This is one of the “Five tips to make 100% open access a reality” published daily during Open Access Week 2020.

A straightforward and cost-effective road towards 100% Open Access is through publishing articles in journals that are part of an agreement between VSNU and publishers. These agreements allow corresponding authors from Leiden University to publish Open Access with very high discounts, most of the time even without additional costs at all.

If you consider the fact that an average publisher will easily charge over 2000 euros for an Article Processing Charge (APC),the presence or absence on the list with agreements becomes a practical key decision factor when you come to choose a journal for submitting an article.

For those who prefer browsing over a spreadsheet, the Journal Browser is a useful took that has been developed by Wageningen University.The Journal Browser provides an easy-to-use overview of journals, the option to list them by subject range, and an intuitive search function. If you are in the Leiden IP range, the Journal Browser will automatically offer a filter for deals that apply to our University.

When you want to make use of these agreements, it is important that you indicate your Leiden affiliation clearly and that you follow the publishers’ workflows correctly.

This may sounds easier than it is: all publishers have their own specific workflows and requirements, and ticking the wrong box is not without consequences, so if you do not wish to miss out on a nice deal, pay close attention and read the instructions provided on the national Open Access portal, openaccess.nl.

If in doubt as to what to do, the Open Access Team at CDS will be happy to assist you via email: openaccess@library.leidenuniv.nl