.听 Usually, the journal鈥檚 publisher will have requirements around timing, versions, and location.

The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance page provides more detailed information about the requirements and your options.

听

Is the Tri-Agency (NSERC, SHRC, and CIHR) changing their Open Access Policy to require immediate open access?

On July 4, 2023 the to revise their , announcing a 鈥済oal of requiring that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from agency-supported research be freely available, without subscription or fee, at the time of publication.鈥� In the time since, the Tri-Agency has collected feedback via survey and focus groups. In their they share the results of those consultations. The Tri-Agency is now drafting a revised policy, which will be published by the end of 2025.

You can send any comments or questions about the new policy to the agencies: 听

Do I need to make my underlying data open access?

Requirements to make your data openly available generally depend on your funder. For example, the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy does not require research data to be OA, however, the clarifies that CIHR funded researchers are required to 鈥渄eposit bioinformatics, atomic, and molecular co-ordinate data into an appropriate public database immediately upon publication of results, and 2) retain all data sets associated with a given grant for a minimum of five years.鈥�

More information on requirements for research data management at 蓝莓视频 are available in the Research Data Management Institutional Strategy and through the .

How do I know if my funder has an open access publishing requirement?

Different funders have different requirements for (1) when a research article needs to be freely available to the public and (2) which version of the article needs to be freely available to the public.

We鈥檝e linked to the OA policies of common funders below. You can use to search the name of your funder and find out if they have an OA policy and what is required.听

听

If you have questions about understanding a funder open access policy, please reach out to your subject librarian.

I鈥檓 submitting a budget for my grant proposal. Can I use the Libraries鈥� agreement APC coverage information in my calculations?

We recommend using publisher provided APC prices for grant budget proposals. You can find APC prices on the journal website, generally on the submissions or author guidelines pages.

If you are looking for APC prices for multiple journals, you may find the downloadable list from the publisher helpful:

Publisher

Website with Downloadable APC Price List

Elsevier

Pricing, see

Sage

Taylor & Francis

Springer Nature

(separate price lists for fully open and hybrid journals)

Wiley

IEEE

The Libraries鈥� agreements that provide discounts and APC coverage are time limited. They also only cover articles accepted during the agreement period (these details are listed on the Open Access fees, discounts, and support page). While in regular circumstances, these kinds of agreements are renewed with similar terms, sometimes the terms change 鈥� journals leave publishers, or aren鈥檛 covered under the agreement, or change from one publishing model to another (subscription to OA).

Can I use my grant funds to pay article processing charges (APCs)?

This depends on your funder. The Office of Research maintains the Expense eligibility - common sponsors and grants page.

For example, the section on Goods and services expenditures indicates that expense must adhere to four basic principles:

  • contribute to the direct costs of the research/activities for which the funds were awarded, with benefits directly attributable to the grant
  • not be provided by the administering institution to their research personnel
  • be effective and economical
  • not result in personal gain for members of the research team

An APC is likely to meet all four requirements.

I have an APC invoice to pay. How can I do so using grant funds in a University of 蓝莓视频 research account?

If the research grant funds are in Unit4 or WatProcure you can send scanned invoices to Accounts Payable (apinvoices@uwaterloo.ca) and provide them with a work order number. Accounts payable will then process payments. Additional instructions are available on the guide (Confluence). If you have any questions about this process, please reach out to your department finance officer.

Open Access fees (including coverage and discounts)

About the Libraries' agreements

Why do these library agreements provide discounts and coverage of OA publishing fees? Why now? Why agreements with these publishers?

A number of moving parts over the last 20 years in academic publishing have resulted in moving towards the OA model of publishing. These moving parts include funder mandates (e.g. the Tri-Agency OA policy), increasing volumes of content (Boon, 2017), and relatively static library budgets facing rising publishing costs and fluctuating foreign exchange (the Libraries spend a good portion of their budget in US dollars). To learn more about how this landscape is evolving, read the Library鈥檚 .

