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100% APC Waiver Soothes OA Publishing Pangs

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an author in possession of a high-quality research, must be in want of higher visibility and impact for their work.


Austen fans may be able to spot the opening line of Pride and Prejudice which we have appropriated here to catch your attention, and we hope it worked!


Authors expend tremendous amounts of time and energy into research, and naturally want their work to have greater visibility and ultimately impact. One way of achieving this is to publish Open Access (OA). Making the work widely available helps to increase visibility.


The APC (Article Processing Charge) imposed by publishers for OA articles can be a disincentive for some authors.


That's why we're excited about the new agreement between Cambridge University Press (CUP) and the Singapore Alliance of University Libraries (that NIE Library is a part of) which waives the APC for NIE authors when they choose to publish in CUP’s Green and/or Gold OA journals.


How is this even possible, you ask?


Effective since 1 January 2023, this "transformative agreement", also known as the "Read and Publish" agreement, covers all NIE authors who publish OA articles with CUP.


Misconceptions Regarding Open Access Publishing


Besides the APC, authors may understandably still have a few misgivings about publishing in OA. So here we hope to lay to rest some doubts that researchers may have:


OA at CUP is free because it accepts and publishes low quality articles.


All OA article submissions to CUP go through the same peer review and publication process as non-OA submissions. Here is a workflow to give you an idea of what to expect when publishing OA at CUP.


I will have to give up all my copyright, right?


OA articles in CUP’s fully Gold OA and hybrid journals are published under Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Author(s) retain the original copyright to their work while enabling readers to freely access and re-distribute the article.


This is going to be a bait-and-switch where I will be asked to pay somehow!


Unfortunately, there are many less reputable publications (so called ‘predatory journals’) that will request for payment for publication. However, we can assure you that after peer review and acceptance of your OA journal article at CUP, your APC will be waived.


There must be a limit on how many papers can be submitted for OA publishing...


There is no limit on the number of articles that can be submitted for authors affiliated with NIE.

There are just a few things to take note of for your articles to be eligible for OA publishing at CUP:

  • Article must include a corresponding author affiliated with NIE.

  • Your research must be original. The article can be one of the following types - research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports and case reports.

  • Your research must be accepted for publication in one of the CUP journals covered by the transformative agreement

You can view the complete list of CUP journals covered by the agreement by clicking here. Select ‘Singapore’ and ‘National Institute of Education (NIE)’ to retrieve the full list of journals.


Access to Entire CUP Journal Collection


As part of the agreement, NIE now has access to CUP's full journal collection. Previously, NIE's access to CUP's journals was limited to titles in the Humanities & Social Sciences collection.


NIE users can now enjoy access to over 420 peer-reviewed academic journals that offer unique, scholarly content published by CUP covering subjects across the humanities, social sciences, science, technology, medicine, and many more. Take a look at all the journal titles here.


So if you find a CUP journal which is also a great fit for your next amazing article, you may want to consider submitting it for OA publishing.


Additional Note:


Thank you for your support and interest in no-cost OA publishing with CUP. We have received questions and comments from colleagues, and want to provide more context and clarification on a few points.


At this time, this transformative agreement is available with CUP only. Nevertheless, the Singapore Alliance of University Libraries is actively working towards negotiating similar transformative agreements with other publishers. Rest assured that you will hear from us again as soon as discounted or no-cost OA publishing is available to the NIE community for other publishers.


We hope that this additional information is helpful and answers any questions you may have had. We appreciate your interest in our article and welcome any further comments or questions you may have.

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