Open Access and Scholarly Communications: Finding Author Support

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society (ACS) AuthorChoice and Author Rewards
• Biochemical Journal and Biochemical Society Transactions (Biochemical Society)
• BMJ Case Reports 
• British Journal of Cancer (Nature)
• Chemistry Central
• Electrochemical Society
• Frontiers
• International Journal of Developmental Biology
• Journal of Experimental Botany (Oxford University Press)
• Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford University Press)
• PLoS Journals
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS)
• Sage Publishing
• Society for Endocrinology and European Society for Endocrinology 

AAAS (the American Association for the Advancement of Science) offers a 15% discount off of Article Processing Charges for UNC affiliated authors when they act as the Corresponding Author. While the UNC affiliated author does not need to be First Author, they must act as the point of contact for the publisher in relation to the article submitted. This applies for their OA title, Science Advances.

ACS AuthorChoice facilitates unrestricted open access to the final published article, the Version of Record, for a one-time fixed payment. Authors at UNC-Chapel Hill are eligible for publication fee discounts. ACS AuthorChoice provides a 25% discount for UNC authors, and an additional 50% off the already discounted price for ACS individual members at UNC-CH.  

BMJ offers Institutional Fellowships, giving all faculty, staff and students within your institution the freedom to submit as many cases as they like as well as access to and reuse of all the published material.  UNC participates in the Institutional Fellowship program with free case report submission, at no cost to UNC faculty, staff, fellows, residents, and students.   Please contact asklib.hsl.unc.edu with your UNC contact email information to receive the UNC fellowship information for publication.

Chemistry Central is the open access chemistry platform from Springer Science+Business Media, committed to the free and widespread dissemination of chemical research. Chemistry Central levies an article-processing charge to cover the cost of the publication process and authors publishing with Chemistry Central retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License which allows articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited. UNC-CH is a Supporter Member which means that UNC-CH authors receive a 15% discount on the article-processing charge. 

The Electrochemical Society offers UNC-CH authors unlimited article credits providing a 100% discount on publication fees. When you submit your paper, select Author Choice Open Access and indicate that you come from a subscribing institution. Journals eligible for open access include:

• Journal of The Electrochemical Society
• ECS Electrochemistry Letters
• ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology
• ECS Solid State Letters
• Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters

Authors can choose between the CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is cited appropriately, or the CC BY–NC–ND license, which places similar restrictions on usage as the publisher does in the traditional copyright arrangement. It limits use to non-commercial use (—NC), and restricts others from creating derivative works (—ND). 

The waivers to cover approximately 30 “Type A” original research articles submitted beginning in October 2022 have been used.

The International Journal of Developmental Botany offers UNC-CH authors a 25% discount on publication fees due to our institutional subscription. Payment of the open access fee (1500 Euro) covers deposition of accepted papers on behalf of author in the corresponding repository (PubMed Central, etc.) without any embargo. If the author is selecting open access for compliance with a funding agency's archiving conditions, the author must provide information about the funding agency, grant number and corresponding repository once the article has been accepted for publication.

Until December 31, 2022, Nucleic Acids Research offers UNC-CH authors a 50% discount on article processing charges due to our institutional subscription. Authors can choose between the CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is cited appropriately, or the CC BY–NC–ND license, which places similar restrictions on usage as the publisher does in the traditional copyright arrangement. It limits use to non-commercial use (—NC), and restricts others from creating derivative works (—ND). Authors are offered the open access option once their article has been accepted for publication. 

Article Processing Charge (APC) Waivers for all PLOS Journals

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers publishing in journals from PLOS will no longer need to pay article processing charges. The waiver is thanks to the University Libraries’ participation in several PLOS publishing partnerships.

The agreements pilot various ways for institutions to reduce the fee burden for open access publishing and to increase the amount of high-quality peer-reviewed research in open circulation.

PLOS operates as a nonprofit. Since its launch in 2001, it has pioneered open access alternatives to standard subscription journals in the areas of science and medicine.

