American Chemical Society Offers ACS AuthorChoice Open Access Option
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The American Chemical Society’s Publications Division now offers an important publishing option in support of the Society’s journal authors who wish or need to sponsor open access to their published research articles. The ACS AuthorChoice option, first launched in October 2006, provides a fee-based mechanism for individual authors or their research funding agencies to sponsor the open availability of their articles on the Web at the time of online publication. Under this policy, the ACS as copyright holder enables unrestricted Web access to a contributing author’s publication from the Society’s website, in exchange for a fixed payment from the sponsoring author. ACS AuthorChoice also enables such authors to post electronic copies of published articles on their own personal websites and institutional repositories for non-commercial scholarly purposes.
The base fee for the ACS AuthorChoice option is set at $3,000 through 2007, with significant discounts applied for contributing authors who are members of the American Chemical Society and/or who are affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution. The fee structure is as follows:
$3,000: Base Fee (authors who are neither ACS members nor affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)
$2,000: Affiliated Subscriber (non-ACS members affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)
$1,500: ACS Member (ACS members not affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)
$1,000: ACS Member and Affiliated Subscriber (ACS members affiliated with an ACS subscribing institution)
The ACS AuthorChoice option is extended to authors only after peer-review and editorial acceptance of their articles for publication, so as to ensure complete separation between scientific editorial decision-making and economic considerations. Upon an author’s payment to sponsor the ACS AuthorChoice option, the ACS will make the article freely available upon Web publication.
The ACS AuthorChoice option complements the ACS Articles on Request policy, whereby the Society currently provides (free of charge) to all contributing authors a unique URL within the ACS website, that they may e-mail to colleagues or post on external websites. Those author-directed links are designed to facilitate distribution of an author’s published work to interested colleagues. The ACS Articles on Request policy now allows 50 limited downloads within the first year, and unlimited access via the same author-directed links 12 months after publication. At a paying author’s choosing, the ACS AuthorChoice option will sponsor immediate open access to an article as soon as it is published on the ACS website.
Brian Crawford, Senior Vice President within the ACS Publications Division, said, “The new ACS AuthorChoice option underscores the American Chemical Society’s willingness to experiment with innovative models to broaden access to highly-valued peer-reviewed research in chemistry, while adhering to the highest standards of editorial integrity, quality, and service in support of the research activities of the international scientific community. We are pleased that our editors, authors, readers, and library customers support the Society’s growing array of publishing activities designed to broaden access and enhance the scholarly communication process worldwide.”
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than 158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. The Society publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. The ACS Publications Division currently publishes 35 leading peer-reviewed journals in the chemical and related sciences, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, as well as Chemical & Engineering News, the Society's weekly news magazine.
View published ACS AuthorChoice Articles.
ACS AuthorChoice Open Access Participation
To select the ACS AuthorChoice option to make your article freely available on the Web, either contact Publications Support Services at (800) 227-5558 (ext. 4376) or fax a completed ACS AuthorChoice form [321K PDF] to (202) 776-8240.
Media Contact:
Michael Bernstein
ACS Communications
(202) 872-4400
m_bernstein@acs.org
Customer Contact:
Adam Chesler
ACS Customer Relations
(202) 872-6183
a_chesler@acs.org
