by Chuck Sanders and Selene Colon
The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have successfully negotiated a series of open access agreements with major scientific publishers that expand the number of journals available to Vanderbilt University researchers and enhance the potential reach and impact of their published work. The initiative—led by University Librarian Jon Shaw, Chief Digital Strategist Andrew Wesolek, and Director for Collection Strategy Julie Glascock—covers some or all of the article processing charges that Vanderbilt corresponding authors were previously responsible for paying.
Vanderbilt and VUMC corresponding authors do not have to take any special action to request coverage of fees other than using their Vanderbilt or VUMC email address when submitting for review and selecting Vanderbilt University as their institutional affiliation. Once an article is accepted by one of the participating publishers, their online system will match it with the Vanderbilt agreement and automatically apply the fee waiver.
Vanderbilt’s open-access initiative is active and ongoing, and the portfolio of participating journals will continue to grow. Please note that not all journals from a given publisher are covered by these agreements. For instance, while Vanderbilt has an agreement with Springer Nature, the Nature journals are not yet covered. Publisher page or color fees continue to be the responsibility of the author. Additionally, some publisher agreements have an annual article quota based on past Vanderbilt publishing history. If this quota is exceeded, the corresponding author will be responsible for the payment of APCs .
Before submitting a manuscript for publication, please review the full list of Vanderbilt’s existing open-access agreements with participating publishers and check back often as this list will continue to evolve. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact one of Heard Libraries’ subject librarians.