The Western University, Canada, has joined PeerJ’s Three-Year Fixed Term Memberships Program. Western is the latest institution to sign up for the program which offers an innovative alternative to Article Processing Charges (APC) for Open Access. Under the agreement, the cost of Three-Year Memberships for Western University-affiliated authors is waived, meaning no out-of-pocket fees for faculty members to publish in PeerJ’s seven journals.
Western University and Western Libraries are the fifth institution to provide Three Year Membership as an Open Access option to their faculty, following the University of California, Berkeley, University of Ottawa, Iowa State University and the University of Sussex.
Compared to the astronomical APC fees of many other publishers, Memberships allow more authors to publish Open Access. PeerJ Three Year Fixed Term Memberships, priced at $239 per author, are valid from the date of an author’s first publication and for a further 36 months, during which they can publish a total of three articles at any point, giving authors more flexibility as to when, and how often, they publish. When authors use their full complement of three publications, the per-author cost borne by Western averages out at under $80/article. Under the agreement, all co-authors must hold a PeerJ Membership in order to publish; any Memberships previously held by Western-affiliated authors remain valid. Authors can still choose to pay via APC fees if they prefer.
Click here to read the original press release.
