The University of California, via the California Digital Library, maintains a subscription to the SPIE Digital Library. As a result, SPIE grants a discount to UC authors who pay to publish in SPIE’s fully open access journals.

Who is covered?

The discount may be applied if any author on the paper is affiliated with any UC campus, UC Office of the President, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, or Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

What journals are covered?

All fully open access SPIE journals, which currently includes Journal of Biomedical Optics and Neurophotonics. This does not include open access payments that authors may choose to make to make their articles open access in SPIE’s subscription journals.

What is the discount?

25% off the standard APC rate for the journal. A list of SPIE’s open access fees is found on the SPIE Journals Open Access page.

This discount does not compound with other discounts offered by SPIE (e.g. for individual membership or editorial board membership).

How can I apply this discount?

During the publication process, the author should indicate eligibility for this discount when prompted to arrange payment of the APC.

What licenses are available?

Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).

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?

SPIE offers this discount to all institutional subscribers to the SPIE Digital Library independently of license negotiations; it is not explicitly included in subscription agreements.  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 SPIE journals.

More information about various options for making articles Open Access when publishing with SPIE can be found on the SPIE Journals Open Access page.

Last updated October 11, 2024.