Open Access Publishing Agreements Through Columbia University Libraries
As an integral part of Columbia University, Teachers College faculty, researchers, and students benefit from and are encouraged to utilize these open access initiatives provided through CUL. To learn more about these resources for authors, please visit Columbia University Libraries webpage on Open Access Publishing Agreements.
OA initiatives include:
- Opportunities to publish OA for no fee or at a discount through publisher agreements. For a list of OA publishing agreements for Columbia affiliates, see the webpage from Columbia University Libraries: https://library.columbia.edu/research-teaching/open-scholarship/libraries-publishing/open-access-publishing.html#:~:text=The%20Columbia%20Libraries%20have%20a,the%20bottom%20of%20the%20page.
- Guidance on navigating publisher agreements and understanding rights. This helps authors retain more control over their work and ensure it can be openly shared.
- Support for depositing scholarly works in institutional repositories. Columbia's institutional repository, Academic Commons, serves as a platform for archiving and disseminating research.
- Information on open access journals and publishing models. The Libraries provide resources to help authors identify reputable OA journals and understand different OA pathways (e.g., green, gold).
- Advocacy for open access policies. The Libraries champion policies that encourage or mandate open access within the university and beyond.
Article Processing Charges
APCs, or Article Processing Charges, are fees that authors (or their institutions or funders) sometimes pay to publish their research in academic journals.
- Shift in Cost: Traditionally, readers or libraries paid subscription fees to access scholarly articles. With the rise of Open Access (OA) publishing, where articles are freely available to anyone online, some journals shifted the cost from the reader to the author.
- Funding Open Access: APCs are a primary way that many "Gold Open Access" journals fund their operations. This includes covering costs like managing the peer-review process, editing, typesetting, online hosting, and archiving.
- Hybrid Journals: Some traditional subscription journals also offer an "Open Access" option for individual articles, which often involves paying an APC to make that specific article freely available, even if the rest of the journal remains behind a paywall. These are called "hybrid" journals.
- Varying Costs: APCs can vary significantly, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, depending on the journal's prestige, subject area, and publisher.
- Who Pays: While the author is "charged," the payment often comes from their university, a research grant, or a funding agency. Some publishers also offer waivers or discounts for authors from certain countries or with financial hardship.
Gottesman Libraries and Columbia Libraries do not offer funding to individual authors for open access journal Article Processing Charges (APCs).