New agreement to facilitate open access publishing

Written by  Karen Templeton

open access 492UAB Libraries signed a transformative “Read & Publish” agreement with Cambridge University Press and also will add approximately 350 new journal titles to the existing Cambridge journals collection.

“The agreement offers an opportunity to facilitate Open Access (OA) publishing for authors affiliated with UAB by removing the article processing charges to publish their work — at no charge — in Cambridge Open Access and hybrid journals,” said UAB Libraries Dean Kasia Gonnerman.

Open Access (OA) publishing comes with many advantages: it removes access barriers for the research community and beyond, and it also gives the authors more exposure and a wider reach. Seventy-five percent of OA articles get more citations than their non-OA equivalents, receiving on average 30-50% more citations. Authors may choose to publish under a Creative Commons license that specifies how readers may use their articles. OA using a Creative Commons license also means that readers are often allowed to redistribute, re-use and adapt the content in new works in accordance with the license terms — as long as the original source is acknowledged and cited.

“The agreement is a great opportunity for UAB faculty,” Gonnerman said. “We hope that UAB authors will take full advantage of the services.”

Interested authors may review details of the agreement online and email Jeff Graveline, associate dean for Research and Scholarly Communication at the UAB Libraries, for guidance.

Graveline also has been working to launch UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication, which will help UAB faculty, staff and students navigate and understand scholarly communication principles including copyright, long-term preservation of digital assets, data management, research dissemination, scholarly impact and public access.