Publishing Open Access in JEB

Prof. Max Reu­ter, Edit­or-in-Chief, and Dr. Nic­ola Cook, Man­aging Editor.

Sci­entif­ic pub­lish­ing is increas­ingly mov­ing towards Open Access, where art­icles are freely avail­able to any­one to read. While this is a pos­it­ive devel­op­ment in terms of access to know­ledge, the decision of wheth­er or where to pub­lish Open Access can be com­plic­ated, with fin­an­cial implic­a­tions and fun­der require­ments to con­sider. This post aims to address some ques­tions you might have about pub­lish­ing Open Access with JEB.

Why should I choose Open Access for my article?

For authors, the major bene­fits to pub­lish­ing Open Access are that your work will be freely avail­able for all to read and as a con­sequence will receive more expos­ure (Fig­ure 1). In addi­tion, you may be required to pub­lish under an Open Access license as a con­di­tion of your research funding. 

Open Access JEB art­icles are pub­lished under the terms of the Cre­at­ive Com­mons Attri­bu­tion Licenses. The CC-BY license is the most per­missive and per­mits com­mer­cial and non-com­mer­cial re-use of an open access art­icle, as long as author­ship is prop­erly attributed.

Can I publish Open Access in JEB?

Yes. JEB oper­ates under a “hybrid” pub­lish­ing mod­el which means that our con­tent is avail­able through a mix­ture of Open Access and sub­scrip­tion-based access. An art­icle can be pub­lished Open Access for a fee, the Art­icle Pro­cessing Charge (APC), and is then freely avail­able to read, down­load and share. This con­trasts with a sub­scrip­tion-based art­icle, which can be pub­lished for free but is only access­ible if the read­er or their institution/university has a sub­scrip­tion to the journal. 

Please note that some fun­ders do not allow pub­lic­a­tion in hybrid journ­als, or do not cov­er the costs of doing so. Please check this before submission.

Who pays the APC?

For all its bene­fits, the major draw­back of Open Access pub­lish­ing is the fact that the cost of pub­lic­a­tion is at the point of pub­lic­a­tion. This can be a bar­ri­er to Open Access pub­lish­ing where authors do not have funds to cov­er these costs. Many authors can pub­lish Open Access without charge thanks to an ever-grow­ing range of Trans­form­at­ive or Trans­ition­al Agree­ments, also known as “Read and Pub­lish” deals, that our cur­rent pub­lish­er Wiley has put in place with numer­ous fun­ders and institutions.

You can check wheth­er your insti­tu­tion or fun­der is lis­ted and view the eli­gib­il­ity cri­ter­ia for pub­lish­ing your art­icle through a Wiley Open Access Account. When doing so, please note that a) it is often the cor­res­pond­ing author who needs to be registered with the par­ti­cip­at­ing insti­tu­tion or fun­der to qual­i­fy, and b) not all art­icle types are eligible.

How much is the APC at JEB?

The APCs at JEB can be found here. Please note that mem­bers of the European Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (ESEB) are eli­gible for a 50% dis­count on the APC. You can join ESEB here to receive this bene­fit and sup­port the evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy com­munity. Con­tact the JEB edit­or­i­al office for any quer­ies regard­ing the discount.

Do I need to decide at submission whether to publish OA?

No. All fin­an­cial mat­ters relat­ing to our art­icles are kept entirely sep­ar­ate from our edit­or­i­al pro­ced­ures and the decision wheth­er to pub­lish Open Access only needs to be taken once your art­icle is accep­ted for pub­lic­a­tion. At this point, the manu­script will be passed into the hands of our pro­duc­tion team, who will con­tact the cor­res­pond­ing author to ask wheth­er the art­icle is to be pub­lished Open Access. An out­line of what will hap­pen at that point can be viewed here.