These agreements between libraries and publishers are an attempt to transform the landscape; moving away from reliance on subscription-based reading towards subscription-based publishing. The goal of these agreements is to use the current subscription model to increase the percentage of articles published open access over time without having to bring in more money from outside the system. The idea being that the amount libraries across the world are already paying for publishing via subscriptions is enough to pay for all of the content in an OA format (Schimmer, Geschuhn & Vogler, 2015). They are often called offsetting agreements because, as the price for reading decreases (as more content becomes open access), the price for publishing increases and publishers use the former to offset the latter. Therefore, they are, in an ideal world, temporary agreements, putting a publisher on the path to open access. What kinds of agreements may replace transformative agreements after open access transition is achieved is unknown.

The Libraries participate in a number of these kinds of agreements. While terms vary, these agreements generally include what publisher content an institution can access and what the institution鈥檚 authors can publish open access. The institution is generally charged one amount for content access and publishing coverage.

We are aware that these agreements tend to benefit larger publishers. There are a couple reasons for this:

  1. We work with consortia, namely the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN, a large group of libraries, nation-wide) and the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL, a large group of libraries, province-wide) to negotiate agreements. These agreements were traditionally for access to content and were pursued when there were a large number of member libraries interested. This creates an environment where we have more negotiating power with the larger players because the agreements are negotiated on behalf of large numbers of academic libraries (in Elsevier's case 87% of the member libraries of CRKN are signed on).
  2. Publishers choose which models they want to use (e.g. read and publish agreements, author pays APC models, subscribe to open). Smaller publishers may not be able to offer the kinds of arrangements that larger publishers can afford to experiment with. 听

At present, the Libraries aren't paying list price APCs when articles are covered under the agreement. In all cases, the agreements do not actually have a billed line item for APCs processed - it's an unlimited publishing arrangement.

The Libraries have had, in previous years, a small fund for OA support activities. For example, an agreement with Cogitatio Press was suggested by a faculty member and supported by the Libraries Collection Strategy Committee. This fund has generally focused on publishers or journals who rely on institutional support to function听and听don't charge fees to authors (e.g. Open Library of the Humanities, punctum books).听

Why isn't the journal I want to publish in covered? Why don't the Libraries have an agreement with X publisher?

Generally, it is because the publisher hasn鈥檛 offered an agreement we (or the consortia who represents us) can accept. There are three main reasons for this:

  1. Cost. In many cases publishers will only offer an agreement at a significant price increase; one the Libraries would not be able to afford. To maintain access to content for as many libraries in the consortia as possible, negotiation is refocused on reading access alone.
  2. Structure. Some publishers only offer OA agreements that contain a cap on publishing 鈥� either by having the library pay into a publishing deposit account upfront, or by capping the number of articles included in the agreement. This first-come, first-served arrangement can lead to unfairness and frustration for researchers.
  3. The publisher does not wish to offer a transformative agreement, preferring to require APCs from authors. 听

Sometimes the Libraries have an agreement with a publisher, but it doesn鈥檛 cover specific journals in their portfolio. There are two reasons for this:

  1. The journal is fully open access. Publishers often do not include these journals in agreements with libraries because they rely on the separate income stream generated by APCs. Negotiating bulk pricing in an agreement effectively reduces their profit for this content.
  2. Access to the journal is provided by the publisher but the title is owned by a society and the society has not agreed to have their journal(s) participate in these agreements.

The top journal(s) in my field now require APCs for publishing. If the Libraries no longer pay for a subscription, can those funds be used to pay my APC?

The Libraries鈥� collections budget is structured for the acquisition of materials for everyone and is not intended for content or services for individuals. The Libraries鈥� agreements may provide a discount or fee coverage for the APC. You can check if your journal is included in an agreement on the Open Access fees, discounts and support page.

Beyond the set up of the collections budget, there are a couple of reasons why the Libraries would not be able to use funds 鈥渞ecouped鈥� from journals switching to OA to pay APCs:

  1. The Libraries do not always see direct savings as the result of a journal switching to OA. A great deal of journal access happens in multi-year agreements for access to large packages of journals with publishers. If one journal in a package switches to OA, the price of that agreement has already been negotiated. We do not receive a refund for titles that flip to OA because we aren鈥檛 paying a per-title cost for journals in these packages.
  2. The cost of the journal subscription may not be enough to cover even one APC. For example, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology flipped its journals to OA in January 2021. The year prior to the flip, the Libraries paid $4984.24 USD for access to the three journals in ASBMB鈥檚 portfolio. In 2022, there were 3 publications from 蓝莓视频 researchers in just one of the journals, representing $8400 USD in APC costs.

