Open Access Agreements

Article Processing Charges (APC) & Open Access Publication Support

Traditionally, university libraries subscribe to journals with a subscription fee to the journal publisher so that university researchers and students can access journal content that would otherwise be behind a paywall. Open Access (OA) publishing allows anyone to access and re-use the journal content subject to license agreements at no cost. To make an article OA, authors usually need to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to the publisher. As part of UT System, UTA has been part of several so-called “Transformative Agreements” for open access publishing, wherein funds used for subscription are partially allocated for paying the APC on behalf of authors of the university. More recently, there are different solutions moving away from the Transformative Agreement model. UTA is participating in several such pilot programs to help move the needle towards more equitable open access scholarly publishing.

Our partners include those below. Each agreement is different so please refer to the specific details below.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Transformative Agreement

UTA Libraries has negotiated a transformative open access agreement with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) that covers publication for all journals, conference proceedings, and magazines of the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. Refer to these links for the ACM journals, conference proceedings and magazines which are included in the agreement.

UTA-affiliated corresponding authors who publish with ACM retain copyright and publish open access (via CC BY license) at no cost to the author. ACM will also make deposits into institutional repositories for all co-authors from UTA. Read more about ACM OPEN (ACM's Transformative Model for Open Access Publication) and UTA’s commitment. UTA faculty, students, and staff continue to receive unlimited and unrestricted access to all content in the ACM Digital Library.

Submissions made prior to the agreement between January 1, 2021 and March 23, 2021 are eligible. Authors who submitted prior to implementation of the workflow may have their APC returned. Authors who do not wish to publish open access may opt out and publish.

Author Process

  1. Ensure you have used UTA affiliation, address, and email for your account registration with the journal. Please note that you must use your UTA email address to be routed to the ACM Open program.
  2. You receive a link to the ACM Open Author eRights platform in an email from the journal editor upon acceptance of your manuscript for publication, as a result of your UTA affiliation.
  3. Make a choice regarding the ACM Open program:
    • To select the ACM Open for UTA authors, simply retain the default selection, which will be labeled: Institutionally paid Open Access with Author Retaining Copyright and all rights to their work. 
    • To select closed-access publication, select one of the other two options. You will be provided with one of ACM’s two traditional publication agreements and will follow a standard ACM workflow process to complete one of those agreements.  With this option, your article will be available only for subscribers to the ACM Digital Library.
  4. Upon selection of the ACM Open, you are asked to select their choice of Creative Commons (CC) license.

Following submission of your eRights form, you will receive an email confirmation of the acceptance of the form along with a copy for your record.

Cambridge University Press (CUP) Read & Publish Agreement

The Cambridge University Press (CUP) has published 44 full Gold OA journals and more than 330 hybrid journals that offer an OA option, covering subjects across the humanities, social sciences and science, technology and medicine. The journal list is available at the Cambridge Journals webpage. The UT System and CUP hold a “Read & Publish” agreement, providing system-wide institutional access to all Cambridge University Press journals and offsetting the costs of open access publishing of articles authored by University of Texas scholars.

UTA faculty members who publish through this agreement will retain their author rights. UTA Libraries will archive articles published through this agreement in its institutional repository,

Author Process

  1. Go to the journal webpage, click on the [Submit your article] button. Log in or create an account if you do not have one yet. Make sure you have used UTA affiliation, address, and email for your account registration.
  2. If the article is accepted for publication, you will receive an acceptance email. If your article is accepted by a hybrid journal with an OA option, please choose the [Gold Open Access] for the preferred access type.
  3. After the publishing agreement is signed off, the corresponding author will receive an email from the Publisher's Rightslink system and be requested to pay the APC. After registering and logging into Rightslink, you will see a “funding options” section. Choose the [Seek Funding from the University of Texas at Arlington] option.
  4. Upon receiving your response, the Publisher will check whether the OA article is eligible for APC waiver based on the corresponding author’s institution information. Please ensure you have used the UTA affiliation, address, and email for the manuscript submission. 

See further details on the CUP agreement and a recording of the Read & Publish Author Training webinar by the CUP. 

Institute of Physics (IOP) Read & Publish Agreement

The University of Texas System Libraries have completed a Read & Publish agreement for the term of January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2025. The agreement includes funding for affiliated authors to publish open access in eligible journals within List A, B, and D. Research paper, special issue, letter, and review article types are covered.

Eligible Authors:

All corresponding authors who are current staff members, researchers (permanent, temporary and/or visiting), or students at UTA, can publish open access at no cost to themselves. The corresponding author is the author who submits the manuscript and is responsible for communicating with the journal during the submission, peer review and publication process.

