Many journal publishers will charge an article processing charge (APC) or publication fee in order for the author to publish their work in an open access repository. These fees are usually a couple hundred to several thousand dollars an article. Some publishers will waive this fee or offer a discount on the fee under some circumstances, usually if the author is in financial need. Some institutions will cover these fees for the author.  UNBC offers a Research Strategic Initiatives Grant (RSIG) which can be used to cover APCs.  Apply for the RSIG through Romeo.

Author's addenda are for creating additions to licenses when negotiating contracts with publishers.

Currently the following publishers provide discounts to UNBC scholars for APCs:

American Chemical Society offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a $250 USD flat discount.  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.

As of Jan. 1, 2022, Cambridge University Press offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors uncapped, no-cost Open Access publishing in all hybrid and gold OA Cambridge journals.  Cambridge uses an automated system so UNBC authors only need to identify themselves as affiliated with UNBC to have the APC waiver applied.  The APC waiver applies to the following article types:

• Research Article
• Review Article
• Rapid Communication
• Brief Report
• Case Report

UNBC Library has signed a license with Canadian Science Publishing (2023-2025) for unlimited Open Access publishing in 5 selected journals:

1. Biochemistry and Cell Biology
2. Canadian Journal of Physics
3. Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
4. Genome
5. Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering

For the remaining CSP journals, Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors receive a 25% APC discount.

UNBC Library has signed a "read and publish" license with Company of Biologists (2021-2023).  This license includes:

License ending January 1st, 2024

• Unlimited OA publishing: any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be OA by default with no APCs.
• Unlimited read access to all paywalled content: any user associated with a Publish and Read institution can access the entire archive of Society content, back to 1947, for reading and for text and data mining.
• Development
• Journal of Cell Science
• Journal of Experimental Biology

Elsevier offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 20% discount on all journals (excluding titles listed at bottom of screen).  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.

The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process:

• Upon final acceptance of an article for publication, the corresponding author receives an email with a link to choose publishing options and will be asked to choose their institutional affiliation from an auto-complete form.
• For hybrid journals, if the corresponding author declares themselves affiliated with a CRKN-insitution, they will be presented with the option to publish as a subscription article, or to publish open access.
• For gold OA journals, the article is open access by default.
• In both cases, the author is presented with text which states that, as an author affiliated with a CRKN institution, they will receive a 20% discoount on the APC.
• The author is then given the choice of license - CC BY, or CC BY NC ND
• Once the author has chosen a license and completed the reainder of the acceptance process.  CRKN is provided with a notification of validation within 48 hours.
• Upon validation by CRKN, the author (or whomever they have designated as a receiver of the invoice) will receive the invoice with the discount included.

JAFSCD (Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development) is now Open Access and the $500 APC is waived as the Library is a "shareholder".

UNBC Library has signed a "publish and read" license with the Microbiology Society (2022-2024).  This license covers:

• Unlimited OA publishing: any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be OA by default with no APCs.
• Unlimited read access to paywalled content: any user associated with a Publish and Read institution can access the entire archive of Society content, back to 1947, for reading and for text and data mining.

Microbiology Society titles include:

• Microbiology
• Journal of General Virology
• Journal of Medical Microbiology
• Microbial Genomics
• International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology
• Access Microbiology
• JMM Case Reports

There is an opportunity for UNBC to become a member of PLOS CAP which would allow UNBC authors to publish in PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine for free.  If you are interested in publishing in PLOS Biology or PLOS Medicine, please contact Heather Empey (heather.empey@unbc.ca)

Royal Society of Chemistry offers CRKN-affilated authors a 15% APC discount.  The APC discount process should be automatic following the steps below:

• Author submits article to a hybrid RSC journal following the standard process.
• On acceptance of the manuscript, authors receive an email with a link to the licensing system.
• The system automatically identifies the eligibility of the author based on the email domain (authors must use their institutional email in order to qualify for the discount).
• The author selects either the standard license (subscription article) or Open Access license.  If the author chooses Open Access, they are given the option of two Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY or CC-BY NC).

SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) is a centralized portal that automates SAGE’s open access publication process. CRKN members participating in the CRKN-SAGE license are eligible for a 40% discount on the Article Processing Charge (APC) for Sage's Gold Open Access titles (see Sage Gold OA title list here) or 100% coverage of the APC of Sage Choice journals (title list of journals offering Sage Choice)  (see title list of journals that DO NOT participate in Sage Choice)) The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process. For more information, see the PDF documents below.

• Authors identify their institution affiliation upon manuscript submission.
• Authors are notified by email of article acceptance.
• Within the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP), authors can accept or decline to publish their article open access.

As of Jan. 15, 2023, Wiley offers Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors uncapped, no-cost Open Access publishing in all hybrid Wiley journals. (see Wiley Hybrid Journal title list below)  Wiley uses an automated system so UNBC authors only need to identify themselves as affiliated with UNBC to have the APC waiver applied. (see Wiley Workflow and Validation Process  below)

Unfortunately, articles accepted for publication in Wiley's gold journals are not eligible under this agreement.  UNBC authors will continue to be charged APCs for accepted articles in this journals. 

Authors have basic rights that they can use to negotiate with the journal in order to make their work more accessible. Authors can add addenda to publishing agreements in order to make their work available in an open access repository. Resources such as SHERPA/RoMEO compile access policies for countless journal publishers but this is not a comprehensive list and in some cases it is necessary to contact the journal publisher directly to ask about the policies for a specific journal title.