Glossary
Terms used in academic publishing charges
Twenty terms that decide what an author pays, defined plainly and with the misconceptions that surround each one.
Article processing charge (APC)A fee an author pays a publisher to make an accepted artic…APC waiverA publisher's decision not to charge an article processing…Corresponding authorThe author a journal deals with, and usually the one whose…Hybrid journalA subscription journal that also lets individual articles …Gold open accessPublication in a journal where every article is open acces…Diamond open accessA journal that is free to read and free to publish in.…Green open accessMaking a version of an article free in a repository rather…Research4LifeA partnership that classifies countries into two groups us…World Bank income classificationA four-tier grouping of economies by GNI per capita, updat…EIFLA network of library consortia whose agreements with publi…DOAJA community-curated index of open access journals that vet…Predatory journalA journal that takes publication fees while failing to pro…Impact factorA citation average for a journal, calculated by Clarivate …Quartile (Q1–Q4)A journal's position within its subject field, divided int…ScopusElsevier's abstract and citation database, used in many co…Transformative agreementA contract between a publisher and an institution or conso…Submission feeA charge taken when a manuscript is submitted, whether or …Page and colour chargesLegacy per-page or per-figure fees, separate from any open…Plan SA funder initiative requiring that publicly funded researc…CrossrefThe registration agency behind most scholarly DOIs, and a …