Open Access - Transformative Agreements

UKRI is a member of cOAlition S https://www.coalition-s.org/ and supports the global Open Access 2020 Initiative (OA2020) which aims to accelerate the transition to Open Access by adopting strategies to systematically withdraw financial support of paywalled publishing venues and reinvest those funds to support Open Access publishing. cOAlition S encourages publishers to enter into transformative arrangements globally in all countries and share data from such arrangements.

Aberystwyth University has signed a number of Transformative Agreements negotiated by Jisc [https://www.jisc.ac.uk/full-guide/working-with-transitional-agreements] with academic publishers on behalf of UK researchers and universities. The following agreements provide both traditional ‘read’ access to journals and various mechanisms for Aberystwyth authors to publish gold open access.

These Transformative Agreements are complex and do vary enormously. Please read your publisher correspondence carefully and contact openaccess@aber.ac.uk with any questions to avoid any personal liability for costs.

The Elsevier Transitional Agreement provides for unlimited open access publishing to corresponding authors in AU, in Elsevier’s hybrid journals, including hybrid journal titles under the Cell Press and Lancet divisions.  These amount to over 2000 journal titles.  This agreement does not cover fully gold OA journals.  For further details, see: https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/jisc and here for the journal search tool: https://agreements.journals.elsevier.com/jisc

This Agreement now includes unlimited publishing in ACS’s fully open access portfolio, as well as in their hybrid journals.  Further information and instructions on publishing under the Agreement can be consulted here: https://acsopenscience.org/open-access/purchasing-open-access/publish-open-access-read-publish-agreement/  

This read and publish agreement allows for unlimited publishing, by corresponding authors of participating institutions

For details on publishing via Open Access in Cambridge University Press journals:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/5c1cf1f21548802b32cef991/OA-Publishing-Step-by-Step-Guide-Jan-2019.pdf 

OUP’s Read and Publish Deal allows for 11 APCs in 2021, 12 in 2022 and 13 in 2023.  These can be applied for by authors via the process set out on the OUP website

From 1 January 2022 corresponding authors at AU will be able to publish an uncapped number of Open Access research articles in their fully Open Access journals - Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open - in addition to their subscription journals. A step-by-step guide to article submission is available here.

Deal covers more than 40 journals which they manage.  It allows for unlimited APCs within those journals at no additional cost.  A small number of further journals are eligible for a 70% discount, though authors will need to identify eligibility to the publishers themselves. A link to the journal lists, together with details about how discounts etc are applied can be found on this page: https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/open-access-uk/

AU receives unlimited access to all paywalled content, plus unlimited, immediate OA publishing under CC-BY licence terms of the "Version of Record" for all accepted manuscripts, where the corresponding author is at Aberystwyth University.  Further details can be found here: https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/publish-and-read

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a not-for-profit, Gold open access journal platform (with 27 journals) and books publisher for the humanities. OLH implements a collaborative and collective funding model and facilitates open access through institutional membership.  For further information, see: https://www.openlibhums.org/

The RSC Transformative Agreement allows for open access publishing in their hybrid journals up to a national cap which has been calculated to be sufficient for all OA publishing throughout the term of the Agreement.  For more information on open access publishing with RSC, see:

https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/open-access/

Corresponding authors at AU may publish their article gold open access with a fully funded Article Publishing Charge (APC). Authors will be able to choose to publish open access if their article is accepted to the journal following peer-review. 

All Taylor and Francis ‘Open Select’ journals are covered by the agreement, but NOT fully open access journals. There may be a cap imposed on the number of APCs for journals which charge £3k or more.

.  For more information, see:

• https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-open-access/open-select/
• https://librarianresources.taylorandfrancis.com/resources-to-support-jisc-members/

Please be aware that this agreement is ending and a new agreement to cover the period from 1^st January 2023 is under negotiation.  Please contact openaccess@aber.ac.uk before electing the open Access route for any articles you intend to publisher with Springer.

Unlimited APCs in Springer hybrid subscription journals.  Please see  https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/springer-open-choice/springer-compact/agreements-uk-authors for details of SpringerCompact deal.  The same page provides a link to a listing of Springer journal titles which are eligible for the SpringerCompact deal.

The third year of the Wiley Agreement has seen extended funding of the  OA publishing element.  This means that there will be a free availability of APCs under the agreement until further notice from the publishers.  The publisher’s authors webpages will provide guidance through the submission process, and further information regarding Wiley and Open Access can be consulted here: https://authorservices.wiley.com/open-research/open-access/index.html 

What are transformative agreements?

Transformative (sometimes referred to as transitional) publisher agreements allow papers which have an Aberystwyth University corresponding author to be made open access on the publisher’s website, at no cost to the author. They enable compliance with funder open access requirements and support the principles of Plan S.

Transformative agreements are a way for publishers to transition their subscription journals to full open access. The costs of open access is included in our Library subscription payment and so they are sometimes also called “Read and publish” deals.

What agreements does Aberystwyth have?

The Library regularly reviews new agreements and you can find information on our current deals on the Open Access : Information Services, Aberystwyth University webpage.

What if the publisher is offering a discount?

These discount deals with publishers are not transformative agreements and still require payment for open access. You may need to source funding to make use of these discounts, please contact openaccess@aber.ac.uk for further information.

Why has Aberystwyth not signed up to all agreements?

Agreements must represent value for Aberystwyth, both for the “read” (subscription) and “publish” (open access) elements of the deal. We review usage and publishing data and seek feedback from academics when evaluating whether to sign a new deal or cancel a deal that does not meet Aberystwyth’s current or future needs. If a deal is cancelled because it does not represent value, the cost can be reallocated to other resources.

How can researchers make use of these agreements?

As the cost of open access is covered by our agreements, you do not need to apply for open access funding if the corresponding author is affiliated with Aberystwyth. The publisher will arrange for the Library to approve the open access by confirming your affiliation. Each publisher has a slightly different process, so refer to their guidance for more information or email openaccess@aber.ac.uk  for support.

To make use of these agreements authors need to agree to publish under a CC-BY licence.

How can a researcher tell if a journal is covered by an agreement & get more information and support?

Some agreements only cover hybrid (subscription) journals. Information about our deals is available on the Open Access : Information Services, Aberystwyth University webpage or you can contact the Open Access Working Group at openaccess@aber.ac.uk

What if the journal I am submitting to is not covered by a Transitional Agreement?

You can usually be compliant with funder requirements for open access by depositing your Author Accepted Manuscript (sometimes called a Postprint) in Pure. Further information can be found in the Researcher Good Practice webpages.