Open Access

Article Processing Charges and Publication Fees

An article processing charge (APC)  is a fee that publishers charge authors to publish an article open access. This fee is sometimes called an Author Processing Charge or an Article Processing Fee.

The Library is aware of the challenge that researchers face when publishers require APCs to publish openly, but we cannot support paying these fees for a few different reasons:

• The Library does not currently have funding to cover individual article processing charges
• The Library is already paying for access to these journals, so if the Library paid APCs as well, we'd be paying the journal twice - once for access and once for each publication. Learn more about this publisher behavior known as double dipping
• In most cases, paying for APCs does not get us closer to open access structurally

When possible, the Library enters OA agreements with publishers. With these agreements, the Library does not pay individual APC fees or APC fees for specific articles. The Library pays one amount as part of the agreement, which in turn offers unlimited OA publishing. Learn more about OA agreements below or by visiting our Agreements and Discounts webpage.

Learn more:

Pinfield, S., Salter, J. and Bath, P.A. (2016) The 'total cost of publication' in a hybrid open-access environment: Institutional approaches to funding journal article-processing charges in combination with subscriptions. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67 (7). pp. 1751-1766. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23446

Thomas Shafee, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Finding APC Support

Researchers often pursue funding for OA through:

• Research grants
• Their academic departments
• The UD Research Office also has information about funding opportunities

There are also ways of making research publicly accessible that do not require any fees. This includes using scholarly communication tools like Open policy finder to determine journal-sharing policies. Open policy finder compiles and summarizes journal policies, empowering authors to understand what versions of their work they can freely share (i.e., original submission, peer-reviewed version, publisher's version) and in what locations they can share that work (ArXiv, UDSpace, disciplinary repositories, etc.). Researchers can often share specific versions of their work openly, for free, in particular locations. This practice is known as self-archiving or green open access. Learn more about green open access and using Open policy finder.

Learn more:

Book a consultation with Paige Morgan, our Digital Publishing and Copyright Librarian, to learn more about making your research and publications discoverable to wider audiences without paying APCs.

OA and Read and Publish Agreements

A read-and-publish agreement, also known as a transformative agreement or open access agreement, is an agreement between an institution and a publisher. Under the agreement, the institution pays the publisher an amount for access to its journals. In return, the publisher allows researchers from the institution to publish articles in those journals without any costs to the researchers, like article processing charges or open access fees. 

Cambridge University Press

If you are affiliated with the University of Delaware (or another participating institution), you can publish articles Open Access, at no cost to you, in any of Cambridge University Press's participating journals, at least through 2024. While we are hopeful that the Cambridge agreement will be extended, we cannot confirm any changes at this time. Updates will be posted here as soon as more information becomes available.

To be eligible, articles must:

• Have a corresponding author affiliated with UD (or another participating institution)
• Be an eligible article type: research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports and case reports
• Be accepted for publication in a Cambridge University Press journal covered by the agreement

For more information, please visit here.

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

APCs are covered for all hybrid RSC journals. Authors also receive a 15% discount on APCs for gold OA RSC journals. For more information, please visit here. 

Springer Nature

Corresponding authors affiliated with UD (or another participating institution within Lyrasis) will have APCs waived when they publish in any of Springer Nature’s hybrid journals. For more information, please visit here.

Publishing Fee Discounts

UD authors may get a discount on publishing open access with the following publishers:

• MDPI: 10% discount on all MDPI journals for UD authors
• BioMedCentral: 15% discount on article processing fees for BMC journals and SpringerOpen journals for UD authors.
  • When using the 'Submitting from outside institutional IP ranges' option, the BMC discount should be automatically applied during submission as long as you use your UD email address and are the corresponding author. Make sure you use your UD email when submitting. The 'Submitting using a membership account number (submission code)' method is an alternative, but we do not use it and do not have a submission code to share. 
• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC): 15% discount on APCs for gold OA RSC journals

For full details, please visit the publishers' websites. Typically, you will need to use your UD email address and be a UD-affiliated corresponding author when applying for discounts upon article submission.

Agreements and Discounts Explained

We understand that the agreements and discounts can be confusing, especially since "Springer Nature," "Nature," "BMC," and "SpringerOpen" are all part of the same larger company but are often treated as separate entities. Here's how our current agreements work:

1. Springer Nature Hybrid Journals:

Our agreement fully covers Article Processing Charges for thousands of Springer Nature's hybrid journals. You can find a list of eligible journals under the "Publishing open access in a hybrid journal" section on the Springer Nature webpage.

2. BioMedCentral and SpringerOpen Journals:

SpringerOpen is the name Springer Nature uses for its fully open access journals. Our agreement provides a 15% discount on APCs for these SpringerOpen journals and BMC journals, but APCs are not fully covered as they are for Springer Nature hybrid journals.

3. Nature Journals:

The Nature or Nature Portfolio journals (e.g., Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Energy) are not included in our current agreements, and APCs for these titles are not covered.

Quick Recap:

• APCs are fully covered for Springer Nature hybrid journals.
• A 15% discount applies to BMC and SpringerOpen journals.
• No coverage is currently provided for APCs in Nature Portfolio journals.

If you're unsure about a specific journal or need guidance, please feel free to contact us. We're happy to help!

For more information about our agreements and discounts, please visit our Agreements and Discounts page.