The University of California, via the California Digital Library, subscribes to several journals from AAAS, including Science.  As a result, AAAS grants a discount off of the article processing charge for UC authors who wish to publish in Science Advances, an APC-funded open access journal.

Who is covered?

Submitting authors from any UC campus are eligible to receive this discount.

What journals are covered?

AAAS’s open access journal, Science Advances.

What is the discount?

10% off of the standard APC rate.

Additionally, authors with an individual AAAS membership are entitled to an additional 4% discount.

How can I apply this discount?

The discount may be applied during the payment process, following acceptance of the article.  Within the RightsLink payment system, click the blue “Apply Discounts” button at the bottom of the “Charges Estimate” screen to indicate eligibility for a discounted rate.

In the Apply Discounts window, under the Affiliation discount section, search for and select your UC institution.  Choose the main campus-level affiliation, rather than a more specific departmental affiliation, to ensure that the discount is properly applied (e.g. “University of California, San Diego” rather than “University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology”).  Once an eligible institution is selected, the bold “Not applied” text will change to the appropriate amount of the discount, in USD.  Click the orange “Apply Discounts” button to confirm your selection.

What licenses are available?

Creative Commons licenses CC BY or CC BY-NC; authors choosing a CC BY license will pay an added surcharge.

For more information about the importance of license selection and Creative Commons in open access publishing, see this NEJM Perspective.

What is the business model behind this arrangement?

AAAS offers this discount to all institutional subscribers independently of license negotiations; it is not explicitly included in subscription agreements.  See the Science Advances page about article processing charges for more information.

The University of California does not pay for this discount, nor does UC receive any refund on subscription costs when UC-affiliated authors pay to publish in Science Advances.