UMass Amherst Libraries Signs Agreement with PLOS to Cover Open Access Publication Fees

UMass Amherst Libraries, through its membership with the NERL Consortium of academic and research libraries, has signed a three-year agreement with the non-profit, open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS), providing UMass Amherst researchers with no or reduced fee publication of accepted manuscripts in 12 PLOS journals. Longstanding advocates of open scholarship, the Libraries celebrate this first agreement with a publisher that enables researchers to publish in premier STEM journals at no cost. Using innovative funding models, PLOS is at the forefront of making peer-reviewed research publications equitable and accessible for researchers and readers alike.

“This agreement is in alignment with our strategy for leveraging the Libraries’ investments in support of open scholarship, to share the brilliance of our University community with the world,” says Sarah Hutton, Interim Dean of Libraries. “This brings us closer to a shared vision for open knowledge creation and dissemination in the global community.”

“PLOS made open access part of the norm of scientific publishing. They were at the vanguard of what has become an exciting transition to making our science available to everyone,” says Bethany Bradley, professor of Environmental Conservation. “It is inspiring to see UMass Amherst Libraries continue to lead us towards a model where science is no longer buried behind an expensive paywall.”

Effective October 1st, 2021, UMass Amherst authors who have research accepted by PLOS Biology, PLOS Climate, PLOS Global Public Health, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation or PLOS Water will publish with no fees. Authors of articles accepted by PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS One, or PLOS Pathogens will be charged a flat $400 author transaction fee, greatly reduced from the usual $775 to $2,575 fee.

Lynn Adler, professor of Biology, says, “We are so grateful for the Libraries’ agreement with PLOS. PLOS One provided a great opportunity for us to publish student research in an open access journal that was a great fit for the work. The students shared their work broadly and achieved an important career goal. With this new agreement, I look forward to more options for sharing faculty and student research across PLOS’ open access publications.”

Under the terms of this agreement, UMass Amherst Libraries will join a community of academic libraries, including California Digital Library, Johns Hopkins University, MIT, Ohio State University and the University of Arkansas, who fund PLOS publications through direct payments to the publisher. These payments cover journal costs in part or in full, and different fee structures are designed to achieve global equity of participation in scholarly communication. For more information about funding open scholarship, please visit the Libraries’ Funding Models guide.