What You Need to Know: APS and SCOAP3

HEP Papers to be Open Access as of January 1

Following extensive discussions and a vote by the APS Board of Directors at its meeting in April, APS recently signed an agreement with CERN, which represents the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP³), to publish high-energy physics (HEP) papers open access. APS leadership took this step in support of the high-energy physics community to offer researchers a convenient route to publish their HEP work open access in Physical Review journals. Starting January 1, 2018, HEP papers published in Physical Review Letters, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D will be open access, paid for centrally by SCOAP³. Library subscriptions will be modified accordingly. This arrangement will initially last for two years, up to the end of 2019.

Authors: Authors of HEP papers submitted to these journals will notice very little change in procedures.

• HEP papers covered by SCOAP³ are all those posted on arXiv.org prior to publication in any of the primary ‘hep’ categories: hep-ex, hep-lat, hep-ph, hep-th, and irrespective of the authors’ institution or country affiliation.
• HEP papers published in the three participating APS journals on or after January 1, 2018, will be open access, even if the manuscript was originally submitted prior to this date.
• Papers published under the agreement will be marked as supported by SCOAP³ and will be covered by a Creative Commons CC-BY license. Authors will not be required to pay the open access Article Processing Charges (APC) for their articles as these will be covered centrally by SCOAP³.

Librarians: Because APS HEP articles will be open access, paid for by SCOAP³, all customer libraries will receive a commensurate reduction in subscription fees to offset this arrangement.

• The amount of the reduction will be clearly shown on the renewal notice received by customers, along with the full subscription price and the final amount payable incorporating the SCOAP³ offset. The reduction reflects, and offsets, the proportion of the HEP open access content of their subscription already covered by payments made by SCOAP³ to APS. Libraries already participating in SCOAP³ will receive an immediate reduction. Libraries not yet contributing to SCOAP³ will receive a credit note in 2018 against their 2019 subscription charge.
• SCOAP³ is primarily financed by direct voluntary contributions of these reductions by over 3,000 libraries in 43 countries. More information about how to join and support the initiative is available at scoap3.org/join.
• The offset reduction has been meticulously calculated to ensure that APS does not "double-dip" on papers published open access under SCOAP³. APS will receive no additional revenue for the HEP papers, apart from that received via SCOAP³.

Readers: The biggest and most obvious change is that HEP papers published in APS journals will be available to anyone to read without any charge, through the appropriate Physical Review journal website.

• Papers published under SCOAP³ will carry the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which is the most permissive available. Others may distribute, reuse, remix, or build upon the published work, properly attributed to the authors.