​Offset APCs

Alison Redpath and Joyce Templeton from the Learning and Research Services team have been working on providing offset APC (Article Processing Charges) information to University researchers on an Offset APC page on the Open Access blog. The Repository mailbox (repository@napier.ac.uk) recently received a few enquiries from researchers asking about offset APC deals so we knew there was a demand for this information and a demand which could grow in the future. 

So, let’s rewind a bit, what is an APC? It’s an article processing charge paid by a researcher to a publisher to have their article published and made immediately ‘open access’ on the journal website. ‘Open access’ is really important because only open access published articles will be eligible for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF). However, not every publisher charges an APC and the cost of APCs varies too.

And the next question is, what is an ‘offset APC’? This is a discounted or free Article Processing Charge. The Library has journal subscriptions with publishers. With the move towards open access publishing, some of the major publishers have factored in a discount to ‘offset’ the cost of our journal subscriptions - in effect to prevent us paying twice. Since University researchers are now eligible to use these offset APC deals, we needed to provide the information so that they can find out the deals on offer. Regardless of whether a researcher uses an offset APC, they still have to deposit their work in the Repository.

Providing offset APC information requires scrutinising the fine details of the journal subscription contracts we have with publishers. However, this is a developing area where change can happen very quickly and publishers can amend or withdraw their offset APC offers at any time and without any notice.