Publishing Open Access

Cal Poly authors can claim Open Access publishing fee waivers for publishing their papers under "transformative agreements", in which the subscription access model is gradually transitioned to institutional support for fully Open Access publications. Libraries enter into these agreements with publishers either as a campus or as part of a consortium, so applicable agreements can vary across CSU campuses.  Transformative agreements active at Cal Poly, SLO are listed below. 

Contact Danielle Daugherty with questions on the submission process.  

CSU-Elsevier

The current CSU-Elsevier Transformative Read and Publish agreement ends December 31, 2024. Negotiations are in progress with the intention to renew this arrangement, subject to the agreement of all parties. In order to qualify for an APC waiver, articles must meet the following conditions:

• The corresponding author must be employed by the CSU
• The article must be accepted for publication into one of the included journals. Use this journal search tool to see if your journal is included
• Articles must be accepted between 1 January 2022 and December 31, 2024
• Approval is mediated by the University Library. You will be notified by email that your request to publish open access has been approved

CSU-American Chemical Society

The current CSU-American Chemical Society transformative read and publish agreement ends December 31, 2025. In order to qualify for an APC waiver, articles must meet the following conditions:

• The corresponding author must be employed by the CSU
• Includes 60+ hybrid journals published by ACS
• If the author has received grant funding towards publication, this funding must be exhausted before requesting funding support from this agreement
• Articles must be accepted between 1 January 2022 and December 31, 2025
• Approval is mediated by the University Library. You will be notified by email that your request to publish open access has been approved

CSU-Association for Computing Machinery

The current Association for Computing Machinery agreement ends October 31, 2026, though this may be affected by ACM's plans to transition to full open access in December, 2025.

• All corresponding authors from Cal Poly may publish an unlimited number of accepted research articles in these publications.
• Eligible authors are identified by their campus email domain.
• All ACM conferences, journals, and magazines, for which ACM manages production and rights, are eligible.  See site for a list and exceptions. 

Adapted from CSUDH guide on Open Access.