Open access is the practice of sharing scholarly research outputs (articles, reports, data, etc.) freely online without paywall barriers. Making Duke research open access supports the university’s mission of “knowledge in the service of society” by allowing anyone with an internet connection to access groundbreaking scholarship by Duke’s researchers. Openness expands the reach of our community’s discoveries and supports an equitable access to knowledge, enabling our students, faculty, and other researchers to read current scholarship as well as to promote the overall accessibility of scholarship in the greater publishing ecosystem.

The Duke University Libraries supports open access publishing in a number of ways, one of which is investing in open initiatives, programs, and publishing projects that allow Duke authors to publish their scholarship and freely access others’.

The following is a list of projects and open publishing venues the Libraries contribute to, which may be suitable for your publications.

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Discounted/Waived Article Processing Charges (APCs) in Scholarly Journals

Some open access scholarly journals operate on a model of charging authors article processing fees upon acceptance. In order to reduce barriers to publishing in these journals, Duke Libraries has made agreements to waive or discount these fees for our authors.

 

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)

As part of its accelerated transition to full open access by 2026, this agreement with ACM allowed Duke corresponding authors to be published in ACM open journals, conference proceedings, and magazines at no cost.

Who at Duke is eligible?

Corresponding authors affiliated with Duke University, the professional schools at Duke, and Duke Kunshan University (DKU).

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

When submitting an article, a Duke author must be the corresponding author. They will be identified by their Duke email address. Please use your Duke email when submitting.

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Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

Through this arrangement Duke researchers will have subscription access to read RSC publications and to publish open access with RSC hybrid and “gold” OA journals without having to pay article charges.

Who at Duke is eligible?

Corresponding authors affiliated with Duke University, the professional schools at Duke, and Duke Kunshan University (DKU).

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

When submitting an article, a Duke author must be the corresponding author. They will be identified through RSC’s system by their Duke email address. Please use your Duke email when submitting.

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PLOS

This agreement with non-profit, fully open access publisher PLOS covers the article processing costs of manuscripts accepted during 2023 and 2024.

How do Duke authors benefit?

Publishing an article in a PLOS journal costs $0 for Duke authors and increases the reach and impact of their scholarship by publishing openly.

Who at Duke is eligible?

Authors affiliated with Duke University, Duke University Medical Center, Duke University Health System, and Duke Kunshan University. Some journals require Duke authors to be corresponding to be eligible. [See the table below for details.]

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

You can submit your manuscript to eligible PLOS journals as you would have before the agreement. If you use your duke.edu email address as the email of record, PLOS should recognize your affiliation and waive the fee. If you meet the criteria below and are still invoiced, please contact open-access@duke.edu.

Each model of funding in the agreement covers different journals. Below are the models, journals, and eligible authors:

Model 1: Community Action Publishing

Eligible journals: PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation

Authors included: corresponding and contributing

Model 2: Flat Fees

Eligible journals: PLOS ONE, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Mental Health, PLOS Complex Systems

Authors included: Corresponding only

Model 3: Global Equity

Eligible journals: PLOS Water, PLOS Climate, PLOS Global Public Health

Authors included: Corresponding and contributing

[For more details and description of the PLOS deal, please read the Duke Libraries blog post.]

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Cambridge University Press Read & Publish

This agreement allows Duke researchers to access subscription-based CUP journals and also to publish their own scholarship in all CUP fully open access or hybrid open access journals at no charge. This agreement began in January 2022.

How do Duke authors benefit?

Publishing an article openly in a CUP journal costs $0 for Duke authors and increases the reach and impact of their scholarship by publishing openly.

Who at Duke is eligible?

Authors (faculty, researchers, and students) affiliated with Duke University, including School of Medicine, Fuqua School of Business, School of Law, Divinity School, and other academic programs; authors affiliated with Duke Kunshan University.

Who at Duke is not eligible?

Authors affiliated with the hospital and health system who do not also have a University or professional school appointment.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

When your manuscript is accepted by a CUP journal, you will sign a publication agreement in which you can select the open access option. If the journal is fully open access, RightsLink will send your article agreement directly to Duke Libraries for approval. If the journal is hybrid open access, then make sure to select “Gold Open Access.” (See the instructions from CUP.) Library staff approves articles quickly, ensuring timely publication of your work.

The corresponding author of the article must be affiliated with Duke, providing a Duke email address as contact.

For more details and description of the Cambridge University Press deal, please read the Duke Libraries blog post.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Duke scholars can share their research openly, which furthers the exchange of knowledge in the service of society, making more scholarship open on a larger scale. Other universities in this program contribute their scholarship openly as well.

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Open Access Books and Scholarly Monographs

Historically, the open access movement has been journal article-focused. These projects strive to make scholarly monographs in book-based disciplines openly available.

 

MIT Direct to Open (D2O)

MIT Press is piloting this program to open access to all new monographs from 2022 forward via recurring participation fees from libraries. It also gives digital access to the entire MIT backlist and archives.

How does the Duke community benefit?

We will have access to the entire MIT monograph catalog and we are supporting their efforts to make all monographs fully open going forward. Duke will have free access to those future books in perpetuity.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

Patrons can access back list MIT monographs through the Libraries catalog and fully open monographs on the internet broadly—generally from MIT Press’s website.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Monographs have generally been limited to physical volumes in libraries historically, but with open, electronic versions, these books can reach a wider audience. Our support of the MIT D2O initiative will encourage a transition to sharing scholarship openly.

 

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Open Book Publishers

A UK-based scholarly publisher of monographs in print and digital format, with purchasable volumes as well as fully open ebook editions of their titles.

How does the Duke community benefit?

