The University of California, via the California Digital Library, maintains a subscription with Karger.  As a part of UC’s institutional license with Karger, UC has negotiated a discount on article processing charges (APCs) for UC’s corresponding authors when they choose to publish in any Karger open access journal.

Who is covered?

Corresponding authors who are affiliated with any UC campus, UC Office of the President, or Lawrence Berkeley Lab. UCSF is not currently participating in the agreement.

What journals are covered?

All Karger journals, including Karger Open Access journals and hybrid OA publishing in Karger subscription journals.

What is the discount?

50% off of any publication fees, including: the standard APC rate for full OA journals (APCs vary by journal and can generally be found on each journal’s “Guidelines” page), the “Author’s Choice” publication fee for hybrid journals, and any other Karger publication fees.

How can I apply this discount?

When submitting a manuscript for publication in a Karger journal, authors will be presented with a screen labeled “Open Access Agreements.”   To publish open access and apply the UC discount, authors should select the radio button “Eligible,” and then type “University of California” in the free text box for institution name, which appears below the radio buttons.

When the paper is later accepted for publication, the discount will be applied to the APC.

Authors who do not wish to publish open access should select the radio button “Opt-Out despite being eligible.”

What licenses are available?

Articles published OA in Karger journals are licensed under various Creative Commons licenses, including CC BY, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-ND.  The particular licenses available to authors depend on the journal, and can be found by going to the journal’s home page and selecting “About Open Access”.

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?

The APC discount is a component of UC’s negotiated license agreement with Karger.  However, any APCs paid to Karger are separate from the university’s licensing fees; they are added costs that do not lower the amount that UC pays to Karger for access to content.

For information about publishing Open Access with Karger, see Karger’s About Open Access page.