IOP Read and Publish Agreement

Participating Big Ten Academic Alliance libraries have reached a transformative, three-year Read and Publish Agreement with the Institute of Physics (IOP), a further step in collective action toward the Big Collection. This agreement begins on January 1, 2023, and runs through December 31, 2025.

Journal Access

This agreement extends BTAA’s access to the IOPscience extra journal collection for three years. Participating libraries’ access to IOP journals will not change. 

Open Access Publishing Opportunities

This agreement supports unlimited Open Access publishing in eligible IOP journals, including 58 hybrid journals representing almost all of IOP and society partners’ hybrid titles and 18 fully open access journals. Eligible corresponding authors from participating institutions* may publish OA in these journals at no cost to themselves. There is no limit to the number of articles that can be published OA under this agreement. To qualify for no-cost OA publication, the article must be accepted in an eligible IOP journal between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025 and have a corresponding author from one of the participating institutions.

To have their articles published at no cost to themselves under the terms of this agreement, responsible corresponding authors must identify themselves as BTAA institutional affiliates and use their institutional email addresses as part of the IOP publishing workflow.

*Participating Institutions:

●      University of Illinois     

●      Indiana University     

●      University of Iowa     

●      University of Maryland     

●      University of Michigan     

●      Michigan State University     

●      University of Minnesota     

●      University of Nebraska-Lincoln     

●      Northwestern University  

●      Pennsylvania State University       

●      Purdue University     

●      Rutgers University   

●      University of Wisconsin-Madison 

●      University of Chicago

FAQ

Is there any limit on the number of articles that may be published Open Access under this agreement?

No, there is no limit to the number of articles that may be published OA under this agreement.

Which journals published by IOP and its partner societies are eligible for no-cost OA publication under this agreement?

Eligible journals can be found on the IOP website.

The agreement with IOP allows for original research and review articles to be published as open access in all journals that participate in IOP's transformative agreements, including most of its fully open access and hybrid open access journals.

A small number of journals attach additional charges including, but not limited to, page charges. These remain the responsibility of the authors.

Are there any journals published by IOP and its partner societies that are not eligible for no-cost OA publication under this agreement?

Yes, there are a small number of journals published by IOP that are not covered by this agreement because they do not participate in IOP’s OA publishing agreements. These include the American Astronomical Society (AAS) journals, some society titles that do not allow open access publishing, fully OA journals that do not charge OA fees, and translated and conference titles.

I’m a corresponding author at a participating institution. What do I need to do to publish Open Access at no cost to me under this agreement?

When you submit your article to IOP for publication, you will need to use your institutional email address and indicate your institutional affiliation as part of the IOP publishing workflow. IOP’s workflow enables automatic identification of eligible articles based on the responsible corresponding author’s given affiliation. Authors are contacted during the article review process and informed that, if accepted, their article will be published on an open access basis under the terms of this agreement, with the option to opt out.

When an article is accepted by a journal, the responsible corresponding author will sign an OA author publishing agreement and select a Creative Commons license that determines how readers can use the article.

Is my article eligible?

Eligible publications have a corresponding author from a participating BTAA institution, are primary research articles (including research papers, special issue articles, letters, and review articles), and are accepted for publication in an eligible IOP journal between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2025. 

Is there anything more I need to do if my work is made Open Access through this agreement?

It depends!  If you or any of your co-authors have funding from the US federal government or one of many other funders, you may have a requirement to share your article in a specific location.  Please ensure you follow your funder's requirements to avoid jeopardizing future funding.

I’d like to publish in a journal not covered by this agreement. Why is that journal asking me to pay to make my work open access? Can the library pay my APC for that journal?

Many variables go into negotiating publishing agreements, including whether publishers are willing to negotiate such an agreement, what publishers are willing to include, and who negotiates the agreement—some are negotiated on a consortial level, and others are locally negotiated.

BTAA negotiated this agreement with IOP as part of the Big Collection initiative. BTAA or your library might still have a different agreement with the publisher of the journal of your choice.  Check out BTAA’s Open Scholarship Agreements, and contact your library for information about agreements your library may have negotiated outside of BTAA.