The Duke Libraries supports Open Book Publishers to provide free ebook downloads as well as discounted prices on physical copies of monographs.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

Visit their website and find their books in the Libraries catalog. You can submit your monographs to them as you would any other scholarly book publisher.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Monographs have generally been limited to physical volumes in libraries historically, but with open, electronic versions, these books can reach a wider audience. Our support of Open Book Publishers will encourage a transition to sharing scholarship openly.

 

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punctum books

A publisher of open access books “devoted to academic and para-academic authors working in any field in the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and architecture & design who want to publish books that are genre-queer and genre-bending and which take experimental risks with the forms and styles of intellectual writing.”

How does the Duke community benefit?

Our support of punctum books allows all authors published with them to have their books made fully open access. This can be Duke authors’ books or books by others that Duke researchers wish to read.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

punctum operates like any other academic publisher: submission, peer review, and publication. Work with the publisher directly to submit your manuscript and explore their website for their already-published titles.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Monographs have generally been limited to physical volumes in libraries historically, but with open, electronic versions, these books can reach a wider audience. Our support of the punctum books initiative will encourage a transition to sharing scholarship openly.

 

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University of Michigan Press Fund to Mission Open Access Monographs

UMP’s transitional model to making all of their monographs fully open access, starting in 2021. The goal is to make 75% of the press’s monographs open by the end of 2023. This includes the backfile as well as new books. Duke Libraries’ support of the initiative is meant to promote sustainable, open infrastructures for sharing humanities and social sciences scholarship.

How does the Duke community benefit?

We now have access to the open backfile of UMP monographs as well as current ebooks. 

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

These titles are in the Libraries catalog and also available from the UMP website for download. If you wish you publish with UMP, your monograph will be a part of this program.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Monographs have generally been limited to physical volumes in libraries historically, but with open, electronic versions, these books can reach a wider audience. Our support of the Fund to Mission initiative will encourage a transition to sharing scholarship openly.

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Scholarly Journals

Below is a list of peer-reviewed scholarly journals Duke Libraries supports in their mission to publish scholarly openly.

• Subscribe to Open (S2O) Journals
• SCOAP3
• Open Library of the Humanities
• OpenEdition Journals

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Publishing Initiatives & Platforms

As the scholarly publishing ecosystem evolves, various open initiatives outside of journals and monographs have developed. These can be tools to support scholarship, collaborative efforts to reform publishing, resources beyond periodicals and books, and more.

 

arXiv.org

arXiv is an open access archive repository of pre-prints of scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Pre-prints are pre-peer review manuscripts shared for open comment, as is common practice in these disciplines.

How do Duke authors benefit?

Any researcher can make their pre-prints available openly in arXiv. It provides early access to hundreds of thousands of scholarly articles (before publication) for hundreds of thousands of authors nationally and internationally. Duke authors can share their work and read others’.

Who at Duke is eligible?

Anyone. Our support of arXiv is not institution-specific. We invested in the platform itself for all submitting authors.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

Create an account and use the arXiv platform to submit your work.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Scholarly publishing is a slow process and sharing pre-prints can expedite the exchange of knowledge. Our support of arXiv is to further discovery at a faster pace and encourage the practice of making pre-prints open when some of the final journal articles will be behind paywalls.

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Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

An independent index of high-quality open access scholarly journals in all disciplines and languages. There are basic quality assessment criteria for journals to be included in DOAJ. It is supported by libraries and publishers.

How does the Duke community benefit?

Duke authors can vet open journals upon considering submission of articles to them.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

DOAJ has a searchable and browseable interface for pursuing journal titles in their index. It is free to use.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

DOAJ’s mission is to promote the use and proliferation of quality open access journals. Vetting them ensures that there is quality control in a field that can include more predatory or undesirable publication practices.

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LIBRARIA

A collective action group of researchers based in the social sciences who collaborate with librarians, publishers, and other stakeholders to develop a “more open, diverse, community-controlled scholarly communication system.” It is considered a consulting and advocacy organization for openness in scholarly publishing.

How does the Duke community benefit?

A more open scholarly ecosystem fosters knowledge exchange and the advancement of research. Duke’s investment in LIBRARIA is part of its mission to make scholarship more accessible overall.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

You can contact LIBRARIA’s experts for help with advocacy or advice on openness in scholarship, from “flipping” journals to open, investigating openness in your scholarly society, and working with libraries to support your open efforts.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

Openness benefits all, furthering human knowledge. The more organizations collaborate and exchange expertise, the more connected we’ll be with this mission.

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PhilPapers

A comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers. The largest open access archive of scholarship in philosophy. Features are free to use, but Duke Libraries uses our means to invest in advanced research features for our community and to support the effort to make philosophy materials open.

How do Duke authors benefit?

Access to advanced research features and download capabilities for PhilPapers interface.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

Direct access on the Duke network or NetID authentication will allow access to advanced features. All other features are free for anyone.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

PhilPapers provides high-quality research and materials on philosophy topics to the world free of charge. Universities with means who invest support this sharing of knowledge.

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Corpus of Contemporary American English

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is the only large and “representative” corpus of American English. The corpus contains more than one billion words of text (25+ million words each year 1990-2019) from eight genres: spoken, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, academic texts, and (with the update in March 2020): TV and Movies subtitles, blogs, and other web pages.

How do Duke authors benefit?

Access to a major database of language for large-scale text-based searching. Free to use, but Duke invests in the project to gain access to advanced research features for our community.

How do Duke authors utilize this resource?

Direct access on the Duke network or NetID authentication will allow access to advanced features. All other features are free for anyone.

How does the world benefit from this open initiative?

The corpus provides high-quality materials to the world free of charge. Universities with means who invest support this sharing of knowledge.

 

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Have questions about open initiatives at Duke? Email open-access@duke.edu