A transformative agreement is a contract that covers any author processing charges (APCs) that may arise when submitting and publishing an article with a given publisher.
Many open access journals have traditionally operated under the Gold Open Access Model, or the “author pays” model, whereby the submitting author is expected to pay a fee for hosting and for the editorial process in return for the article being freely available. As the demand for open access publication has increased, many traditional publishers have begun to offer subscription models under which any resulting APCs are covered in advance, at no cost to the authors (i.e. transformative agreements).
The traditional subscription model was a “pay to read” model, by which libraries or individuals would subscribe in order to access content. This new, emerging model is a “pay to publish” model, whereby libraries and institutions are paying for APCs, with read access included as well for non-open access/subscription-based content.
No. Some publishers simply do not offer them. In other cases, they are available, but not cost-effective. The library did conduct an assessment of Rush publishing activities, and we tried to pursue transformative agreements that made the most sense.
Unfortunately, no. Please check with your department to see if any funds are available. If you are a student, please check with the principal investigator/faculty member you are working with. If you're working from a grant, please double check the grant to make sure that funds to cover APCs are not already included.
A complete list with more detail can be found in Participating Publishers. Briefly, we have transformative agreements in place with Cambridge University Press, the Company of Biologists, BMJ Case Reports, and Wiley (through our state-wide consortium, CARLI). Please note that not all agreements are unlimited, so please check Participating Publishers for more information.
The process is slightly different from publisher to publisher, but it's usually relatively seamless; if having the APCs covered is an option for you, you will be prompted during the article submission and acceptance process. In general, be sure to use your Rush email address and contact information when submitting to be certain your submission is connected to your Rush identity.
If you are submitting a BMJ Case Report, please contact the library to request our institutional Fellowship Code.