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Scholarly Communication & Publishing: Transformative Agreements

Information concerning Open Access, copyright, predatory publishers, impact factors, altmetrics, author rights, public access policy and data management plans.

Transformative Agreements

What is a Transformative Agreement? 

A transformative agreement is a contract that tries to shift the payment from a library (or group of libraries) to a publisher. In a nutshell, transformative agreements are a shift away from pay to read (subscription cost) toward pay to publish (article processing charge). In some cases, transformative agreements are a way for publishers to transition their traditional subscription journals to fully open access. 

Principles of transformative agreements usually include items related to copyright ownership and transparency:  

  • Copyright tends to be retained by the author and not transferred to the publisher. Many times, the publisher will require that the author(s) apply a Creative Commons license to the published article. 
  • Transparency is a characteristic of a transformative agreement and such agreements are typically made publicly available. 

Transformative agreements are usually described as "Read and Publish" or "Publish and Read". 

A Read and Publish agreement is where a publisher receives payment for reading and payment for publishing bundled into the same contract. This bundling brings payment for publishing into a contractual arrangement rather than being addressed by each individual author who is choosing to publish open access. These agreements redirect funds previously spent on a subscription cost to a publishing cost. 

A Publish and Read agreement is an agreement in which the publisher receives payment only for publishing, and reading is included for no additional cost. 

Additional information about Transformative Agreements can be found here: https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/

USD University Libraries and Transformative Agreements

USD Libraries' Participation in Open Access Publishing is Guided by the Following Values: 

  •  Supporting open access to scholarly communications, including peer-reviewed articles. 
  •  Mitigating the costs associated with scholarly publishing for USD faculty, researchers, and graduate students.
  •  Fostering faculty and student ownership of copyright of Open Access articles.
  •  Increasing the value of the University Libraries’ investment of university funds in journal subscriptions.

The University Libraries has opted into Read & Publish agreements with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), Cambridge University Press (CUP), IOP Science, and Springer Nature. The University Libraries also participates in SCOAP3, which advances open access publishing in the field of High-Energy Physics.

  • Regarding the Read & Publishing agreements noted above, consortiums or cooperative purchasing endeavors to which the University Libraries participate, negotiated the agreement on behalf of participating libraries. 
  • The University Libraries already subscribed to journals published by ACM, CUP, IOP, and Springer Nature, and opting into the Read & Publish agreement was at a nominal cost to the University Libraries and, in some cases, either reduced subscription (read) costs or increased the number of journals accessible to USD faculty, students, and staff. 
  • Participation in the Read & Publish agreements open up the opportunity for USD faculty and researchers to publish in eligible, scholarly journals without paying the Article Processing Charge (APC). The cost of the APC is covered by the consortium. 

USD Libraries continues to evaluate Read & Publish agreement opportunities and opt in when the opportunities align with the above values, can be accomplished at nominal costs and thus be sustained, and leverage the power of consortiums and cooperative purchasing among libraries. 

USD Libraries Agreements

USD Libraries has agreements (transformative or similar) that reduce or eliminate author fees with the following publishers/journals. 

For more information regarding transformative or similar agreements, please contact David Alexander david.alexander@usd.edu 

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