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Publishing, Scholarly Communications, and Open Access

UIC Open Access Fee Waivers and Reductions

Journal Publishers with Discounts or Waivers

Journal Subscriptions Supporting Open

  • The following are publishers or subject areas where the UIC library provides support making the journals open access.   If overall support for the subscriptions fails to meet the needs of the publishers, these journals will most likely return to closed subscription based journals.
    • Annual Reviews Subscribe to Open
    • SCOAP3 - for high energy physics journals

Knowledge Unlatched - the University library is contributing funds to support OA publication of books in linguistics and languages


Cambridge University Press Journals (Full Waiver)

Waives a limited number of OA publication fees for research articles accepted to fully open access journals or hybrid journals.  Corresponding author must be from UIC, and they should use their institutional email address and affiliation when submitting the article. If an article is accepted, the author will receive an email to opt into open acces, and then an email to set up an account with RightsLink, where they should select the option to seek funding from their institution. The RightsLink email may say you need to set up a payment, but you are really opting in to the OA program, and "payment" will be $0. Cambridge will follow up after publication to provide a second opportunity to opt into the program. See the Cambridge walk through information for author.

Elsevier (Waiver for hybrid journals, discount for fully open access journals)

Beginning with articles accepted on January 1, 2024, corresponding authors from the University of Illinois system (UIUC, UIC, and UIS) may opt in to receive a waiver of the APC for open access publication of research articles in eligible Elsevier hybrid journals or a 15% discount of APCs for open access publication of research articles in Elsevier fully open access ("gold") journals. Individuals who opt out have until January 31 of the following calendar year to retroactively opt in. Any University of Illinois Chicago researcher regardless of status (graduate student, faculty, or other classification) is eligible as long as they are the corresponding author. You will need to indicate the University of Illinois Chicago as your primary institution affiliation to receive the discount, and we encourage you to use your uic.edu email account as the contact. You will then be prompted to select either the OA publication waiver with a $0 fee, or traditional subscription-only publication. For more information on what qualifies, please see the FAQ page. Each waiver or discount will be approved by the library within two weeks--if you do not receive approval and are approaching the two week deadline, please contact sgroote@uic.edu.  See list of eligible Elsevier journals - please note the list contains both Hybrid and Gold.

Wiley (Full Waiver)

UIC authors are eligible for a full waiver of APC publication fees.   Corresponding author must be from UIC, and they should use their institutional email address and affiliation when submitting the article. Corresponding authors for hybrid articles should choose the open access option when prompted during the completion of their author agreement. Corresponding authors for gold journals must select the option to indicate their APC is covered by an agreement, and select UIC as the institution, during the submission process. Unlike hybrid journals, the system at this time does not notify you of your eligibility so you must be proactive.  See a list of the fully gold open access journal and the list of hybrid journals     If prompted, find Wiley Open Access Account Code.

IEEE (Full Waiver)

UIC authors are eligible for a full waiver of the APC publication fees (there is an annual limit on the number of waivers). UIC authors with an accepted article should choose the "Open Access" option when asked by IEEE, which will then be routed for approval of the waiver.  IEEE publishes nearly 200 journals in engineering and technology - this applies to 160 hybrid and 28 full open access journals.

IOP Publishing (Full Waiver)

Corresponding author must be from UIC, and they should use their institutional email address and affiliation when submitting the article. 

 

Fellowship Memberships

BMJ Case Reports (Fellowship Fee; does not cover APC)

We have an institutional membership which will cover the individual membership fee to become a fellow.  During your 12 month Fellowship period you can submit as many cases as you like, access all the published material, and re-use any published material for personal use and teaching without further permission. This does not cover open access charges.   That is a separate optional fee not covered by this membership.  BMJ Case Reports fellowship number is 572381.

Institutional Memberships

SPARC

UIC is a full member of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition of universities, research libraries, and organizations. SPARC works to create a "more competitive and diverse marketplace for scholarly communication through support of high-quality, economical alternatives to high-priced journals."

SPARC works with publishing partners who are committed to fair pricing, the ethical use of scholarly resources, and intellectual property management policies that emphasize broad and easy distribution.

Public Knowledge Project (PKP)

PKP is a major developer of open access publishing software including Open Journals Systems (OJS), Open Monograph Press (OMP), and other systems. The University Library is a member of PKP and hosts several journals on its OJS server.

What are Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Article processing charges are fees that journals charge to publish an article open access in advance of the publication. These charges are typically paid by the researcher, who may draw on grant funds or other sources to pay the fees depending on the situation. Generally APCs are paid after an article is accepted for publication and before it appears in the journal. APCs are distinct from submission fees, which are rare and should be looked on with suspicion by authors evaluating journals for quality. APCs are also distinct from page charges or overlength charges, which some publishers, particularly in the sciences, have historically charged, and distinct from book subvention costs common among some humanities monograph publishers.

Limitations to Read and Publish Models

Read and Publish is not a universal path to open access. Although UIC Library supports opportunities for faculty to publish OA, not every publisher offers Read and Publish or offers it in a way that is financially sustainable. The model also excludes many researchers at institutions that cannot afford the cost of such an agreement.
Read and Publish is a transitional model. Read and Publish was always intended as a temporary model to help libraries, authors, and publishers to transition to a more fully open publishing environment. Models to support the cost of scholarly publishing may look very different five years from now

What happens after a Read and Publish deal ends
Publishers that have fully transitioned to open access may charge APCs to publish in their journals. While the university may be able to provide some financial support similar to what was previously spent on subscriptions, the form that this may take is unknown.
Where publishers have not fully transitioned to open access, authors who publish in these hybrid journals will still be able to make their articles open access, but authors will once again be responsible for the APC. As always, authors have the option to deposit their pre-publication, peer-reviewed author accepted manuscript in an open access repository such as UIC’s INDIGO for free, to provide broad dissemination and access.