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Open Access Research

This guide contains information about open access resources and events held by the University Library.

What is a Transformative Agreement?

The Efficiency and Standards in Article Charges Initiative defines a transformative agreement as "an umbrella term describing those agreements negotiated between institutions (libraries, national and regional consortia) and publishers in which former subscription expenditures are repurposed to support open access publishing of the negotiating institutions' authors, thus transforming the business model underlying scholarly journal publishing, gradually and definitively shifting from one based on toll access (subscription) to one in which publishers are remunerated a fair price for their open access publishing services."

Currently, Cal State LA is a part of several transformative agreements.  This page will be updated regularly to include new agreements and to remove those that have expired.

ACM Open

We currently have a three-year transformative agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) through October 31st, 2026, to participate in ACM Open. ACM Open allows corresponding Cal State LA authors (including students, staff, and faculty) to publish open access in eligible ACM Journals.

Conditions

  • Corresponding authors must be affiliated with the CSU.
  • The article must be an original research or review paper.
  • The article must have an acceptance date before October 31st, 2026.

Eligible Journals

All ACM conferences, journals, and magazines that ACM manages production and rights for are eligible, excluding those that are co-published with other publishers. Visit the ACM Open Access Publishing Eligibility and Exceptions page to view eligible journals. 

American Chemical Society

Effective June 1st, 2025, Ending December 31st, 2025

Authors who publish in ACS journals will still be able to make their articles open access, but full funding support will no longer be available through the Cal State LA library. Authors will be responsible for covering a single, discounted article processing charge (APC) of $3,000.

Why was this decision made?

This is a shared agreement including 60 public and private institutions across California. Cost containment has always been a top priority for CSU’s open access agreements. The current agreement with ACS was built on the assumption that if authors with research funds available to pay the open access publication fee could help to shoulder their costs, the libraries could stretch their limited financial resources to make open access publication an option for those authors without available funds. Unfortunately, the percentage of authors contributing research funds toward APCs has decreased to levels well below other California agreements operating on a similar principle. The resulting cost increases to the libraries under the model are proving to be unsustainable, and we have been unable to find an alternate pathway with ACS that would sustain a library-supported open access publishing option

Elsevier

Elsevier and California State University (CSU) entered into an agreement in 2020 to provide CSU researchers with access to Elsevier journals and supports open access publishing. When publishing in applicable Elsevier journals, CSU authors can choose to publish open access at no additional cost to the author. CSU authors will continue to be able to choose the copyright model they prefer. For authors who wish to go to Open Access (including staff, students, and faculty), all Author Publishing Charges (APCs) will be waived from 2022 to 2027. This option is unlimited and does not impact publishing decisions.

Conditions

  • Article must have an acceptance date between January 1st, 2022 and December 31st, 2027.
  • The corresponding author must be affiliated with CSU.
  • The article must be from an Elsevier participating journal.
  • Article must be a peer-reviewed papers (i.e., reviews, case reports, full length articles). It does not cover editorials or other types of publications not subject to peer review. 

Eligible Journals

You can check eligible journals here. 

Submission Process

Ready to submit your manuscript? Head to our Elsevier submission process page and follow the steps to publish your open access article! 

Oxford University Press

The University of California system, California State University, and 30 private academic and research institutions represented by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) have reached a four-year transformative publishing agreement with Oxford University Press (OUP), terminating on December 31, 2028. 

Article Processing Charges (APC) waivers are determined as follows:

Conditions

  • Corresponding author (including students, staff, and faculty) must be affiliated with the CSUs
  • Articles must be original research accepted for publication from February 4th, 2026, through December 31st, 2028.

  • OUP Hybrid Journals

    • Authors who have research funding available will receive a $1000 contribution toward the APC. Authors will be responsible for the balance of the APC.

    • Authors who have no research funding will have the option to have the full APC covered by this agreement

  • OUP Fully Open Access Journals

    • Authors, regardless of funding status, will receive $750 towards the APC. At this time a full coverage option is not available for fully open access journals.

Eligible Journals

Check whether a journal is eligible by reviewing this spreadsheet. The spreadsheet includes whether each journal is hybrid or fully open access, if the journal qualifies for the APC discount, and if the journal qualifies for full APC coverage.

Submission Process

Wiley

Cal State LA is a member of the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC)-Wiley transformative agreement. 

Conditions

  • Corresponding author must be employed at Cal State LA or another SCELC participating institution. 
  • Article must be accepted between January 1st, 2024 and December 31st, 2025.
  • If grant funding is available to help cover APC cost, a $1000 APC discount will be applied for the APC fee.
  • If grant funding is unavailable, a full APC waiver will be provided. 
  • Article must be a primary research or review article.

Eligible Journals

Submission Process

Cal State LA University Library
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032-8300
323-343-3988