Open Access Publishing Deals

IU Indianapolis authors (including the IU School of Medicine) have access to a growing number of for-fee open access publishing discounts and deals. Sometimes these opportunities reflect agreements made by the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) on behalf of Indiana University. Currently, the IU Indy libraries (Ruth Lilly Medical Library, Ruth Lilly Law Library, IU School of Dentistry Library, and University Library) have not purchased OA publishing memberships or “transformative” publishing deals independent of the BTAA.

The following discounts and deals are available to IU Indianapolis authors:

PLOS

Indiana University corresponding authors are eligible to publish with no author fees (also known as Article Processing Charges or APCs) in seven PLOS journals from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025 under agreements negotiated by the Big Ten Academic Alliance with PLOS. The covered journals are:

  • PLOS ONE
  • PLOS Complex Systems
  • PLOS Computational Biology
  • PLOS Digital Health
  • PLOS Genetics
  • PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
  • PLOS Pathogens

Eligible dates & Expiry

The current agreements expire December 31, 2025. Indiana University corresponding authors with articles accepted in all PLOS journals between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025 are eligible to benefit from this agreement. To qualify for no-cost OA publication, the article must be accepted between January 1, 2025 and 31 December 2025 and have a responsible corresponding author from Indiana University.

The time from submission to acceptance varies from journal to journal, but for PLOS One, in 2024, it was 185 days. Please bear the expiry date of December 31, 2025 in mind when submitting your work.

Note: Special issues and "Collections" are not covered under this agreement with PLOS.

BTAA Wiley

  • Journals covered: Wiley’s Hybrid journals (subscription journals that offer OA options) and Wiley's fully OA journals
  • Eligible articles: primary research articles, review articles
  • Level of support: Full fee.

The Company of Biologists' Read & Publish License

  • Eligibility: IU Indianapolis affiliated corresponding authors.
  • Five journals covered: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, Biology Open.

MDPI Institutional Open Access Program

  • Journals covered: all MDPI journals (e.g., Cancers, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Sensors, Nutrients, Genes, …)
  • Level of support: In an agreement made with University Library, MDPI (a fully open access publisher) provides all IU Indy authors with a 10% discount.

Please note, publishers often confuse IU Bloomington with the larger system of Indiana University. Agreements made on behalf of IUB faculty are not available to IU Indy faculty unless listed above.

Other Paths to Open Access

Open access publishing does not always depend on publishing fees. In fact, most open access journals are subsidized by universities and scholarly societies with no fees levied on authors or readers. Nearly 70% of the more than 17,000 journals in a broad range of disciplines indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) charge no fees to authors.

If you can not find a suitable, no-fee journal in the DOAJ, the IU Indianapolis Open Access policy gives you the rights to make the accepted manuscript of any article that you (co)authored while employed as a faculty member at IU Indy openly accessible in the institutional repository, IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks. The IU Indy Open Access policy applies to all scholarly articles authored by IU Indy faculty since 2015 and does not require the payment of article processing charges.

However, if the journal that best suits your article is a for-fee, open access journal that is indexed in the DOAJ, and you do not have access to funds to cover the fee, before pulling the submission, you might try the following:

  • Ask the publisher for a fee waiver or discount.
  • Ask your scholarly society if they have membership programs or related discounts with the publisher.
  • Consult with your coauthors to see if their schools or universities have access to funds or other deals to support the cost of publication.