Waterloo researchers save $4.68 million in open access fees
Every October, universities and organizations around the world celebrate Open Access Week (OAW), a time to reflect on the current state of open access and explore the benefits of increasing open access across academic research.
How Waterloo researchers are benefiting
At the University of Waterloo, the Libraries are part of a national consortium working to expand access to research. Through this consortium, the Libraries have participated in agreements with publishers that provide coverage of article processing charges (APCs) for open access publishing as well as access to paywalled journal articles.
These agreements help support more open access publishing by eliminating or reducing the cost barrier to publication for researchers. All members of the University -- faculty, post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff -- are eligible for APC coverage.
The Libraries have entered into 15 agreements since 2021 that provide full fee coverage for nearly 5800 journals. Thanks to these agreements, Waterloo researchers across faculties have saved a total of $4.68 million CAD in APC costs to publish 970 papers.
Figure 1. APC costs covered or discounted through the Libraries’ agreements, 2021 – 2024.
How to use APC discounts for your next paper
To find out if a journal is covered under a library open access agreement, start by using the Support for Open Access Search Tool. This tool allows researchers to search the list of journals covered or discounted through the Libraries’ agreements.
Figure 2: An example of a result in the Journal Search Tool. The check-mark symbol with Library underneath indicates that APCs are covered in that journal for the duration of the agreement.
If a journal’s APC is covered, researchers should use their UWaterloo email address for their submission. This ensures the publisher applies the appropriate discount automatically.
For more information, visit the Libraries’ Open Access Pub FAQ webpage. It includes details about how these agreements work, when open access publishing is required and how to choose the right kind of open access license (e.g. Creative Commons license). Questions can be directed to your liaison librarian or emailed to copyright@uwaterloo.ca.