The SHERPA databases help you find out the funders' policies on OA publishing and archiving as well as publishers' policies on OA archiving.
Publishing your work in OA provides unrestricted access and reuse of your research outputs even without a subscription to journal packages. This form of publishing is also known as the Gold OA.
Usually, an Article Processing Charge (APC) will be charged to authors when the paper gets accepted so that the research will be made available to readers and not just to subscribers. For Gold OA publications, copyright is usually retained by authors. Learn more from OA Copyright - Creative Commons licenses.
Authors have the option to publish in
Most OA and hybrid OA journals charge APCs, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand US dollars. Generally, APCs are covered by institutions or funders. However, there are still many OA journals that publish OA articles without charge. Many of these journals are managed by institutions or academic associations. An example would be London Review of Education, published by UCL Press. To find more of such journals, check here.
Publishing OA is one form of making your research articles openly accessible. If the APCs are an issue, or if you would like to publish in specific journals that do not have OA options, authors can go OA via Green OA route involving self-archival.
Transformative agreements, also called "read and publish" agreements, are contracts between universities and publishers that shift scholarly publishing towards full open access. These agreements combine access to subscription content (READ portion) with the ability for researchers to publish in open access journals (PUBLISH portion). In these agreements with the publishers, PolyU corresponding authors may benefit from a full waiver of APC to publish their work with an Open Access option. (Read more)
The Library will work closely with publishers who offer such agreements to establish cost-effective Transformative Agreements for PolyU researchers across all disciplines, that will benefit the University in the long run.
These Transformative Agreements, also known as Read and Publish agreements, offer PolyU authors more opportunities to publish their work in high-quality journals with an Open Access option and with a full waiver of Article Processing Charges (APCs). While some agreements have limited quotas for APC waivers on a yearly basis, others offer unlimited quotas within the licensing period.
In addition to these agreements, certain publishers also provide discounts to PolyU authors who choose to pay APCs for publishing their work with an Open Access option.
Check the tables below to learn more:
1. Publishers with APC waivers (with quotas)
2. Publishers with APC waivers (unlimited)
3. Publishers that offer APC discounts
1. Publishers with APC waivers (with quotas)
Publisher | Journals Coverage | Quota | License Period | How to Apply |
---|---|---|---|---|
Springer Nature New! |
Check eligible Springer's hybrid and Adis journals | Limited (As of 17 Nov 2024, 23 out of 153 articles remain for PolyU in 2024) First-come-first-served for articles accepted within 2024-2026. (FAQ) |
2024-2026 | |
Wiley New! |
All Wiley's hybrid journals and gold OA journals. | All quotas for APC waivers in 2024 have been utilized.* First-come-first-served for articles accepted within 2024-2025. (FAQ) |
2024-2025 | |
*Unfortunately, open access allocation for our institution through its Wiley’s agreement has been exhausted for 2024 and will begin again in 2025. Authors can choose to pay for the APC on your own for open access. For hybrid journals, authors may also consider publishing their article behind paywall without incurring APC and deposit the Final Accepted Manuscript into PolyU Institutional Research Archive to make their article open access. |
Publisher | Journals Coverage | License Period | How to Apply |
---|---|---|---|
American Institute of Mathematical Sciences
|
All journals with an OA option (i.e. Hybrid OA journals listed in the publisher's webpage) |
2022-2024 |
Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. |
American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) New! |
One journal: Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (PE&RS) |
2024 |
The corresponding author will receive an email from ASPRS asking for the institution subscriber number when the manuscript enters the production process. Please forward the email to lbser@polyu.edu.hk for verification and follow-up. |
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) New!
|
All publications with an OA option (i.e. journal, conference proceedings and technical magazines) | 2024-2026 |
Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. (Detailed steps) |
All journals with an OA option (Excluding Conference Proceedings) | 2024-2026 |
Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. (Detailed steps) |
|
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
|
All journals with an OA option (i.e. Gold OA and Hybrid OA journals) New add-on starting 2024: Cambridge Prisms & Research Directions Series |
2023-2026 | |
All journals with an OA option | 2023-2025 | Check the author guidelines on the publisher's webpage | |
All IOP's hybrid and gold OA journals (i.e. journals on List A-D) | 2023-2025 |
Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. |
|
All journals with an OA option | 2024-2026 | Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. | |
John Benjamins New! |
All journals with an OA option | 2024 | Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. |
Mark Allen New! |
Only for journals in the Internurse and Intermid Collections with an OA option | 2024-2026 | Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. |
All journals with an OA option | 2023-2025 | Check the procedure here | |
Portland Press New! |
All journals with an OA option | 2024 |
Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. |
All journals with an OA option, excluding the journal "Life Science Alliance". | 2024-2026 | ||
* PolyU Library is a member library of JULAC, which is a partner of SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics). |
All journals participating in SCOAP3 | On going | Check the author guidelines on the respective journal page |
Publisher | Journals Coverage | Quota | Discount | How to Apply |
---|---|---|---|---|
All journals with an OA option | Unlimited | 15% discount | Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. Discount will be automatically applied. | |
All journals with an OA option | Unlimited | 15% discount | Authors can submit articles through normal procedure. Make sure the corresponding author is using PolyU affiliation and email. Discount will be automatically applied. |
Find other journals that publish OA without a charge
Over 11k OA journals publish articles without charging an APC. You can find these journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Try limiting by Subject area, Publisher, or Language to discover the journals that suit your need! As always, do consider the general criteria for journal selection even for OA journals.
Many fake or predatory journals and book publishers have emerged since the change in the publishing model. These publishers often require payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Processing Charge (BPC) without providing a rigorous peer review process. As an author, you need to be cautious and avoid submitting your work to any of these predatory publishers. Publishing with such publishers may not only ruin your research career, but also harm the credibility of the entire academic community.
Quick tools to help you identify potentially predatory journals:
Contact us if you need any assistance!
Here are some additional indicators to facilitate journal evaluation:
√ Positive Indicators | X Negative Indicators |
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