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ACS Is Open the first month of 2015, we’ve seen excellent uptake of ACS Author Rewards. ACS AuthorChoice offers authors an easy and cost-effective route to open access in any ACS journal. Starting last year, authors or their funding sponsors who elect this fee-based option were able to select from an expanded menu of licensing options to enable the final published article to be openly discoverable and available to readers worldwide, both from the ACS Website and other institutional repositories of the author’s choosing. ACS AuthorChoice was updated to allow authors to choose between immediate or 12-month delayed open access of the final published article (the Version of Record), depending on their preference and funder requirements. ACS AuthorChoice options provide progressive discounts based on membership in the ACS and institutional subscriber affiliation. Authors may elect to fund publication under the terms of three licenses: ACS AuthorChoice, a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, or a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND) license. Usage of articles published under an ACS AuthorChoice license (including all articles purchased into open access by authors or their funders in ACS journals, articles selected for ACS Editors’ Choice, and all ACS Central Science content) is not included in usage metrics used by ACS for pricing institutional subscriptions. Recognizing the need for streamlined and automated processes that assist authors in making open access purchases, last July, ACS released an eCommerce solution that accepts payments made by credit card and by purchase order. The solution, powered by the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service, allows authors to receive automatic discounts based on their membership status and their institutional affiliation. Articles are automatically made open access when payment is processed. Authors may also make previously published articles open access through a new dedicated app in ACS ChemWorx called ACS AuthorChoice. This app allows an author to enter a DOI query and receive a link to the eCommerce environment where they may place their order. Authors who participate in ACS AuthorChoice benefit from the security and convenience of the new ACS Certified Deposit program. Under this program, ACS manages the required deposit of the final published article to funder, institutional, or governmental repositories as directed by the author and will maintain records to certify compliance with such mandates. ACS has also taken a leadership role with the crosspublisher/federal agency CHORUS initiative. CHORUS is a suite of services and best practices that provides a sustainable solution for agencies and publishers to deliver public access to published articles reporting on funded research in the United States. It leverages widely used technology to facilitate a simple compliance process, optimized search and dashboard services, and multiparty archiving and preservation capabilities. Built on
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ver the last year, the ACS Publications Division has been working on a far-reaching expansion of our open access publishing options, including a major new open access journal, ACS Central Science, more licensing choices for authors, and a stimulus program to support authors who select ACS journals when seeking to publish their work open access. We see this expansion as a response to the ongoing evolution of global scientific communication. Under the overall leadership of Kevin Davies, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development and Publisher, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), we have added four major components to the Society’s portfolio of open access options. They are as follows: ACS Central Science: a highly selective, peer-reviewed journal that will report the most important advances in chemistry and in allied fields where chemical approaches play a major role. The journal will also feature news stories and interviews by the C&EN team, First Reactions (news and views) written by scientists in the field, and Outlooks, forward-looking reviews that help place the growth in fields in context. As the first fully open access journal in the society’s history, the full text of all of its articles will be freely available to the public immediately with no charges to authors or readers. In September of last year, internationally renowned scientist Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., was appointed by the ACS Board of Directors as the founding editor of this journal and has already assembled an international editorial team from a broad range of disciplines. The journal opened for submissions in December, and we anticipate publishing our first online issue in Spring 2015. ACS Editors’ Choice: a unique program highlighting content from across all ACS journals. First launched in January of last year, ACS Editors’ Choice provides free access to new research of broad public interest to the world. Each day of the year, ACS Editors’ Choice features an article selected by a panel of ACS editors that exemplifies the Society’s commitment to improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Sponsored by ACS, the articles are made open and will remain open for all to access and read. ACS Editors’ Choice articles originate from across the breadth of ACS journals and are authored by leading scientists all over the globe. The first year of this program showcased outstanding content from 45 journals, over 250 institutions, and 29 countries. ACS Author Rewards acknowledges that research communities may require time to fund and transition to new open access publishing models. ACS Author Rewards is an ACSsponsored $60 million direct-to-author, open access stimulus program. Through this program, the corresponding author of every ACS peer-reviewed article published during 2014 received two $750 ACS Author Rewards, for a total value per article of $1500. ACS Author Rewards can be used toward the purchase of any open access option between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2017. Purchases can be on newly published content or previously published content. A new easy-to-use app was released in ACS ChemWorx and is freely available so that authors may view their ACS Author Rewards and easily track rewards earned, rewards available, and rewards redeemed. In © 2015 American Chemical Society
Published: April 2, 2015 1229
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b00322 J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 1229−1230
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
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proven infrastructure, CHORUS operates at no cost to the government, academic institutions, and taxpayers and minimizes costs to publishers, overheads for funders, and administrative burden for authors. CHORUS provides a sustainable, scalable path to public access, addressing the priorities of researchers, funders, publishers, and academic institutions and libraries alike, and ACS is pleased to take a leading role in this initiative. The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation recognize CHORUS in their public access plans.
Our open access initiatives are designed to help the community achieve new scientific breakthroughs and practical applications that improve people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry. At ACS, what do we see happening in the next few years in the open access environment? • Continued growth in the amount of open access content, both in hybrid journals (where some content is subscription access and other content is open access) and fully open access journals. As open access policies from funders and government agencies around the globe continue to emerge and develop, ACS is well-positioned to meet the needs of our authors. • Increased funder monitoring of compliance with their open access policies. ACS’s efforts, through CHORUS, ACS Certified Deposit, and our own internal data collection, will help authors demonstrate compliance. • Open data policies. ACS will be closely looking at ways in which we might be able to help authors meet these requirements. • Continuous improvements that make it easier for authors to choose and implement open access options. In keeping with our mission of service as a scientific membership society, our open access initiatives are designed to help the community achieve new scientific breakthroughs and practical applications that improve people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry. “ACS is Open” means our doors are open and we are ready to meet our authors’ needs.
Darla P. Henderson, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Open Access Programs
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Publications Division, American Chemical Society, Washington, District of Columbia 20036, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b00322 J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 1229−1230
