New Ways of Supporting Open Access Publishing
Boston College has entered into a “Read and Publish” agreement with Cambridge University Press. That sounds great, but what does it mean? The “Read” part of the agreement is library access to the entire Cambridge University Press Full Journals Package. The “Publish” part, which is new for Boston College, means that Article Processing Charges (APCs) associated with Open Access articles are waived if the article’s corresponding author* is affiliated with Boston College. This means Boston College researchers – faculty and student alike – can now publish Open Access in virtually any Cambridge University Press journal at no cost!
Why publish Open Access?
Cambridge University Press reports that 75% of Open Access articles get more citations than their non-OA equivalents. This is not surprising, given the increased visibility of Open Access articles versus articles behind paywalls. Open Access also helps redress the global inequity of access to scholarship by dismantling cost barriers to research dissemination.
How does this work?
Researchers still submit articles via the regular Cambridge workflow. Only after an article is accepted under the normal, rigorous peer review process does the author select an Open Access publishing option. The system will recognize a Boston College author, and any listed APC will automatically be covered. This agreement covers five research article types, as defined by Cambridge University Press: research, reviews, rapid communications, brief reports, and case reports.
How do I publish Open Access in other journals?
Many journals that offer an Open Access publishing option require the author to pay an Article Processing Charge. To help support Open Access publishing, the library has an Open Access Publishing Fund, available for articles published in fully Open Access journals (some journals are only partially open, which our fund does not support). In addition, Boston College authors receive a 10% discount to Article Processing charges with MDPI publications, and 15% to BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals. BC Libraries will continue to negotiate with other publishers and enter into agreements that remove APCs for BC affiliated authors. If you are unsure about a journal, our Scholarly Communication Librarian Elliott Hibbler will be happy to investigate it for you.
* The corresponding author is typically the author who is handling the submission to the journal.
