FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Author Pays Hybrid Model - FAQs for Authors

What is the hybrid model?

The author pays hybrid model is a mixed revenue model of subscription charges and publication fees. It offers authors of accepted papers the choice to pay a fee in order for their articles to be made freely available online immediately upon publication. The open access option will be available to all authors submitting original research on or after 1 January 2009 and applies to the following journals:

• Cancer Gene Therapy
• European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
• European Journal of Human Genetics
• Genes & Immunity
• International Journal of Impotence Research
• Journal of Human Hypertension
• Journal of Perinatology
• Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology
• The Pharmacogenomics Journal
• Molecular Psychiatry
• Molecular Therapy
• Prostate Cancer

What are authors paying for?

As costs are involved in every stage of the publication process, from peer-review, to copy-editing and hosting the final article on dedicated servers, the author is asked to pay a fee of £2,000 / $3,000 / €2,400 (plus VAT where applicable) in order for their article to be published online without access control. By paying the one-off fee, authors will also be permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server, immediately on publication.

Will there be additional charges, especially if an article contains colour images?

The optional open access charge is in addition to any standard publication charges, such as for colour images. These charges will therefore continue to apply.

What article types are included in the open access initiative?

The fee will apply to primary research papers only.

How will readers know which articles are available free?

Articles will be marked clearly with an icon bearing the journal acronym and then open i.e. 'MP Open' – this will be used to identify open access articles in the journal's Table of Contents, both in print and online.

When will authors be given the choice to pay the open access fee?

Upon submission authors have the option of ticking a check box to indicate their intention to take up this offer and pay the one-off fee to make their paper open access.

Upon acceptance of their article for publication, authors will need to complete a payment form, a link to which will be provided in the acceptance letter (this can also be downloaded from the individual journal's online Instructions to Authors).

The author charge process will be administered by the publisher, Nature Publishing Group (NPG), and payment can be made either via a credit card or by requesting an invoice to be raised.

It is mandatory for the payment form to be sent in along with the licence to publish form and failure to send in the payment form will result in the article being published as a standard paper behind access control.

What if I want my institution to pay on my behalf?

As indicated on the payment form, authors can request an invoice to be sent to their institution.

What time period do I have within which to make the payment?

With payments done by credit card the process is immediate, but NPG understand that often authors do not pay themselves and it takes time to raise an invoice via their institution and send it on. Therefore, NPG do not stipulate a fixed time period.

However, invoices will be chased periodically, but if after 90 days no payment is received, the author will be contacted directly.

Sending in the payment form is a requirement of the author pays option. Papers will not be published as open access unless this form is received.

How will you ensure that the payment of publication charges by authors has no influence on whether an article is accepted for publication in a particular journal?

All articles are treated in the same way as any other article submitted. They go through the journal's rigorous process of editorial consideration and peer review, thereby ensuring that the high standards the community has come to expect from the journal are maintained. Editors will be blind to the author's choice, avoiding any possibility of a conflict of interest during peer review and acceptance.

Who retains copyright of the open access articles?

Content that an author has decided to make freely available online will be licensed under one of two creative commons licences. The author can choose to opt for the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported Licence. The author will thereby permit dissemination and reuse of the article, and so will enable the sharing and reuse of scientific material. It does not however permit commercial exploitation or the creation of derivative works without specific permission. To view a copy of this licence visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0.

The other choice is the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence which allows readers to alter, transform, or build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work under the same or similar licence to this one. The work must be attributed back to the original author and commercial use is not permitted. To view a copy of this licence visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0.

Other articles will continue to be published under Nature Publishing Group's (NPG) exclusive Licence-to-Publish, where NPG's usual self-archiving policy will apply.

All authors are required to complete a Licence to Publish Form before publication – this form can be downloaded from the journal's instructions to authors.

If I publish in an NPG journal does this make me compliant with my funding body requirements?

NPG's services and policies ensure that authors can fully comply with the public access requirements of major funding bodies worldwide – please click on www.sherpa.ac.uk for more information.