As of January 2024, Milner Library has nine active open access publishing agreements with scholarly journal publishers, and another agreement with a prominent society publisher of chemistry journals is in the works. Existing agreements with Annual Reviews, Cambridge University Press, Company of Biologists, and Taylor & Francis continue and are supplemented by new agreements with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), IOP (Institute of Physics), Microbiology Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Sage Publications. The terms of all agreements vary, but each one allows university authors to publish their work open access at no cost to them. Charges other than the author article processing charge (APC) may still apply. Please refer to individual journal submission guidelines. 

  • ACM: all Illinois State corresponding authors will have their research articles published open access in ACM journals, conference proceedings, and magazines, in perpetuity at the time of publication at no cost to the authors. 
  • IOP: Articles accepted beginning January 1, 2024, are eligible for transformative agreement funding. This enables Illinois State corresponding authors to publish research papers, special issues, and letter and review article types open access with no cost to themselves.
  • Microbiology Society: Corresponding authors at Illinois State are entitled to unlimited, free open access publishing, and full read access at no cost. 
  • Royal Society of Chemistry: unlimited open access publishing in all hybrid journals at no cost to Illinois State corresponding authors  
  • Sage Publications: Unlimited open access publishing for Illinois State corresponding authors in one of more than 900 hybrid journals at no cost to authors.  

Articles published open access through these agreements are also deposited in ISU ReD, the institutional repository. The collection of open access articles supported through these agreements grew considerably in 2023, and it is our hope that 2024 will see even more Illinois State-authored research reaching worldwide audiences and having great impact through open access scholarship.  

At up to $12,000 per article, open access publishing is cost-prohibitive for many scholars. Milner Library is working to remove cost and administrative barriers to open access publishing for scholars across disciplines. Dr. Dan Lannin, associate professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences indicated, “I normally don’t consider publishing open access because of the fees associated with them, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Milner’s open-access agreements. We ended up publishing open access for a recent article, and the process went smoothly.” 

“It was very exciting to get our recent article in Journal of Applied School Psychology made available via a transformational open access publishing agreement,” said Dr. Luke T. Russell, associate professor of Human Development and Family Science in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. “Especially when conducting applied work like this, the ultimate goal is to get the information properly vetted and to professionals quickly so that it can make a real difference in the life of youth and families. Paywalls often inhibit the spread of evidence-based practices. Having our article published open access reduces what can often be a huge barrier to such translational work and I’m extremely appreciative of Milner Library’s initiative in working to change the dynamics between ISU and academic publishers.” 

In addition to these open access agreements, Milner also recently negotiated agreements with Emerald Journals and Oxford University Press that allow readers to access the entire journal portfolios of those publishers. Milner Library’s Scholarly Communication Team is happy to speak with you, address any questions, and learn more about your publishing goals. Contact us at isured@IllinoisState.edu. Additional scholarly communication articles are available for those interested in more information.