Open Access for Research

CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) has negotiated with a range of quality publishers to form Read & Publish (R&P) agreements, allowing researchers, when accepted, to publish free of any Article Processing charges (APCs) from selected open access and hybrid journal titles in 2022.

Note : Some agreements have a total number of articles that can be published under the agreement. Once the allowance is used, authors of any additional articles accepted in 2022 may choose to publish articles as "closed access" or pay an APC for the article to be published open access.

When choosing an OA/hybrid publisher or journal, determining their ranking and academic standing is critical.

By using metric selection and evaluation tools like indexes and directories in your publication planning process, you can develop a short list of potential Open Access journals from the Read & Publisher agreements.

Using these tools will save you time, ensure that you avoid predatory publishers or sub-par open access journals and identify the Read & Publish Agreement journal best suited to your field of research.

* Used to support the Open Access CQU scheme application 2022

SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) provides an easy way for you to access the Quartile ranking of open access journals.

Quartile rankings are the ranking of a journal by any database based on the impact factor (IF), citation, and indexing of that particular journal. It can divide into four different quadrants starting with Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4.

The SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) is a website that provides journals and country metrics based on Scopus (Elsevier) data. The SJR was developed by the SCImago Research Group. Journals can be searched for by publisher, journal name or ISSN. Each journal page provides metrics such as the journal's h-index, its SJR, Open Access level, its subject area quartile and the percentage of documents within the journal that have been cited.

1. Searching for Open Access Journals in Scimago

By selecting Journal Ranking on the homepage of Scimago all journals will be displayed from from newest uploaded to oldest.
You can then either search for a known Open Access Journal title in the search box OR select Only Open access journals and browse. Refining search features will assist you in your title search.

2. Identifying Open access journals and Quartile rankings

Open access journals can be identified by the international OA symbol, the orange unlocked padlock. Select the journal title to find out which level of Open Access (Gold, Hybrid, Green) is supported by that journal/publisher.
Quartile rankings necessary from your Open Access Journal scheme application are listed under the SJR column. Details can be found by selecting the journal title.

The Read & Publish 2022 agreements span across numerous publishers. This means that there are different publishing stipulations and submission processes for each journal title. The following information outlines research output eligibility, the submission process and any caveats attached to the publisher agreement