Skip to Main Content

Open Educational Resources: Messiah-Specific Open Publishing

Open educational and open source resources

What are Read and Publish or Open Publishing Agreements?

Open Publishing, Read and Publish Agreements, Open Access Publishing.... Although they may have a number of different names, these agreements allow authors at Messiah University to publish barrier-free, Open Access (OA) articles in specific journals. In the past, publishers have charged authors a fee to publish OA Articles to cover the money that the publisher lost by not being able to sell a subscription. (This is different than predatory journals who require authors to pay a fee in order to be published and whose journals still charge subscriptions to readers.) Now, those publishers are working with libraries to reduce the costs and allow authors to publish at no cost to them. 

Ask a Question about Open Access!

Five Librarian headshots with Ask a Librarian logo

Research Help:

Email: library@messiah.edu

Murray Librarians can:

  • Determine your information needs
  • Plan a research strategy
  • Find information
  • Evaluate information
  • Identify credible and scholarly sources
  • Cite and manage information
  • Ethically use information

Murray Library Circulation Desk:

Phone: (717) 691-6006, ext. 3860

Email: CirculationDesk@messiah.edu

Contact for help with accessing your account, renewing, returns, and fines/fees.

American Chemical Society

Messiah University has an open publishing agreement with the American Chemical Society (ACS) via the PALCI Consortium. Faculty can publish open access articles in more than 60 ACS Hybrid/Transformative Journals, as well as JACS Au, ACS Au, and ACS Omega at no cost. 

All manuscripts are published using the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which means that faculty will retain copyright to their works. 

The five steps for publishing open access via this agreement are on the agreement website along with additional details. The basic steps are:

  1. Submit your article to the ACS journal of your choice, making sure you are the submitting corresponding author.
  2. Ensure your institution affiliation (Messiah University) is correct on your profile in the ACS Publishing Center.
  3. Check that your affiliation is stated in the body of the manuscript as the corresponding author’s affiliation.
  4. When your manuscript has been accepted for publication, you will be automatically prompted with the option to publish open access under your institution’s agreement. Note: Authors publishing in a gold (fully open access) journal will not be required to complete this step. Confirm that “Yes, I wish to publish open access as per the agreement” is checked, and complete the Journal Publishing Agreement
  5. Your institution will be alerted to your open access funding request. If the request is approved, your article will be made immediately available as open access upon publication under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. There are no charges to pay and no further action required by either you or your institution.

The video below shows you how to navigate the Journal Publishing Agreement assistant and publish your research open access under Messiah's institutional open access agreement with ACS via PALCI.

Elsevier ScienceDirect

Messiah has a Read and Publish Agreement with Elsevier through Lyrasis.

The cost of publishing open access is covered under the terms of this agreement. When publishing open access in hybrid journals, eligible corresponding authors from participating Lyrasis institutions do not have to pay an article publishing charge (APC).

The basic steps of the process are:

  • Step 1 – Once the journal accepts your article, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post acceptance author journey”.

  • Step 2 – You will be asked to review your affiliation and funder details. Based on this information, you will see personalised publishing options including the option to publish under the agreement.

  • Step 3 – You will confirm your publishing choices and complete the post acceptance journey.

  • Step 4 – Your institution will validate your eligibility for the agreement.

  • Step 5 – You and your co-authors will receive an email to confirm that the APC will be covered by the agreement. Please note that the number of APCs included under the agreement is fixed and will be allocated based on date of acceptance.

Many journals across a variety of subjects are eligible and there are many article types accepted including:

  • Case reports

  • Data in Briefs

  • Full-length articles

  • Micro-articles

  • Original software publication

  • Practice guidelines

  • Protocols

  • Review articles

  • Replication studies

  • Short communications

  • Short surveys

  • Video articles

With this agreement, authors have a choice between a commercial (CC BY) or non-commercial (CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY-NC) license. The license choice is dependent on the journal selected.

View the following video and slides see how to publish under this agreement:

Springer Nature Group

Messiah University has an Open Publishing agreement with Springer Nature via Lyrasis. The cost of publishing open access is covered under the terms of this agreement. When publishing open access in hybrid journals, eligible corresponding authors from participating Lyrasis institutions do not have to pay an article publishing charge (APC).

Many journals are included in the agreement. Their author guide reviews the steps authors can take to publish their articles open access at no cost to them. 

FAQs

What is Open Access Publishing?

Open access (OA) is a way to publish that makes content freely available to read with no subscription or access fees, as well as licensing the work to allow for reuse.

What types of Open Access Publishing are there?

There are many types of open access journals, and they fall into different publishing models:

  • Gold—the publisher makes articles fully accessible on the journal website under a Creative Commons or similar license. An APC is usually paid by the author (or other funder).
  • Hybrid – a subscription journal where the publisher allows authors to pay to make individual articles open access. Differs from a Gold OA journal because a library (or other subscriber) is still paying for a subscription to the journal, so the publisher is effectively paid twice for the article, once via subscription, and once via the APC to make the article OA.
  • Diamond/Platinum - journals that publish OA but do not charge APCs. Institutions, advertising, philanthropy, etc, fund these. 
  • Bronze journals—those that are free to read online but do not have a license—are not generally available for reuse.
  • Green – refers to self-archiving generally of the pre- or post-print of articles in repositories.

Though green open access generally refers to the post-print of an article, three basic version types are described in archiving policies:

  • Pre-Prints – The author's copy of the article before it’s been reviewed by the publisher, or pre-reviewed
  • Post-Prints – The author's copy of the article after it has been reviewed and corrected, but before the publisher has formatted it for publication, or post-reviewed.
  • Publisher’s Version – The version that is formatted and appears in print or online.

If authors have signed a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA), the publisher's policy will determine which version of an article can be archived in a repository. Most publishers allow some green open access. Authors can check their CTA for this information. JISC Open policy finder is a database of publisher copyright policies and self-archiving information that authors can use to check which version they may be allowed to archive. Not all journals are in the Open Policy Finder, so authors may need to check the publisher's website.

Why Should I Publish Open Access Articles? Is it still copyrighted?

By publishing your articles as Open Access (OA), you will give more people access to your work, especially those who do not have the means to pay for a subscription. OA content is still copyrighted, and you retain the same rights as you would with a traditional journal publication. 

More questions?

Contact your liaison librarian or library@messiah.edu first. If we can't answer your questions, we will connect you with someone who can.