Article Processing Charges : A Practice to Keep Science Open Access

Post by: Wasla Zainab Awan
April 30, 2021
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We see research and scientific organizations working day and night to obtain rigorous results in order to provide incentives to their research fellows and the involved task force or supportive staff. In the research publishing phase, it becomes twice times important to get yourself sponsors or a good deal of income from different ways to facilitate the expenses involved in the entire scientific publishing process such as

Article Processing Charges along with the fulfillment of requirements of research team. APC or Article Processing Charges are very small amount of fees Scientific journals or publishing companies are asking to make publishing process smooth and productive. Scientific journals or publishing groups charge APCs or article processing charges to cover the costs of an article publishing process including the editorial cost, administration costs, indexing or archiving costs etc.

How to Define Article Processing Charges or APCs?

The term APCs or Article Processing Charges is generally known as publication fee which is sometimes charged to authors to make a work available in a hybrid or an open access journal. This fee may be paid by the author, the author’s institution, or their research funder.

Some publishers waive the fee in cases of hardship or geographic location, but this is not a widespread practice. An article processing charge does not guarantee that the author retains copyright to the work.

Benefits of APCs:

APCs are now considered an important part in the publishing costs and arrangements as they cover a wide range of areas, making the process of publishing smooth and easier. Below stated are some common benefits of APCs.

Editorial Work:
A good range of editorial work including administrative support, peer review, journal development and commissioning content is covered by article processing charges.
Customer Service:
It also responds to the authors and readers.
Production of articles:
APCs also cover the pre-production of articles including mark-up of articles along with general formatting and inclusion in indexing services.
Technical infrastructure and innovation:
Development, maintenance and operation of online journal system and website is also taken care of by the APCs .
Easy Funding:
APCs can be paid or arranged by authors as they are the ones solely responsible for the publishing of the articles. Along with that, it can also be paid by the organizations or funders as financial support. These bodies can cover APCs in a variety of ways for example; by establishing an OA fund, making it part of their general funding or by paying the fees as part of a membership model.