Can we subscribe to Journal Y? Some of the articles are OA and others are behind a paywall.

The final decision to subscribe to a new title is at the discretion of the subject librarian.

If it is a hybrid journal. The Library has a limited budget and the decision will depend on the significance of the title to current teaching and research on campus.

If it is a Subscribe to Open journal, if there are already enough libraries subscribing to the journal for the year, then there is no need for us to subscribe to be able to access current content. If we want access to older content, then it might be worthwhile subscribing, but the Library has a limited budget and the decision will depend on the significance of the title to current teaching and research on campus. It is also important to note that if the journal has a rolling wall archive there may be only a few years of content behind a paywall and each year a previous year becomes open. It might not be worth subscribing for a limited range of paywalled content, but the final decision will be at the discretion of the subject librarian.

Do the Libraries have a fund to support the payment of individual article processing charges (APCs)?

No. The Libraries鈥� collections budget is structured for the acquisition of materials and is not intended for content or services for individuals. The Support for open access page and will help you check if the charge is covered or discounted by one of the Libraries agreements.

Are there other funds on campus that can be used for my APC?

Many funders allow researchers to use their grant money to pay for an APC, see: Can I use my grant funds to pay APCs? We are unaware of other funds from on-campus sources to pay APCs.

Before submission

How can I publish OA immediately without paying an APC?

There are three options:

  1. Publish in an OA journal that doesn鈥檛 charge fees, sometimes referred to as diamond journals. There are a wide variety of OA journals that do not charge fees to publish OA. These journals exist across the quality spectrum, if you have questions about journal quality use our . Consult your subject librarian to learn more about the OA journals in your discipline.
  2. Publish in a journal where OA fees are covered by the Libraries鈥� agreements with publishers. The Libraries participate in agreements with publishers that cover the cost of APCs for 蓝莓视频 researchers when they are the corresponding author (generally the first author). Coverage is determined by listed affiliation in combination with the email address used to submit. The Support for Open Access page has more information about these agreements and a journal search tool to help you figure out if coverage is available.
  3. Publish with a publisher/journal that allows immediate self-archiving.

I鈥檝e already chosen the journal I want to publish in. How do I make my article open access without paying an APC?

  1. Check the Libraries Support for open access page, which provides an overview of the Libraries' agreements with publishers that provide either discounts on publishing or full coverage of APCs and a journal search tool. If your journal isn鈥檛 covered, see option 2 or 3.
  2. Check the journal鈥檚 self-archiving policies; these policies will tell you whether you are allowed to deposit your article in a subject (e.g. arXiv, SSRN) or institutional repository. Your subject librarian can help you find and interpret these. If you must comply with funder open access requirements, ensure this method complies with their requirements.
    1. See:听How do I know if my funder has an open access publishing requirement?
  3. The publisher may offer an APC waiver. It is unlikely that 蓝莓视频 researchers with funding will receive waivers. Eligibility is often based on location (low- and middle-income countries) and in some cases status (student or post-doc). Please check the publisher鈥檚 policies (who the waivers apply to) and processes (when and how to apply) and reach out to the designated contact if you have questions.听

If these options do not work out, you may need to pay the APC or choose another journal that allows for self-archiving or does not require an APC. Most funders, including the Tri-Agency, allow researchers to use their grant money to pay for an APC. See: Can I use my grant funds to pay APCs?听

Which journals APC fees are covered or discounted for 蓝莓视频 affiliated authors?

The Libraries participate in agreements with publishers that provide coverage or discounts on APCs for 蓝莓视频 researchers when they are the corresponding author. Check the Libraries Support for open access page, which provides an overview of the library agreements with publishers that provide either discounts on publishing or full coverage of APCs and a journal search tool. 蓝莓视频 authors must self-identify when submitting a manuscript in order to receive a discount. That is, you need to list your affiliation as the University of 蓝莓视频, and it's helpful to use your @uwaterloo.ca email.

Related

After acceptance

I received an email indicating my publishing fees are covered for my article. Is this a scam?

It is unlikely that this is a scam. That said, please check to see if the journal your article is covered by our agreements using the .

What is the process for claiming the coverage or discount under the Libraries' agreements?

