Institutional Open Access Agreement FAQ
With an American Physical Society (APS) Read and Publish (RAP) agreement, eligible researchers at participating institutions can publish unlimited open access articles in hybrid Physical Review journals—at no additional cost and in compliance with most funder requirements.
1. How does an author check their eligibility to publish open access in an agreement?
- Refer to our list of Institutional Open Access Agreements to confirm that the institution participates and check the journal coverage.
- Authors are informed of potential eligibility on the submission form, once they have provided affiliation and corresponding author data.
- Identified eligible articles are automatically included in the agreement. Note that some of our agreements are subject to institutional approval.
- If an author isn’t eligible for one of our agreements, they can still publish open access by paying an article publication charge (APC).
2. What does an author need to do to be included in an OA agreement once they have correctly submitted an eligible article with the appropriate author and affiliation data?
- Eligible articles are automatically included in the relevant agreement. If the article is accepted for publication, the author will only need to agree to the open access CC-BY license - no other action is needed.
3. What are the eligibility criteria for Read and Publish agreements?
- The corresponding author at submission (as indicated on the submission form) must be affiliated with the subscribing institution, and include this affiliation on both the manuscript and submission form.
- The author must have submitted to a participating journal, and is not already covered by SCOAP3
- The article must be accepted during the term of the license.
- The institution does not deny funding.
- More details can be found on the Institutional Open Access Agreements page.
4. Do authors need to pay any open access fees for eligible articles?
- No, authors do not pay any open access fees through our agreements.
5. Are there limits or caps on the number of articles?
- No, all of our read and publish agreements are unlimited unless expressly stated otherwise.
- However, in some agreements eligibility is subject to approval from the institution.
6. What journals are included?
- Our read and publish agreements include all our hybrid open access journals.
- Some institutions also directly cover APCs in gold open access journals.
- Inclusion is listed on the specific agreement pages.
7. A researcher at another institution has submitted a paper, but they are not eligible for an agreement. Can the article become eligible by changing the corresponding author?
- No, once an article is submitted the eligible author cannot be changed.
- Changing the corresponding author will not adjust this.
8. The corresponding author didn’t add their affiliation at submission correctly, and the article was not identified for an agreement. Can the article be updated?
- Authors can update their affiliations providing they adhere to our authorship & affiliation policy
- Affiliation changes up to article acceptance will update eligibility for Read and Publish agreements.
9. What happens if an article is eligible for multiple open access agreements?
- If the article is eligible for SCOAP3, that will always take precedence over any other agreement.
- If the article is eligible for more than one Read and Publish agreement, the priority is taken according to the order of the eligible author’s affiliations as listed in the submission form.
10. Are articles with waivers or no open access fees applied to open access agreements?
- No, if there is not an APC due for an article it is not applied to an OA agreement.
- This includes our diamond open access journal, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams, minor article types like editorials and errata, and any other APC waiver program.
11. Do these agreements allow preprinting or sharing accepted manuscripts?
- Yes! APS encourages preprinting (such as to the arXiv), and open access articles can always be shared.
- You can submit from the arXiv as well by adding your arXiv ID on the submissions form.
- Visit our article deposit policy for more details.
12. Why should authors publish Open Access (OA)?
- Open access increases the visibility, reach, and impact of your research by making it freely available to readers worldwide.
- It also helps satisfy funder requirements, expands access for researchers and practitioners everywhere, and accelerates the pace of scientific discovery.
13. What type of licensing is applied to research published under RAP?
14. Are there any programs to support authors in less-resourced countries?
- Authors in many low- and middle-income countries can choose to publish open access in all hybrid and gold APS journals at no cost.
- Find out how.
15. What is SCOAP3?
16. How can I report on my institution's publications and usage?
- Read and publish customers can use APS’ publications dashboard to monitor articles accepted for publication in an agreement.
- If you don’t already have a login, refer to APS’s terms for SCOAP3 — Open Access in High-Energy Physics.
- APS is a member of Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER), a nonprofit organization that ensures global standardization for measuring and reporting digital content usage.
- All usage statistics are processed and delivered through Scholarly iQ, ensuring that our subscribers have access to COUNTER-compliant reports with the most timely, accurate, and transparent data available.
17. How are eligible articles identified?
- Articles are identified using the corresponding author’s affiliations at the time of submission.
- APS uses Research Organization Registry (ROR) IDs to assist with high-accuracy identification.
18. An article looks like it should be eligible for an agreement, but either a) isn’t showing as eligible on the submission form or b) was published subscription access. What should be done?
- If an author or librarian believes we have failed to identify an article please contact help@aps.org and we’ll check eligibility and investigate any issues.
- Please contact us as early as possible (ideally at submission) to ensure we can quickly correct any errors.
19. Can authors opt out of OA agreements?
- Eligible articles are opted in by default, however authors have full choice over how to publish their work and can opt out on request.
- However, we strongly recommend that all eligible articles are published open access according to their agreement to maximise the reach of the article and the value for institutions.
- APS has an author opt out rate well below 1% as we work with authors to maximize uptake.
20. Can libraries have a manual approval process?
- Yes, APS can provide a manual approval process if agreed in your license.
- This allows an institutional administrator to review and approve/deny requests.
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