Jisc Collections has worked to secure a replacement for ACS's existing "Author Choice" open access scheme on the grounds that the savings offered were difficult to understand and manage. There were concerns that the choice of creative commons licences offered to authors would hinder compliance with funder policy including the requirement for the assignment of specific licensing terms such as the Creative Commons CC BY licence. After continued negotiations, Jisc Collections has accepted a revised offer comprised of two options:

Licence Fees

For 2019 there are two options: (1) the open access credit option or a (2) subscription only option. Both options provide read access to the full collection of ACS journal titles (Web Editions). Quotation: Pricing is provided by Quotation and is provided by the publisher.

The fee for Option 1, the open access credit model is the total 2018 subscription fee plus a 9% increase for 2019 and 10% increase in 2020 and 2021. See Part C for full details of the credit model. The number of credits provided will be detailed within the Quotation. 1 credit is equal to one open access article. The fee for Option 2, the subscription only option is 3% increase over total subscription fee. The increase for 2020 and 2021 will be 3% per annum

During 2019 Jisc Collections and ACS will be working together to develop a transformative open-access proposal to start in 2020. The agreement term is for three years with the option to adjust the open access offer with annual opt out for institutions.

Please note that the Author Rewards previously offered by ACS have been withdrawn. The remaining member discounts currently offered by Author Choice are likely to be modified in the next 1-2 years. ACS are unable to advise how they will be amended or when these changes will take effect. The tokens available to institutions under option 1 may be additional to discounts provided under Author Choice but on the understanding that membership and institutional discounts may be withdrawn.

The ACS Subscription OA Benefit Program uses the Open Access e-commerce solution from Copyright Clearance Center coupled with a bespoke institutional workflow. The program is designed to offer authors and consortia administrators an easy, centralised and automated selection, management, and reporting system embedded in existing workflows.

Benefits

The ACS OA Benefit Program offers participating consortia an opportunity to increase Open Access publishing model in ACS's highly respected and influential portfolio of hybrid peer-reviewed journals by providing open access credits redeemable against open access author publishing charges (APCs). The number of open access credits is based upon subscription spend.

Operational requirements

a) To participate in this program institutions must be active subscribers to the ACS All Publications package for 2019.

b) Institutions can also elect to use the credits against open access publishing in ACS Omega - a fully open access title. Note that the APC fees for Omega are lower than the APCs for OA publishing in the subscription "hybrid" journals so a credit has a higher "value" when redeemed against a hybrid journal.

c) At the start of each calendar year, ACS will issue the Consortia Open access credits. For individual account level, each account will be issued credits based on the value of their current year's subscription to ACS Web Editions journals, divided by ACS's standard APC rate of $4000.

For example:

Institution A spent $47,235 on subscriptions in 2018.

For 2019 they can either elect to pay a 3% increase for the subscription only offer or pay 9% over their 2018 spend, an additional $2,834 (6%) over the subscription only fee of $48,435 (3%). Institution A would receive 13 Open Access credits which can be redeemed against open access publishing in hybrid or fully open access journals.

d) On acceptance of a submitted Manuscript the corresponding author at a participating author will be asked to confirm that they would like their article to be accepted as part of the ACS OA Benefit Program. The Account administrator at the institutions will be notified of this confirmation and may approve or deny the request. On receipt of a positive acknowledgement from the account, ACS will debit one (1) credit from that account's annual balance and publish said article open access.

e) Self-service reports will be available for the account to track which articles were published and their current ACS Reward Balance to include the following information:

• Corresponding author name, affiliated institution, article title, DOI, Journal, and credit/debit date, ORCID ID as supplied by the author as well as various other items that may be available.

ACS credits will be drawn down from institutional accounts on a first ordered, first approved basis. Once depleted, institutions may continue to be invoiced for subsequent APCs or revert to the account purchases no further APCs for the year, and thus authors, at their own choice and volition either select to enter ACS's standard ACS Author Choice program. (i.e. author-managed payments at time of article acceptance) or publish under a traditional (non-OA) licence. Credits awarded in one subscription year cannot be carried over to the subsequent year. Payment can be made via Jisc Collections only (the publisher does not permit payment via subscription agents).

New title launches

The percentage annual increase takes account of four journals added in 2018 and 2019 including ACS Applied Bio Materials (New mid-2018), ACS Applied Electronic Materials (New in 2019), ACS Applied Polymer Materials (New in 2019) and ACS Pharmacology and Translational Science (New mid-2018).

New subscribers

Institutions wishing to participate in the ACS agreement for the first time should refer to the offer document. Pricing will be based on the ACS-assessed 'tier' into which a given institution fell in 2018 (or in 2019 / 2020 depending on the year of joining the agreement), with 3% increases in 2019, 2020 and 2021 as for existing participants.

Cancellations and substitutions: Not applicable. Institutions are purchasing access to all ACS titles in the web editions package.

Minimum number of institutions required: Not applicable

VAT: VAT will be applied at 20%.

Expressions of interest: Not applicable

Title information

Please refer to the lists contained in KB+. The ACS Publications Catalogue gives detailed information on individual journals and there are links to journal homepages on the ACS Publications website.

Backfiles or archives included

Participants can access the current year plus backfile to 1996, or to Volume 1 if published more recently.

Historical Back-file available separately:

Jisc Collections has acquired the ACS Legacy Archives on behalf of the UK academic community. Access is free of charge to subscribing institutions.