U of I researchers publishing as the corresponding author in Cambridge University Press (CUP) journals and in two PLOS (Public Library of Science) journals are eligible for a waiver of open access (OA) publishing fees for any article submitted beginning January 1, 2021. 

The new pilot license agreements, negotiated by the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), provides authors from Illinois the opportunity to publish their articles Open Access for no additional cost. The pilot agreement with Cambridge lasts two years, while the PLOS agreement will continue for three years.

“With the growing prominence of open access publishing and the use of article processing charges to fund many OA titles, the Library appreciates this effort by the BTAA to explore ways to reduce costs for Illinois authors while increasing the global impact of their research,” said Dan Tracy, head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing at Illinois.

The Read and Publish agreement negotiated by the BTAA with Cambridge University Press, includes reading access for UIUC researchers for all CUP journals (403 titles across HSS and STM disciplines) and waives article processing charges (APCs) for University of Illinois authors publishing research articles in fully open access or hybrid open access journals. This agreement does not include Cambridge OA books or fully subscription journals.

The agreement requires that authors elect to publish open access; they must opt into participation when they submit an article by choosing the open access publication option. However, if an author forgets to do so or wishes to opt-in later, it is possible to opt-in retroactively as long as the article was originally received by Cambridge in the eligible time period (January 2021 – December 2022). After publication, Cambridge will contact authors to give them a chance to retroactively opt-in if they did not do so during submission.

A full list of journals that shows those that are fully OA or hybrid OA is at www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/journals.

The corresponding author must be at Illinois for the APC waiver to apply. Researchers should use their illinois.edu email when submitting their articles. Authors will choose a Creative Commons license when they select the option to participate in the program.

The agreement with PLOS provides uncapped, no-fee publishing in two highly-selective, fully open access journals (PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine) for articles with corresponding authors from Illinois. For those with corresponding authors from non-BTAA member institutions, the publication receives a 25% discount on the article processing charges.    

More details about both agreements are on the BTAA website at www.btaa.org/library/scholarly-communication/open-scholarship.

For a list of existing waivers with other publishers, visit guides.library.illinois.edu/oapolicy/apc.