Publishing OA publications is not without cost. The publisher provides the funding and often charges a fee. There are various options available to the author at CTU for funding OA publication fees. For example, tokens for OA publishing, which some publishers provide.
Article Processing Charges (APCs) can range from hundreds to thousands of Euros/US Dollars, often depending on the field and prestige of the publisher. These are the costs of publishing, peer review, etc. The author can always find out about APCs on the publisher/journal’s website.
- Institutions may have set up a fund to cover the fees for publishing in open access journals or APCs are an allowable project cost for most grant agencies (for the duration of the project).
- Very often OA journals are published by universities, professional societies, academies of science or other institutions that fund the publication of the journal from their budget. In this case, the authors are not paid for publishing, everything is free. This is called Diamond (Platinum) Open Access.
- There is also a funding model where the institution pays a fee (e.g. annual) and the authors from that institution then pay a lower fee to publish the articles or can publish in Open Access mode completely free of charge. An example of this is the SCOAP3 project.
- Publishers can also provide discounts in the form of Subscription Tokens Read and Publish offers.
Discounts for OA publishing at CTU
The transformative agreements
The transformative agreement (TA) is the term for agreements negotiated between institutions (libraries, national consortia) and publishers where part of the journal subscription costs are transferred to support Open Access publishing. As a result, there is no combination of two subscription payments (publish fee and read fee) as in previous standard agreements, but one central price is negotiated.
The CzechElib Consortium, of which the CTU Central Library is a member, has negotiated 6 transformative agreements for us with the following publishers: IoP, SAGE, ACM Open, AIP, Springer and Wiley. Under theses transformative agreements, publishing authors can draw the so-callled tokens that entitle them to a discount or complete waiver of fees for Open Access publishing. Outside of the CzechElib Consortium is a transformative agreement with ASME Publishing, which is paid for entirely from the library budget and allows authors unlimited publishing.
Rules:
The corresponding author is from Czech Technical University (CTU affiliation listed, plus institutional email for proper identification). Token allocation operates on a “first come, first served” basis, subject to token availability. A token can only be requested once the article is accepted by the publisher. Tokens cannot be reserved in advance. The option for open access publishing for the corresponding author at CTU is available only in hybrid journals and until the allocated tokens are exhausted.
Allocated tokens:
- IoP – unlimited
- SAGE – possibility for the corresponding author to publish in hybrid journals (Sage Open) from the CTU subscription collection (SAGE STM Package) for a fee of 200 GBP or 20% discount on APC for Gold OA journals
- ACM Open – unlimited
- AIP – 12 tokens (Tokens can only be used for journals that are subscribed to within the consortium.)
- Springer – 32 tokens – 13 exhausted; as of 15. 4. 2025 (Allocation of tokens for APC payment is approved by the library in the Article Approval Service/Springer. This open publishing option for the corresponding CTU author is valid until the tokens are exhausted.)
- Wiley – 22 tokens – 2 exhausted; as of 15. 4. 2025 (Allocation of tokens for APC payment is approved by the library in Wiley Author Services. This open publishing option for CTU authors is valid until the tokens are exhausted.)
ACTUAL TOKEN COUNTS ARE IN PROGRESS.
Other (outside CzechElib):
ASME – unlimited publishing
Guidelines for publishing authors:
- Instructions for authors – CzechElib (individual publishers)
- IoP: Instructions for authors
- ACM Open: Instructions for authors
- AIP: Instructions for authors
- Springer: Instructions for authors
- Wiley: Instructions for authors
Retrieved from: https://repozitar.techlib.cz/record/1607/files/Priprava_vyjednavani_transformacnich_smluv_prechod_OA.pdf
SCOAP3 – Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics
Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics A consortium of libraries and key research institutions in the field of particle physics, operating under the auspices of CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is working with major publishers to:
- Key journals in the field of High-Energy Physics are available in Open Access (OA) mode,
- contributing authors do not have to pay publication charges (APCs),
- key textbooks and monographs in particle physics and adjacent fields were also converted to OA.
How it works
The author publishes in a standard way in selected journals, the fees resulting from his/her publishing activities are covered by the SCOAP³ collective fund, to which CTU also contributes. The articles are published according to open access principles and under the [CC-BY] licensing scheme(http://www.creativecommons.cz/licence-cc/varianty-licence/) . Full texts (publisher-final versions of articles) are also deposited and made available in the SCOAP3 repository .
SCOAP3 journals (2025-2027)
Journal titles open to CTU authors without fees and their publishers:
- Acta Physica Polonica (Jagiellonian University)
- Advances in High Energy Physics (Hindawi)
- Chinese Physics C (IOP Publishing / CAS – Chinese Academy of Sciences)
- European Physical Journal C (Springer/SIF – Italian Physical Society)
- Journal of High Energy Physics (Springer/SISSA – International School for Advanced Studies)
- Nuclear Physics B (Elsevier)
- Physics Letters B (Elsevier)
- Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Oxford University Press / JPS – Physical Society of Japan)
- Physical Review C (American Physical Society)
- Physical Review D (American Physical Society)
- Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society)
The journals with descriptions can be found on the SCOAP3 project website .
SCOAP3 Project for Books
CTU is one of the partner institutions and has financially supported the conversion of selected relevant books to open access.
In May 2021, 102 of the most useful titles were selected for conversion to OA. The list of titles that are already accessible is directly on the SCOAP3 website. The list will continue to grow as more e-books are added.
The National Library of Technology is the national contact point for the Czech Republic, for more information about SCOAP3 for Books.