A new agreement with Sage Publications affords Illinois State University scholars twofold benefits—unlimited reading and publishing. Beginning in 2021, Milner Library has pursued agreements with scholarly publishers that allow anyone affiliated with the University not only to read the articles in the publisher’s journals, but also to make their articles open access at no cost to the authors.
Open access publication allows university authors to reach worldwide readers and increase the impact of their research. Articles published open access through these agreements are deposited in ISU ReD, the institutional repository, and the number of open access articles supported through these agreements has grown considerably over the past few years.
According to Dr. Caleb Carr, professor in the School of Communication, “Science works best when we all share and can build on the ideas of others.” Carr notes that Milner Library’s open access agreements directly impact research conducted at Illinois State in two ways: by allowing members of the University community to directly access scholarship published by major publishing houses and making the research of university scholars more widely-read and -accessible. “A recent article authored by two graduate scholars in the School of Communication is now freely available to anyone, meaning the work of these former Redbirds isn’t behind a paywall and can help increase the visibility of their work. Being able to access and share scholarship is critical to the spirit and reality of conducting cutting-edge research, and making research at Illinois State more readable and globally-shared benefits everyone.”
The agreement with Sage Publications provides online access to all Sage subscription journals (from 1999, where available, to the present). The increase in Sage journals now available to the Illinois State University community is substantial—from 215 to 971. These journals are already available for readers to explore and will soon be integrated into library search platforms.
The agreement, which is effective January 2024, also allows university corresponding authors to publish their articles open access in any Sage hybrid journal at no cost to them. Importantly, the peer-review and publication processes are not altered in any way by this agreement. At the point of acceptance, an Illinois State corresponding author will receive this notification:
Sage Publishing has an arrangement with Milner Library, Illinois State University. The arrangement waives open access article processing charge (APC) for authors publishing in this Sage journal. Accordingly, you will not be charged to publish your work open access in this journal.
If you have any questions about this agreement or about Milner Library’s support for open access publishing and university authors, please reach out to isured@IllinoisState.edu.
