Publisher Agreements

Some publishers offer special agreements that lower the open access publishing fee for authors. This is typically done through institutional memberships or transformative agreements (TA). These agreements use a fixed annual fee or portion of the journal subscription fees, often based on the size of faculty or expected number of submitted articles, to cover all or a percentage of article-processing fees for the institution for a set period of time.

Current publisher memberships:

Biomed Central

OU Libraries is a member in BioMed Central, which means OU authors get a 15% discount off author publication fees.

If you submit your manuscript from an IP address that has been registered by your institution, the membership discount will be automatically applied.

If you submit your manuscript using a non-registered IP address:

1) Please choose the option “I believe that I am covered by an institutional membership arrangement” on the APC agreement page

2) Select your institution from the drop-down list

3) BioMed Central Customer Service team will then handle your discount request before sending instructions on how to complete your submission

Cambridge University Press Read & Publish Agreement

OU Libraries has entered into its first Read & Publish agreement with Cambridge University Press. Faculty at OU can now publish open access in Cambridge University Press journals without paying an article processing fee (APC). This includes their 44 - Gold OA journals and 330 - hybrid journals. OU authors must be the corresponding author for the article for the APC to be waived under this agreement.

View list of Cambridge University Press journals

View the Read & Publish agreement for more eligibility requirements.

The process for submitting an article is the same as non-OA. After your manuscript has undergone peer-review and has been accepted, you will have the option to select open access and assign an appropriate Creative Commons License. Authors must create an account in their payment system, once you have selected your institution the invoice will indicate a zero balance.

If you have questions: Please contact: Julia Rodriguez, Scholarly Communications Librarian, juliar@Oakland.edu