Author Process:

Follow the step-by-step guide provided by IOP for submitting under a transformative agreement. Authors will be asked to sign an open access copyright form to publish under a CC BY license.

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD)

JAFSCD is a fully open access journal published through Cornell University. UTA Libraries is a Library Shareholder participant for JAFSCD, allowing affiliated authors to have their accepted APC automatically waived 100%. Authors retain copyright and articles are under a CC BY 4.0 license. 

Royal Society of London Read & Publish Agreement

Starting January 2024, UTA corresponding authors will have the option to have their accepted article published open access with the article processing charge fully waived for titles within Package B. Open Access Articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY.  

Eligibility includes current members of the faculty, students, and staff at UTA, serving as corresponding author with authority to act on behalf of all co-authors in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript including supplementary material. 

Package B journals covered with APC waiver: 

  • Biology Letters 
  • Interface Focus 
  • Journal of the Royal Society Interface 
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society B 
  • Open Biology 
  • Royal Society Open Science 

Refer to the Royal Society of London website for more information for authors. 

SAGE Read & Publish Agreement

SAGE has an agreement with the University of Texas System to publish articles open access through 2025.

  • Subscription journals: Corresponding authors publishing an article in 900+ subscription journals (the 2023 SAGE Premier Package) which offer hybrid open access publishing (SAGE Choice) can be published open access, free of charge.

Gold open access journals: Corresponding authors publishing an article in a gold open access journal can also be published free of charge (refer to the gold journal title list).

Author Process

Authors will select open access via an email correspondence with SAGE and complete the process in the SAGE Open Access Portal. For gold open access journals, the 100% gold discount will be applied automatically in the SAGE Open Access Portal. UTA Libraries will receive a report of open access elections and support any authors with questions. .

The corresponding author must be affiliated with UTA for their article to qualify for the article processing charge (APC) discount.

Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics

Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics converts subscription journals focused on high-energy physics to open access through re-direction of subscription funds. UT Arlington is part of a pilot program for one journal: Physics Letters. 

American Chemical Society (ACS) All Publications Package through UT System

This agreement for open access publishing in the participating American Chemical Society journals offers a variable pricing/APC discount model for subscribing institutions, with additional discounts for authors who are members of ACS. UTA authors who are non-members receive a $250 discount. UTA authors who are members receive a $750 discount.

Elsevier Open Access Pilot with Texas Libraries Coalition for United Action (TLCUA)

The agreement between Elsevier and the TLCUA includes a discount on Article Processing Charges for UTA authors publishing in MOST Elsevier journals (not including Cell Press, Lancet, and some society journals). Authors publishing in Elsevier Gold Open Access journals will receive a 10% discount and authors publishing in Hybrid Open Access journals will receive a 15% discount.

Author Process

  1. Ensure you have used UTA affiliation, address, and email for your account registration with the journal.
  2. Upon acceptance by the journal, you will receive an email allowing you to choose the Open Access option (as opposed to the Subscription option wherein your article will be behind a paywall).
  3. When you accept Open Access, you will see the cost and discount. UTA Libraries staff will receive a notification and approve your request.

Then, you can move forward with paying the remaining fee with grant funds, seeking funding to support the remainder of the APC, or pay out of pocket.

Diamond open access moves the needle even more than gold open access because it entails no fees to the author or the reader. The Libraries’ subscriptions to the following publishers helps them flip their publications to open access within a given copyright year if they receive enough commitments.

MIT Press Direct to Open ebooks

Browse the books that are relevant to this agreement here. Learn more about MIT Press Direct to Open here.

Annual Reviews journals

Browse Annual Reviews here. Learn more about Annual Reviews Subscribe to Open here.

SAGE Subscribe to Open Pilot

The following journals are part of the SAGE pilot program. Learn more about SAGE Subscribe to Open here.

Open Book Publishers

UTA Libraries supports Open Book Publishers, a rare example of non-traditional academic book publishing. OBP is a non-profit, independent open access academic press that is actually led by scholars. Authors who publish with OBP do not pay processing charges and retain their full copyright. 

UTA Libraries' support of OBP ensures that all members of the UTA community have access to all digital editions of OBP books free of charge. Paper copies can be purchased at discounts as well. Our support also ensures that OBP can offer peer-reviewed open access book publishing options to scholars, including all scholars at UTA, without any charges. Refer to the OBP Information for New Authors page for details.