Information for authors

The agreements with PLOS provide benefits for corresponding authors and, in some cases, contributing authors from UNC-Chapel Hill.

All 12 PLOS titles are covered by this agreement. They are:  

1. PLOS ONE 

2. PLOS Genetics 

3. PLOS Pathogens 

4. PLOS Computational Biology 

5. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 

6. PLOS Digital Health 

7. PLOS Water 

8. PLOS Climate 

9. PLOS Global Public Health 

10. PLOS Medicine 

11. PLOS Biology 

12. PLOS Sustainability and Transformation 

Who is eligible?  

All UNC Chapel Hill faculty, staff and student corresponding authors, whose articles are accepted by a PLOS journal (after our agreement’s start date) are eligible for funding. Contributing authors to articles in PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine and PLOS Sustainability and Transformation are eligible to receive a 25% discount.  

What does the annual fee cover? 

The CAP annual fee covers publishing costs for all UNC Chapel Hill corresponding authors. No article processing charges (APCs) will be charged by PLOS to UNC Chapel Hill corresponding authors. There are no limits on articles published.  

How do authors receive funding? 

After an article is accepted by one of PLOS’ 12 titles, it will automatically receive funding, as long as, the corresponding author is a UNC Chapel Hill affiliate. Authors do not have to request funding or communicate in any way with the Libraries in order to be eligible.  If you are the corresponding author for an article submitted to a PLOS journal, indicate your UNC-Chapel Hill affiliation on the submission form. PLOS and the University Libraries will take care of the rest. There will be no charge to you or to contributing authors.

If you are a contributing author to an article submitted to PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine or PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, UNC-Chapel Hill’s participation will provide a 25% discount for article processing charges. (If the corresponding author is from a different partner institution, all charges will be covered.)  Contributing authors should communicate eligibility for a 25% discount to the corresponding author.  

What are the publishing terms? 

Manuscripts accepted by PLOS for publication will be published under Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. 

Learn more through the PLOS publishing information page or FAQ.   Questions? Contact OApublishing@unc.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) allows UNC-CH authors to pay a surcharge of $1000 (off of $1350, approximately 25% discount) to provide immediate open access to their article. PNAS automatically deposits the final, published version of all its content, regardless of funding, in PubMed Central (PMC) and makes it free at both PMC and PNAS just 6 months after publication.

Under a novel agreement with SAGE Publishing, part of the subscription fees that the Library will pay for SAGE content beginning in 2020 will cover the costs of open access publishing for a number of UNC-Chapel Hill authors in participating SAGE journals. This comes at no additional cost to the Library and will preserve access to all content that the Library currently licenses from SAGE.  Requesting article processing charge waivers will continue through 2022, but funds for full coverage of Article Processing Fees (APCs) might run out prior to the end of the year.     If all of the APC waivers have been redeemed prior to the end of the calendar year, UNC authors would still be able to receive a discounted rate on APCs.

Articles covered by this agreement will be fully open and will also undergo the same peer review and editing process as other scholarly articles from SAGE.

The pilot agreement will also allow Carolina-affiliated SAGE authors to deposit copies of their articles in the Carolina Digital Repository. The repository is an open access home that the Library operates to preserve and share work produced at the University.

Instructions:  Once an article has been accepted for publication by a SAGE journal, SAGE will reach out with information about choosing open access options.

Please contact OApublishing@unc.edu to learn more or ask questions about your particular publication.

Select journals from the Society for Endocrinology and the European Society for Endocrinology offer UNC-CH authors a 50% discount on article processing charges due to our institutional subscriptions. These include:  

• Journal of Endocrinology
• Journal of Molecular Endocrinology
• Endocrine-Related Cancer​
• European Journal of Endocrinology 

The Scholarly Communications Officer provides guidance, policy development, and advocacy to faculty, students, and staff on the following issues:

• Copyright and fair use

• Authors’ rights

• Privacy rights

• Open access

• Policy related to scholarly material

For more information, visit the Scholarly Communications Office webpage, or contact Scholarly Communications Officer Anne Gilliland, MSLS, JD.