Free Open Access Publishing Opportunities for Azusa Pacific University Authors

Azusa Pacific University, as a member of the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), is part of a read-and-publish pilot agreement with Wiley for February 2022-December 2025. This agreement allows Azusa Pacific-affiliated authors to publish their articles Open Access in many American Chemical Association journals by paying a discounted APC (article processing charge) of $3,000. Alternatively, those authors who do not have research funds available to pay the $3,000 APC can request full funding of the APC from the collective's ongoing subscription fees, ensuring that the lack of available research funds does not present a barrier for authors who wish to publish open access with ACS. [[For details, see below under “How to publish Open Access under this agreement.”]]

Please read on for information to determine if your research publication is eligible and to learn how to take advantage of this opportunity.

Articles from authors at participating institutions will be published under the author's choice of the following licenses:

• CC-BY
• CC-BY-NC-ND

For more information on Creative Commons licenses see the home page of this guide

To be eligible as an author:

If you (1) are the article’s corresponding author (article must be submitted using your Azusa Pacific University email address), (2) choose to publish your article open access in an ACS journal, and (3) are an affiliated researcher (faculty, lecturer, staff, student) at one of Azusa Pacific University, your article is covered under this agreement which will make it more cost-effective for you to publish OA. The agreement also continues to provide reading access to ACS journals for all affiliated researchers.

As a member of the SCELC consortium, we have shifted some of our subscription fees from paying to read ACS journals to paying for open publication in ACS journals. Based on careful modeling of collective publication rates, agreement-wide baseline grant-funded APC thresholds have been established. The exact amount required each year will be determined by the collective's corresponding author rate of open access uptake and the need for author grant funding to support a growing proportion of the total open access articles (from 20% in 2022 to 35% in 2025). 

How do I get Funding?

1. During Submission via ACS Paragon Plus, as a corresponding author, select your institution from a drop-down box and use your affiliated university email address.
2. Check that your institution affiliation is stated in the body of the manuscript as the corresponding author’s affiliation.
3. Complete the Journal Publishing Agreement to publish open access, and then press the ‘Order Open Access’ button.
4. You will be taken to Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) RightsLink®, ACS’ open access e-commerce partner for open access transactions. This process will prompt you to select whether you wish to pay for open access with a reduced price using grant funding or whether you wish to seek funding through your institution.
5. If you are paying the APC using other funding, choose “Bill Me” and the APC discounted price will be automatically applied at checkout.
6. If you are requesting funding from your institution, choose “Seek Funding” and select the reason you are not able to pay the APC.
7. You may choose to publish under a CC-BY or CC-BY-NC-ND license. You can find out more about the checkout process here.

If I choose to publish open access, how do payments work?

Payments work differently during the two phases of the agreement:

Phase 1: Articles accepted from January 1, 2023 through June 30, 2023 are eligible for the discounted APC of $3,000, but not for the option to receive full funding of the APC from the subscription pool. If you are an eligible corresponding author and your article was accepted during this period, you will be notified and given instructions for how to publish open access with the discount in ACS’ Journal Publishing Agreement system.

Phase 2: Articles accepted after July 1, 2023 are eligible for both the discounted APC of $3,000 and the option for full funding of the APC from the collective subscription pool. If you are an eligible corresponding author and you select the open access option in ACS’s Journal Publishing Agreement system after your article has been accepted, you will be asked whether or not you have research funds to pay for open access publishing. After selecting either option (“yes” or “no”) you will receive an invitation to log into the payment processing system used by ACS, CCC RightsLink, to complete the process.

(It is necessary to set up an account in RightsLink first; if you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one.) 

Then click through the following steps in the RightsLink system, including: 

Indicate whether you have research funds available to pay the author’s portion of the article processing charge. 

• If you have the research funds to pay the $3,000 APC, select “Bill me” in CCC RightsLink and proceed to enter the billing details.
• If you do NOT have research funds to pay the $3,000 APC, select “Seek funding” in CCC RightsLink to have your request routed to the libraries' subscription pool. You do not need to contact your campus’ library to make the funding request. Your request will be processed within one business day and if approved, your charge will be paid in full by the libraries. 
  • [[You will then also be asked to identify the reason that full funding is needed, choosing from a menu of options (e.g., the research is not grant-funded and you have no other sources of funding available; the grant budget did not include money for publishing; etc.)]]

What if I don't have a grant or other research funds?

If you don’t have research funds and you want to publish open access, the libraries will pay your full article processing charge. See above under “if I choose to publish open access, how do payments work?”

What if I don't want to publish open access? Can I still publish with ACS?

Yes. While the we recommend the open access option, and you can rest assured that there will be no additional charge to your Library, where and how you publish is your decision. The agreement with ACS does not mandate open access publishing, nor does it dictate your journal selection. Rather, it makes the open access publishing option for ACS journals more affordable. As with SCELCs other open access agreements, you can opt out. 

How can I learn more?

Review the ACS page & demo video on "How to Publish Open Access Under a Read + Publish Agreement"