PeerJ is pleased to announce an agreement with Iowa State University (ISU) to join the Three-Year Fixed Term Memberships Pilot Program, which will provide ISU faculty with a high quality and sustainable Open Access publishing option. Under the agreement, the Iowa State University Library will cover the cost of three-year memberships in their entirety, which means that there will be no out-of-pocket fees for ISU authors to publish in the PeerJ journal portfolio.
“We are delighted to welcome the ISU community to the program and are excited for their authors to enjoy the PeerJ experience,” said Nathaniel Gore, PeerJ’s Director of Communities. “We are grateful that the staff at the university’s library see PeerJ Memberships for what they are: beneficial to their researchers, and a cost-effective approach to Open Access.”
“The Iowa State University Library is committed to providing open access publishing support to our authors. The PeerJ Membership pilot is a great way for us to do so at a reasonable cost and with an innovative publisher.” said Curtis Brundy, Iowa State University Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communication and Collections.
PeerJ Three Year Fixed Term Memberships, priced at $239 per author, are valid for 36 months from the date of an author’s first publication, during which they can publish two more articles at no additional cost. This arrangement gives authors more flexibility as to when they publish. When authors use their full complement of three publications, the per-author cost borne by ISU averages out at under $80 per article. Under the agreement, any co-authors must hold a PeerJ membership in order to publish; any Lifetime Memberships held by ISU-affiliated authors remain valid.
“PeerJ remains committed to promoting Memberships as the low-cost, sustainable alternative to Article Processing Charges (APCs),” said PeerJ’s Publisher and Co-Founder Pete Binfield. “We believe that our Membership options provide the best value for money to the communities who choose to publish with us, and we look forward to working with ISU’s community of researchers across our seven journals.”
ISU is the third North American institution to join the program, along with University of California, Berkeley and the University of Ottawa. PeerJ welcomes discussions with other institutions interested in joining ISU, UC Berkeley and University of Ottawa in the pilot program. Interested Librarians and Open Access Managers should contact communities@peerj.com for more information.
