Skip to Main Content

Waidner-Spahr Library

Copyright & Scholarly Communication: Open Access Publishing

Open Access Basics

Open access (OA) refers to the ability to freely access a scholarly article from anywhere in the world, without the need for a journal subscription or payment by the reader. OA materials are hosted in various places including: institutional, disciplinary and government repositories; pre-print archives; non-profit and for-profit journals that are either entirely OA or hybrid (some articles OA, others behind a paywall). Open access is not an indication of information quality; OA is fully compatible with peer-review, high quality editing and publishing.

Open Access variations See "Open Access colours: green, gold, diamond, hybrid and more" for brief explanations of each.

Mandates exist from some governmental and other entities that require results of research they fund to be published open access.

OA Funding & Fee Waivers for Dickinson Authors

Open Access (OA) Fee Waivers or No Fee ("Read & Publish" Agreements, S2O, memberships funded by Waidner-Spahr Library)

The DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) can help you identify open access journals and the fees they charge BEFORE you submit to a specific journal; there are many OA journals that do not have OA author fees. The library subscriptions to the journal publisher packages listed below include waivers of open access publication fees for most types of articles.  A Dickinson faculty/staff member must be the corresponding/submitting author (please use your Dickinson email address when submitting your article), and the article must be accepted through the journal's established peer-review and editorial process. You should be prompted during the online submission process to confirm that you wish to publish OA and claim your fee waiver, or in some cases this will be offered to you in your notification of acceptance.  
The "S2O" journals are those which charge no open access fees or fees to readers, and instead are funded by collective library subscription or support fees, including those paid by the Waidner-Spahr Library.
Changes to this list will be made to reflect new and discontinued agreements.  The DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) can help you identify open access journals and the fees they charge BEFORE you submit to a specific journal.  

Questions?  Contact Theresa Arndt, Assoc. Dean for Collections and Discovery (arndtt@dickinson.edu).

  • American Chemical Society journals (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2028)
  • American Indian Culture and Research Journal (AICRJ) (S2O)
  • American Journal of Physiology (AJP) Titles -  Through 2026, assuming enough libraries continue to subscribe, there will be no OA author fees for these titles our library subscribes to: the 7 titles in the 'consolidated' package, plus Journal of Applied Physiology. Advances in Physiology Education is also free-to-read and free to publish.  FAQ.
  • American Society for Microbiology - starting in 2025 for the 6 (six) primary research journals only. No OA fees for Dickinson authors, 25% discount on page charges (if author also a personal ASM member, page charge discount is 50%), other publication fees may still apply.  More details on publisher website.
  • Annual Reviews - those journals currently on the "Subscribe to Open" eligibility list have no OA fees for any authors, funded by multiple libraries' collective ongoing subscription payments.
  • Arab Studies Quarterly, Pluto Journals (S2O)
  • BioOne (S2O pilot beginning Jan. 2026) - Our library is an ongoing BioOne subscriber. BioOne will enable conditional OA without author fees for at least 71 titles from 54 publishers (a subset of the 219 BioOne titles). 'Conditional' means articles will be made OA at the end of the year, if the subscriber-base threshhold is met. FAQ: https://bioonepublishing.org/our-work/subscribe-to-open/
  • Berghahn Open Society journals (S2O) - our library directly supports "French Politics Culture & Society" and "Historical Reflections" Berghahn Open Society details
  • Cambridge University Press journals (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2028).  Use the CUP waivers and discount tools for details and eligible journals list. (Through Lyrasis library consortia.)
  • Company of Biologists - 5 journal package (OA fees waived only from Spring 2023 - through Dec. 2025) See details at: https://www.biologists.com/read-publish/guide-for-authors/
  • Demography, Duke University Press (S2O)- The library is a Subscribe to Open (S2O) Community Partner. Corresponding authors who are affiliated with S2O subscribing institutions are guaranteed to be open access in perpetuity.
  • Eudora Welty Review (Project MUSE, U of Penn Press) (S2O)
  • Institute of Physics (IOP) journals, eligible Journals List A, B and D (for manuscripts accepted 1/1/2023 through 12/31/2025).  Dickinson is part of the Lyrasis consortia deal; details and eligible titles are at https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/researchers-from-the-united-states/
  • liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies liquid blackness (S2O)
  • Nouvelles Etudes Francophones (Project MUSE, U of Nebraska Press) (S2O)
  • Open Library of Humanities (OLH) (S2O) - Hosts over 30 peer-reviewed, fully open access academic journals. Follow links to specific journals to submit or read articles.
  • PLOS (Public Library of Science), all journals - No open access fees for Dickinson corresponding authors during 2025 and 2026.  Simply indicate your affiliation and use your Dickinson email address during the submission process.  See list of journals at: https://plos.org/your-journal-options/
  • Springer and Nature "academic" journals (2024-2027) See details for authors including list of eligible journals at: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/oa-agreements/lyrasis
  • Zeitschrift fuer Kunstgeschichte (De Gruyter) (S2O)