Open Access Publishing Agreements

The Library is now part of The Company of Biologists’ Read & Publish initiative, which means: 

• Corresponding authors wishing to publish Open Access in all five of The Company of Biologists’ specialist journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open - can do so without paying an article processing charge (APC). 

• Researchers at MLML and MBARI can publish an uncapped number of articles in the above journals. 

• You can search and download any article from The Company of Biologists’ journals including the full archive dating back to 1853. 

Additionally, a tree is planted in a UK forest every time a researcher at MLML or MBARI publishes a Research article or Review article with The Company of Biologists. 

The Company of Biologists’ guide-for-authors provides further details on how to submit your work. The Library participates in several open access agreements and each works a little differently. Authors should investigate the details before submission. Read more about them here and reach out to Katie with questions.

Corresponding authors affiliated with MLML and MBARI can publish open access in eligible Wiley journals at reduced or no cost.

2024-2026 Multipayer Publish & Read Agreement:

• The Library has entered into a new Wiley agreement for 2024-2026!
• Fees to publish your research as an open access article (referred to as APC fees) vary by the funding source for your research.
• If the corresponding author is affiliated with MLML or MBARI and the research was funded by a research grant:
  • This agreement provides a discount of $1000 of the APC.
• If the corresponding author is affiliated with MLML or MBARI and the research was NOT funded by a research grant that allows for use to pay APC fees:
  • This agreement waives the full APC for unfunded corresponding authors.
• Eligible article types in over 1600 hybrid and fully open access Wiley journals.
• The agreement includes read access to all Wiley titles 1997 to present.
• For more details see the Wiley Guide to SCELC Open Access Agreement:24-2026. 

2023 Agreement:

• Eligible article types accepted in any Wiley journal through 12/31/23. (2022 agreement included only hybrid journals; 2023 includes hybrid and fully open access journals.) 
• The agreement covers corresponding authors who are MBARI or MLML affiliates. (Make sure you state that in your author affiliation.)
• The fee is completely waived per this agreement. It is not simply passed along to the institution.
• The author’s choice to publish open access (or not), does not affect publishing decisions by Wiley.
• The agreement with Wiley was negotiated through SCELC, the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium, in which our library participates.  
• Wiley Guide to SCELC Open Access Agreement:22-2023 

Corresponding authors affiliated with MLML/SJSU (or any campus in the CSU) can publish open access in eligible Elsevier journals at no cost.

• Articles accepted in eligible Elsevier journals between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2024 are included in this agreement. Check the SJSU guide for 2025 information as that becomes available.
• The agreement covers corresponding authors who are MLML/SJSU or other CSU affiliates. Use SJSU affiliation (can add MLML as dept.)
• Open access articles are published in the journal and on Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform under one of two reuse licenses: CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND.
• The author’s choice to publish open access (or not), does not affect publishing decisions by Elsevier.
• This is a renewal of our initial agreement, which covered articles submitted from 2020-2021.
• SJSU Guide to Elsevier Open Access Agreement
• Elsevier Guide to CSU Open Access Agreement
• CSU Libraries Announcement and background information

Update as of June 3, 2025: ACS’ open access publishing options for CSU authors will change effective July 1, 2025. Authors who wish to publish open access with ACS will be responsible for fully covering the discounted $3,000 Article Processing Charge (APC). Reading access to ACS publications for CSU affiliates will continue without interruption.

ACS Open Access agreement available through SJSU:
MLML students, researchers, faculty, and staff can publish open access articles in any of the American Chemical Society (ACS) journals through a shared-funding model using San José State University affiliation (Can add MLML as dept.) This agreement works a little bit differently than the others: if authors have grant-funding to cover the open access publishing fees, they are asked to use that. If they do not have funding, the open access publishing fees with ACS are covered under this agreement and the article can be published open access with no cost to the author. The corresponding author must be an SJSU affiliate and should choose San José State University as their institution in the ACS author submission workflow process and this will trigger the option to publish open access. The agreement covers articles accepted between 1/1/22-7/1/25. License options for this process are CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND.

This agreement was entered into as part of the CalState system. SJSU is one of over 50 California institutions to enter into this read and publish agreement with the ACS.

SJSU's King Library offers a few other opportunities (e.g. Cambridge University Press) to publish open access for SJSU affiliates. agreement with Cambridge University Press. Read more about them and other SJSU activities in support of open access publishing.