Starting in January 2024, Duke authors will have even more opportunities to publish open access without paying a fee. Duke University Libraries is pleased to announce that we have entered publication agreements with the Association for Computing Machinery and the Royal Society of Chemistry. These augment existing agreements with PLOS, Cambridge University Press, and others. The Libraries’ seek to increase the reach of Duke scholarship and to lower barriers for Duke authors to make their work freely available, and publication agreements are one tactic in pursuit of this goal.

While the Association for Computing Machinery has offered some author fee (APC)-based open access publishing options for the last decade, they have recently embarked on a more accelerated transition to become a completely open access publisher by 2026, which we fully support. Under their ACM OPEN model, publications with Duke corresponding authors will be published openly without any cost to the authors, supported by Duke University Libraries sponsorship. This applies to ACM journals, conference proceedings, and magazines, and eligible authors are identified by their institutional email address. Authors affiliated with Duke professional schools and with Duke Kunshan University are included.

The Royal Society of Chemistry intends to continue to be a hybrid publisher in the near future, publishing both paywalled and open access content. Through this new arrangement with Duke University Libraries, Duke researchers will continue to have subscription access to read RSC publications, as well as now being able to publish open access with RSC without having to pay article charges. The publication benefit applies to Duke corresponding authors publishing in “hybrid” RSC journals (all RSC journals except for their “gold” OA journals). As with ACM, authors will be identified by institutional email address and the program is inclusive of the professional schools and DKU.

Duke University Libraries have for many years been strong supporters of making high quality research available to broader audiences, helping to put knowledge in the service of society. While there are benefits to these kinds of publication agreements, they may also perpetuate inequities in the scholarly publishing system. As the Libraries have expressed in the past, we do not want to rely on the APC (article processing charge) model long-term and are committed to continuing to work with peer institutions, funding agencies, scholarly societies, and publishers to develop alternative models that present fewer cost barriers to readers and authors.

Regardless of where they publish, Duke authors can also make their individual articles openly available at no cost via the library’s DukeSpace open access repository and their Scholars@Duke profile, through the open access policy adopted by Duke’s Academic Council in 2010. More information about how to make your publications available this way can be found here: https://guides.library.duke.edu/dukespace 

If you have any questions or encounter any problems using these publisher programs, please reach out at open-access@duke.edu.

Duke University Libraries, in collaboration with the Duke Medical Center Library, is pleased to announce our new partnership with the Open Access publisher PLOS (formerly known as the Public Library of Science), a non-profit scientific publisher that has led the way in establishing high quality journals that anyone can read without a subscription. Duke University Libraries has been a leader in advancing access to scholarship and supporting the University’s commitment to knowledge in the service of society, and has been working with innovative publishers like PLOS to develop models that provide equitable access to both readers and authors. While typically authors publishing with PLOS are expected to pay a fee in order to make their articles openly available, through this new agreement, Duke authors will be able to publish in all twelve PLOS journals at no cost to themselves.

Duke authors have averaged nearly 200 publications a year in PLOS journals over the last five years. For the next two years, authors will no longer have to cover PLOS publishing costs from their own funds. The cost of this arrangement represents a major investment from the libraries, but it should result in savings for the university overall, as it will help many individual authors avoid having to pay fees separately, and make it possible for many more authors to publish open access without having to budget for it themselves.

Details for authors

This agreement covers manuscripts accepted during 2023 and 2024 with corresponding authors affiliated with Duke University, Duke University Medical Center, Duke University Health System, and Duke Kunshan University. For six of the twelve PLOS journals, there is a benefit if any contributing author is affiliated with Duke, not only the corresponding author. Eligible authors will be identified by the institutional affiliation entered in the PLOS manuscript submission system. Additional details can be found on this FAQ page.

Investing in the future of scholarly publishing

The PLOS partnership is one example of Duke University Libraries’ commitment to invest in a sustainable future for scholarly publishing that aligns with our institutional values and mission. PLOS has been an innovator in Open Access publishing since its founding in 2001. In 2020 they debuted new business models, developed with library partners, that seek to move beyond article processing charges (APCs), address equity issues, and expand access for authors. Supporting this new direction will benefit Duke authors in the short term by easing the cost to publish and in the long term by helping publishers develop in productive ways.

We look forward to assessing the impact of this program, and to collaborating with PLOS and the academic library community on strategic next steps for support of Open Access publishing.