Open Access Neurology FAQ
OPEN ACCESS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Updated March 3, 2017
1. What is Open Access?
The free, immediate, online access, for any user, web‐wide, to digital scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer‐reviewed journals.
2. What is the difference between free and open access?
‘Free’ is generic, for any content at no cost, like free abstracts, or articles that are made free for promotion. Though the content is free to read, reuse and sharing is limited by standard copyright and licensing restrictions that applies to all non-open access content. ‘Open access’ content is free permanently on all online locations and allows users to link, read, download, store, use, and data-mine the digital content of that article without copyright or licensing restrictions. The open access licenses (the Creative Commons licenses detailed below) set some restrictions on commercial and derivative uses of open access content.
3. What is the hybrid model?
Neurology and Neurology: Clinical Practice employ a hybrid model. The hybrid model is when a journal has a combination of open access and subscription articles. Authors have a choice to pay a fee for the article to be immediately accessible online. The author retains copyright of the article. Open Access articles are subject to the same peer review process as any article within that journal.
4. What article types may be made open access in journals in the hybrid model?
At this time, only original research will be made open access under this option.
5. What is an Article Processing Charge?
The Article Processing Charge (APC) is a payment that allows the article to be freely available online in perpetuity. The costs cover peer‐review, copy‐editing, hosting, and promotion of the article. An APC can be paid for by the funder, author, institution, or a sponsor. Additional page and color charges apply on some hybrid journals. The article processing charges vary for different titles for a variety of factors such as the size of the journal, volume of submissions, etc. You can find the complete list of APC charges in the Information for Authors.
6. How do authors pay the article processing charge (APC)?
At Final Acceptance, the Corresponding Author will receive an email from publicationservices@copyright.com with the subject line “Please Submit Your Open Access Article Publication Charge(s).” Please Note: The open access payment platform is managed by Wolters Kluwer Health, publisher of Neurology. Please send all inquiries related to the Open Access APC to OA-Support@wolterskluwer.com.
7. Can institutions or other 3rd parties pay on an author’s behalf?
Yes. For details, please send inquiries to OA-Support@wolterskluwer.com.
8. Is it possible to get a discount or a waiver on the article processing charge?
No. If a discount or waiver is needed the article can go through the normal publication route and be published and accessible as other subscription content.
9. Are the peer review and production processes the same for open access articles?
Yes, the peer review and production processes are the same for the open access articles in the hybrid model as they are for those articles published and accessible by subscription or pay per view.
10. How does the journal ensure that the peer review process isn’t biased?
All articles undergo the journal’s standard peer review process. Authors are given the option to make an article open access only after the article has been returned for revisions, or accepted.
11. When will an author be given a choice to publish a paper open access?
Authors will have the option to publish their paper as open access after the article has been sent back for revisions, and acceptance.
12. Who can request an article to be open access?
Only the author of the manuscript can request an article to be open access. Funders of the published work may request open access with express written permission from the author.
13. How will I know if an article is open access?
LWW articles that are open access have the "OPEN" icon next to them.
14. Should authors still sign the Copyright Transfer Agreement?
Upon provisional acceptance, the author will sign the journal’s standard copyright transfer agreement (CTA). The CTA contains text that states that if the article is accepted, and the author chooses the open access option, the author will be required to sign a License to Publish and upload this form to the journal’s manuscript submission system. The article will then be published under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution‐Noncommerical No Derivative 4.0 or under the terms of the Attribution 4.0 (CC BY) license.
15. What is a Creative Commons License?
Open access articles will be freely available to read, download and share from the time of publication. All open access articles are published under the terms of various Creative Commons 4.0 licenses as defined below:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-ND: This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download the works and share it with others as long as they credit the original journal and author, but they can’t change the work in any way or use it commercially.
Attribution: CC-BY: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as they credit the journal and author for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered.
16. Can Open Access articles be posted to personal website or institutional repositories?
Yes, the Creative Commons license allows this.
17. Will open access articles be indexed in the same manner as the non‐open access articles in the journal?
Yes. If an author chooses to publish their accepted article as open access, the article is still a part of the regular journal issue and will be included in the same abstracting and indexing services the journal is covered in regularly.
18. Will open access articles be deposited in PubMedCentral?
Yes, the final, published version of open access articles will be deposited into PubMed Central by Wolters Kluwer.
19. What is the difference between open access and NIH Public Access Policy or funders’ public access policies?
A number of research funding agencies now require or request authors to submit the post‐print (the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article) to a repository that is accessible online by all without charge. As a service to our authors, LWW identifies to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) articles that require deposit and transmits the post‐print of an article based on research funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health and some other funding agencies to PubMed Central. The Copyright Transfer Agreement provides the mechanism. LWW ensures that authors can fully comply with the public access requirements of major funding bodies worldwide. Additionally, all authors who choose the open access option will have their final published article deposited into PubMed Central.
20. Does Wolters Kluwer support the recent open access mandates?
Yes, Wolters Kluwer hybrid open access program provides authors with a means to comply with open access mandates and meet applicable license requirements. Open access articles will be made available under the terms of the Creative Commons License and the final version of the article will be deposited to PubMed Central on publication.
21. My article has already been published; can I make it open access?
Authors who would like to make their previously published article open access should contact the journal editorial office for more information.
22. Are open access articles published ahead of print?
Yes, open access articles can be published ahead of print.
23. I have other questions, who can I speak with?
For any questions, please contact the Neurology Editorial Office or LWW Customer Service at 1-800-638-3030 (US) or 1-301-223-2300 (outside the US)
Adapted from: WoltersKluwer Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.wkopenhealth.com/openaccessfaq.php. Accessed March 3, 2017.