Open Access Agreements

The information below provides an overview of the arrangements by which open access article processing charges (APCs) are covered or reduced thanks to the University Library’s support. For a step-by-step process for making your work open, review the university library’s Open Access Publishing How-To Guide.

Full OA Agreements | What's Covered | OA Discounts | Publication Subvention Grant

Full Open Access Agreements

Under these agreements, eligible authors do not need to pay any open access publishing charges:¹

Questions?

If you have additional questions or concerns about our open access coverage, please contact Abbey Elder, the Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian.

Contact Abbey for Support

How do I ensure that my article is covered?

Our open access agreements are worked out in negotiations with the publisher and each situation is unique. Because of this, there are very few rules that apply to every agreement.

• In most cases, all you need to do is submit your article. So long as you or another author from Iowa State is listed as the Corresponding Author on your paper, your article's APC will be covered by our agreement in full.
  • Only current students, staff or paid/emeritus faculty will qualify for coverage. Students preparing to graduate before their article is published should plan accordingly by listing an advisor or other ISU-affiliated researcher as the corresponding or co-corresponding author on their papers.
• In some cases, the publisher will "check" your affiliation with Iowa State by looking at the email your corresponding author has provided to see if it ends in @iastate.edu. In other cases, the submission system for the publisher may ask you to list your institution or choose it from a dropdown menu.
• For Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and DeGruyter, you may receive an email telling you that you qualify for coverage to make your article open access through the library's agreement. In these cases, you can choose to request coverage even if you were originally planning to publish your work behind a paywall.

Want to acknowledge the library's support?

If you would like to acknowledge the support your article received from the University Library's OA agreements, you can add a note to your article's Acknowledgments or Special Thanks sections. The following base statement has been provided for those who wish to use it: 

"The open access publication fees for this article were covered by the Iowa State University Library."

Open Access Publishing Discounts

Thanks to memberships or agreements with these publishers, a portion of the article processing charges (APCs) for open access are covered by the ISU Library

ISU Open Access Subvention Grant

An internal funding opportunity to partially cover the cost of publishing open access is available to full-time faculty and P&S staff at rank 37 or higher. The grant, Publication Subvention Grant For Open Access Journal Articles, covers half of the cost of an Article Processing Charge (APC) up to $1,250.

See the Publication Subvention Grants section of GrantsHub’s Internal Funding website for more details or to apply.

This grant is funded through a partnership between the University Library and the Office of the Vice President for Research.

^{1 Our agreements only cover open access publishing fees; they may not cover additional fees related to publishing, such as page overage charges or color charges.}

^{2 In addition to free open access publication, faculty who serve as corresponding authors for APS journals, will be offered a free one-year APS membership through this agreement.}

^{3 Journals not covered by De Gruyter directly include all full open access titles. You will need to forward your invoice to the University Library before you pay if you would like an APC in one of these journals to be covered.}

^{4 Open Library of Humanities publications are open access without any publishing fees because their operating costs are covered by a membership model. The University library is proud to support OLH and their mission to make Open Access publishing easy and affordable for authors.}

^{5 The three journals not covered from CSHP are CSH Perspectives in Biology, CSH Perspectives in Medicine, and CSH Protocols.}

^{6 The two journals not covered from OUP are The Library and European Heart Journal Supplements.}

^{7 Similar to OLH, Punctum publishes all of its open access works free of charge. Iowa State University Library is proud to support Punctum's mission to provide free open access publishing services through their Library Membership Program.}

^{8 Journals not covered by RSC directly include Chemical Science, RSC Advances, Nanoscale Advances, and Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP). You will need to forward your invoice to the University Library before you pay if you would like an APC in one of these journals to be covered.}

^{9 This discount stacks with personal ACS membership discounts (premier package) on Hybrid and Au OA journals.}

^{10 This discount applies to full open access monographs. The APCs for book chapters are covered in full (see OA agreement table above).}