All you need to do to claim the coverage or discount is to use your institutional email address () and list your affiliation as the University of 蓝莓视频. If you鈥檝e done this, the publisher should automatically apply the discount or coverage to your article, as you move through the publication process. Note that in the case of hybrid journals, you鈥檒l need to opt-in to publishing your work OA.

I believe my paper should have been covered but I've received a message asking me to pay and/or an invoice. Who should I ask for help?

If you believe your article APC should have been covered or discounted, but it hasn鈥檛 and/or you鈥檝e received an invoice, please reach out to copyright@uwaterloo.ca. We will help you investigate the issue with the publisher.

My article was accepted but the publisher is asking for an APC. Do I have to pay it?

If the journal relies on APCs instead of subscriptions to maintain their operating costs and revenue (also known as gold open access) then the only way to publish in that journal is to pay the charge. If you have grant funds or have FPER funds, you may be able to use them to pay the APC. If you cannot pay the charge, you can reach out to the editor to explain the situation but you may need to withdraw your article. Keep in mind that withdrawal should be a last resort, as many journal editors would consider withdrawal after acceptance discourteous (especially if fees were made clear before submission). Depending on your status you may be eligible for a waiver.

See: My paper should have been covered but I鈥檝e received a message asking me to pay and/or an invoice, if you believe there鈥檚 been an error in applying one of the Libraries鈥� APC coverage agreements.

I have an APC invoice to pay. How can do so using my FPER account?

贵颈苍补苍肠别鈥檚 Faculty Professional Expense Reimbursement (FPER) Plan explainer states that 鈥淐osts to prepare and complete scholarly manuscripts (i.e. page fees, print charges, etc.) are eligible.鈥� FPER is a reimbursement plan. 听If you want to use FPER to cover an APC, you鈥檒l need to first pay the invoice yourself. To submit a claim, you鈥檒l need an original receipt. You can then follow the instructions on (Finance Confluence).听

Related

References

Boon, S. (2017). 21st Century science overload. Canadian Science Publishing Blog. http://blog.cdnsciencepub.com/21st-century-science-overload/

Langham-Putrow,听A., Bakker,听C. & Riegelman,听A. (2021). . PLOS ONE, 16(6).

Schimmer, R., Geschuhn, K.K., & Vogler, A. (2015). .

Suber, P. (2012). . MIT Press.

Glossary

  • Corresponding author
    • The author that submits the article to the journal and manages the articles progression through the editorial and peer review process. This is usually, but not always, the first author on a paper.
  • Hybrid journal
    • A journal that contains paywalled and open access articles. The paywalled articles are generally made available to readers through a subscription (either by their institution or individually). Authors of articles pay article processing charges (APCs) to make individual articles available open access.
  • Gold journal
    • A journal where all articles are open access. The majority of these journals charge authors and article processing charge. No fees are charged to readers or libraries for access to content.
  • Diamond journal
    • A journal where all articles are open access and where publishing is free for the author. These journals are normally funded through institutional or organizational sponsorship.
  • Self-archiving
    • Also known as green open access. The practice of making a published article open access by posting a version of it (usually the accepted manuscript) online. Generally authors are encouraged to post their manuscripts to an open access repository, like , the University of 蓝莓视频鈥檚 institutional repository, or (a subject-specific repository). The ability to post a version of your paper is dependent on your agreement with the publisher and they may place restrictions on which version and/or when you are allowed to post.
  • Article processing charge (APC)
    • A fee charged by publishers to make a work open access. This fee is charged by hybrid and gold journals, but not by diamond journals. This fee is different than page charges, colour charges, or permission fees 鈥� all fees that may be associated with publishing in a journal but are unrelated to open access.
  • Transformative agreement
    • An agreement that the Libraries enter that provides access to paywalled publisher content and covers open access publishing fees for authors affiliated with the University of 蓝莓视频. At present, the Libraries do not pay list price for APCs under these agreements.
  • Subscribe to Open
    • A publishing model that turns traditional journals into open access journals without charging APCs. Publishers remove the paywall from next year鈥檚 content if current subscribers agree to pay their subscription for that year. If there is enough agreement from subscribers (the journal is guaranteed enough revenue to continue to operate) then accepted articles will be published open access without charging authors APCs.