Springer (in association with Jisc) have recently announced a new Compact for UK Universities and their researchers.

Researchers from eligible UK Universities (including the OU) are now eligible to get their articles published Gold Open Access.  No charges need to be paid by the researcher at point of acceptance as they are covered by the general institutional subscription managed in the library.

To be eligible you need to be:

• Publishing in a Springer Open Choice journal i.e. a Springer hybrid journal AND
• The corresponding author AND
• Affiliated to the OU AND
• Publishing either an Original Paper, Review Paper, Brief Communication or Continuing Education (Springer terminology)

The process is that the author will provide evidence of their institutional affiliation (e.g. institutional email address) at point of acceptance.  Springer will then contact the OU (Library Services) to check the researcher is actually affiliated to the OU.  Once the OU (Library Services) verifies affiliation the article will be published Open Access.

The system is in effect from now and should run until December 2018 subject to annual opt outs.

Full details (including lists of eligible journals) from Springer can be found here Springer Open Access Compact