S2O (Subscribe to Open) FAQ
Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a subscription model that allows publishers to convert their journals from gated access to Open Access.
Subscription fees are collected from institutions, and if all subscribers participate, the publisher commits to publishing that year’s content OA.
If a library chooses to not participate, they will lose access to that content for the year.
When the journal is converted to OA for the year, there is no fee for authors to publish in the journal.
Image courtesy of Annual Reviews: https://www.annualreviews.org/page/subscriptions/subscribe-to-open
S2O provides Diamond OA (also known as Platinum OA), meaning that the article is immediately available with no access barrier and no author fee.
Not necessarily. If not enough libraries subscribe to an S2O journal, the offer will fail for the year.
This means that the content would remain gated, and libraries must subscribe in order to have access. Additionally, article processing charges (APCs) would not be waived for that year.
UVM subscribes to all titles published by Annual Reviews, an invitation-only annual review publisher.
To publish in an S2O journal, follow the typical publishing process for the publisher of the journal.
If the title has achieved open access for the year, there will be no article processing charge (APC) required to publish.
A list of publishers that participate in Subscribe to Open can be found here.
No. While UVM Libraries support the Subscribe to Open model through our subscriptions, the library has no impact on article acceptance.
No. Your ability to publish in a Subscribe to Open journal without paying an APC is unrelated to your institutional affiliation. UVM Libraries' subscription payment supports the work of all S2O journals and ensures that authors everywhere do not face APCs when publishing in these journals.
No. Some S2O journals may charge other types of fees - page fees, etc. - that are NOT covered by this agreement. This agreement covers APCs only. The APC is waived, but not the other types of fees if this is relevant to a journal.
UVM receives a number of benefits by supporting Subscribe to Open, including:
Yes. You retain your copyright but permit licensing under one a Creative Commons license. The types of Create Commons licenses available may vary by publisher.
Authors retain their copyright, but allow others to access or use their work without consultation or fees under one of several standard Creative Commons licenses. Works licensed under a Creative Commons License must still be cited when used.
"A creative commons license is a license issued by the copyright owner to allow anyone in the world to use his or her copyright work in any manner consistent with that license. Creative Commons licenses are essentially standard form license agreements which can be attached to a work to enable its use under certain circumstances without the need to contact the author or negotiate terms of use."