Open Access (OA) refers to free, immediate, permanent, online access to digital full-text scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. There are limited copyright and licensing restrictions on open-access articles, meaning that anyone with Internet access may read, download, copy, and/or distribute them. A primary advantage to authors who make their articles openly accessible is that their research impact is maximized due to a wider audience.
Resources for WVU Faculty
WVU Open Access Agreements
Our agreements only cover open access publishing fees not other fees related to publishing, such as page overage charges or color charges.
Only current students, staff and faculty (including emeritus) are covered
by the agreements. Students who graduate before their article is published should
list an advisor or other WVU affiliated researcher as the corresponding or co-corresponding
author to avoid potential disqualification.
| Publisher | Eligible Authors | Publications |
|---|---|---|
| American Chemical Society (ACS)
|
WVU Corresponding Author
|
See ACS Agreement
|
| Cambridge University Press | WVU Corresponding Author
|
All CUP journals (does not cover select article types; see covered article types) |
| Company of Biologists | WVU Corresponding Author |
All Company of Biologists journals
|
| IOP
|
WVU Corresponding Author
|
IOP, Gold and Hybrid journals
|
| Public Library of Science (PLOS)
|
WVU Corresponding Author
|
All PLOS journals
|
| Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) |
WVU Corresponding Author (you must use your WVU affiliated email address during the article submission process) |
Research Articles, Review Articles, Short Papers, Survey Articles, Technical Notes, Tutorials, Interviews, Case Studies, or Notes. |
WVU Library Support for Open Access
- Open Library of Humanities
- A nonprofit, diamond open access publisher in the humanities and social sciences. Hosting 30 peer-reviewed academic journals (2024) funded by more than 340 libraries worldwide.
-
Annual Reviews
- Through the OA model called Subscribe to Open (S20), Annual Reviews, existing institutional customers continue to subscribe to the journals. With sufficient support, every new volume is immediately converted to OA under a Creative Commons license and is available for everyone to read and re-use.
- You can search for journals that don't charge fees through the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Reduced Author Fees
The WVU Libraries have negotiated reduced fees if you publish your work in the following open access journals:
- BMC (formerly BioMed Central) and Springer Open
- 15% discount on the Article Processing Charge when publishing in BMC and Springer Open Journals
-
MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)
- WVU authors receive a 10% discount on article processing charges
Additional Resources and Information
Still not sure if Open Access is for you? Learn about:
- the three types of open access for journal articles and
- about your rights to your published works.
Other great resources for open access information include:
- Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) provides excellent information and resources about open access, including a printable copyright addendum you can send to your publisher to make sure you retain the rights to archive and share your own work.
- The SHERPA/RoMEO database provides information about the self-archiving policies for a variety of journals.
- The Directory of Open Access Journals provides a comprehensive directory of all open access scientific and scholarly journals in order to increase the visibility, ease of use, usage, and impact of these resources.
Predatory Journals
Beware of journals seeking your contributions via unsolicited e-mails and then levying a fee for publication. These journals will not be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals and will not have signed on to the various open access initiatives. Other warning signs:
- Very short turn-around time for peer review; comments from the editors are general and do not address specific problems, improvements, and concerns.
- The author fee is too high or too low. The industry standard is $1,000 to $5,000
- There is no editorial board listed on the page, or the credentials of the board do not match the subject area of the journal.
- An international journal is more suspect.
- The publisher does not match the agency receiving the funds; the publisher’s name is generic or is very close to a well-known organization.
- The title is close to a well-known reputable journal. For example, The Journal of Physical Education and Sports Medicine is very close to The Journal of Physical Education and Sport Medicine.
Author Fund— Discontinued
The WVU Libraries are committed to providing open access to research for anyone anywhere. In recent years the library has begun engaging in new read and publish agreements that will now have to be the manner in which we contribute financially to helping campus authors publish openly. The Libraries encourage you to include publication fees in grant requests and use University funding, such as the Eberly College Subvention Fund whenever possible. From 2016-2023, we offered an Open Access Author Fund (OAAF) which has been retired. Please see the above resources to support your open access publishing.