York University Libraries (YUL) has launched SciFree, a new search tool that identifies open access journals with discounted publishing fees to help York researchers share their work with the world.
Over the last several decades, the open access (OA) journal movement has seen global institutions push to make scholarly research accessible to everyone - without paywalls or subscription fees.
While this has helped remove costs for readers, fees remain for those looking to publish. Two common OA journal publishing models, Gold OA and Hybrid OA, require authors to pay publishing fees known as article processing charges (APCs). Paying these fees makes research articles freely available to everyone once the article is published; however, the fees can be a barrier for authors wanting to publish OA.
Teresa Lee
YUL has worked hard to reduce the impact of APCs on York faculty, students and staff. "The Libraries currently provide York-affiliated researchers with APC discounts or waivers for almost 10,000 Gold and Hybrid open access journals through our negotiated agreements with specific publishers," says Teresa Lee, associate dean, research and open scholarship, York University Libraries.
With a great many journals, however, YUL identified a pain point for authors: how to learn about APC waivers or discounts for the OA journals they'd like to publish in. YUL does provide information about APC discounts and waivers through their Investments in Open Access webpage, but wanted to go a step further.
YUL implemented the SciFree tool to save York researchers' time by making it possible to search by journal title, keyword or ISSN to easily locate a list of Gold or Hybrid OA journals with YUL APC discounts and waivers. Search results provide the amount of APC discount, the journal's open license options like Creative Commons Attribution and more.
The result is that SciFree helps authors make informed decisions when submitting a manuscript to an OA journal. "SciFree will make it easier for York researchers from all disciplines to find this information and support the York community in publishing open access," says Lee.
York researchers can access SciFree either through a search widget embedded on the Libraries' Investments in Open Access webpage, or by bookmarking the SciFree search tool.
Questions about OA publishing or the Libraries' APC discounts or waivers can be sent to opendeposit@yorku.ca.
This story was originally featured in YFile, York University's community newsletter.
