Open Access

Publishing Open Access

Publishing your research in open access journals or monographs is a great way to increase the visibility of your work and to preserve it for future use and discovery.

Open access publications are made freely available for readers, charging no subscription fees to users or institutions. To cover publication costs, open access publishers sometimes charge author publication fees, or APCs, or receive subsidies, endowments, or sponsorships from institutions, governments, or philanthropic organizations. 

USC Support and Memberships

The following support is available to current USC Columbia faculty, staff, and students.

• ACM: Corresponding authors may publish in eligible ACM publications at no cost. Corresponding authors are identified by ACM through their email address and are given the opportunity to choose open access and select a license at the point of acceptance. 
  • Download the author workflow PDF at the bottom of the box for more information. 
• ACS: USC authors are eligible for a discount when publishing open access in many ACS journals through the ACS AuthorChoice Program.
  • When submitting your manuscript, be sure the primary affiliation in your Paragon Plus profile reflects that of your institutional affiliation. The affiliation discount will be automatically applied to your open access order. If the discount does not automatically apply, please enter the institutional name in the "Apply Discounts" screen during the open access ordering process to redeem the discount.
• Annual Reviews Science Collection: If the Annual Reviews Subscribe to Open model is successful (see Annual Reviews S20 Page for more information), articles will be published open access under a Creative Commons license at no cost. No action needs to be taken by USC researchers.
• Berghahn Books: USC Libraries is a participant in the Berghahn Open Anthro subscribe-to-open initiative, which provides open access to 13 core anthropology journals published by Berghahn Books. 
• Company of Biologists: Corresponding USC Columbia authors can publish research articles at no cost in hybrid and fully open access journals in the following journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open. Please visit the Company of Biologists’ Guide for Authors for step-by-step instructions.
• De Gruyter: USC Columbia affiliated teaching and research staff and students enrolled at the time of acceptance are eligible for APC coverage in De Gruyter hybrid, subscribe to open, and pure open access titles. Research articles, review articles, rapid communications, and case reports are included. Authors should follow the instructions from De Gruyter to ensure coverage.  
• IOP: Corresponding USC authors are eligible to publish open access without article publication charges in the majority of IOP Publishing journals.
  • When entering your author information, ensure your affiliation is clearly stated on the submission form. IOP will automatically identify eligible authors. You will be contacted by IOP notifying you that your article will be made open access unless you choose to opt out. During the review process or after your article has been accepted, you will be asked to sign an open access copyright form to publish under a CC BY license. Visit IOP for full details. 
• MDPI: The library is a member of the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program. 
  • The University of South Carolina’s Institutional Open Access Membership entitles USC authors to a 10% discount on the publication of all accepted articles. When submitting, authors will be prompted to select their institute to obtain the discount. If an institutional email is used, authors will be pre-selected for the discount. 
• Sage: USC Columbia authenticated users may publish hybrid open access in any Sage Premier journal. Upon acceptance, you will be contacted by email and given the choice to publish open access and will have 14 days to choose open or traditional access. Learn more from Sage or view the workflow attachment below. 
• Springer Nature: Current USC Columbia corresponding authors can publish articles in hybrid journals across the Springer Nature portfolio at no cost.* Please make sure to use your institutional email address. 
  • Visit Springer Nature for full eligibility details as well as workflows, guides, and information on submission. *There are a limited number of articles covered by this initiative each calendar year and publication coverage is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. 
• Wiley: Corresponding USC authors can publish accepted articles open access (OA) in Wiley's hybrid journals or Wiley or Hindawi fully open access journals at no cost.*
  • Visit Wiley Author Services for full eligibility details as well as workflows, guides, and information on submission. *There are a limited number of articles covered by this initiative each calendar year and publication coverage is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. 

Finding an Open Access Publication

It's important to select an open access publication that is the right fit for you both academically and financially. We recommend the use of these tools to locate an open access publisher for your works.

Author Rights

You retain the copyright to your work until you assign it to someone else. You are granted a bundle of exclusive rights: to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, and modify your original work.

Frequently, authors sign agreements with publishers without realizing what rights they are giving up. It is up to you to decide whether you will surrender all of your rights, some of them, or none of them to a publisher. If you would like to use your work in any of the following ways, you should consider negotiating with your publisher before you sign your agreement. If you would like to:

• Copy your articles for distribution in class
• Post your work on your personal website
• Distribute copies to your colleagues
• Reuse portions or all of the work in future publications or
• Add your research to your institutional repository

You can investigate securing these Author Rights.