The shift away from subscription-based models has been an important advancement in academia, with over half of the world’s research articles now being published in open access (OA) journals.

Authors experience many benefits from publishing OA—increased research visibility, citations, and collaboration. However, to make their research accessible to all, researchers have to pay an article processing charge (APC) to cover the cost of publication. This introduces financial barriers to those seeking to publish their work.

In addition, institutions face significant budget restraints, with many lacking dedicated open access funds to support their researchers’ publishing costs, leaving authors to secure APC funding independently. Librarians, often the primary point of contact for OA publishing queries, carry a high administrative load with limited resources and insufficient time to guide authors through the complexities of OA policies, agreements, and submission processes.

MDPI’s Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) was introduced to support institutions and their affiliated researchers in the transition to open access, with cost-effective and easy-to-implement publishing solutions. The IOAP supports institutions by providing simplified workflows for complex administrative processes. This helps librarians to navigate MDPI’s proprietary online submission system, SuSy.

This article provides an overview of the IOAP and, in particular, how librarians benefit from it. Given the added pressure to advance open access policies, the IOAP provides flexible agreements and administrative support, discounts on APCs and other MDPI products, and a unique institutional dashboard.

What is the IOAP?

The IOAP reduces barriers to publishing open access. In particular, it helps affiliated researchers to publish in fully CC-BY-compliant journals. This enables authors to share their work as widely as possible. This strengthens broader goals related to the production and dissemination of knowledge.

The IOAP provides transparency to MDPI’s editorial process through partnerships with institutions. For example, the IOAP holds webinars and provides information about MDPI’s publishing process. Participants have the chance to ask questions and give their input. This can also be a forum for discussion and exchange.

This way, institutions and researchers can be confident in the editorial rigour offered. The IOAP is trusted by over 1000 institutions.

What does the IOAP mean for librarians?

Libraries are vital institutions in the circulation of academic knowledge. As key drivers of the publishing and sharing of academic work, librarians benefit from the IOAP’s services. Librarians can work as equal partners and engage in a forum for discussion and exchange.

In order for open access policies to be effective, incentives for publishing open access are needed. Librarians, who do so much work behind the scenes, play a huge role here. They continue to provide significant value to institutions and affiliated authors, demonstrating a commitment to open access while working within budget constraints.

Librarians have multifaceted roles and are often faced with a high-pressure environment. In particular, they are responsible for managing budgets, digital assets, and administrative support. They are also often tasked with implementing and ensuring compliance with open access policies at their institutions.

The IOAP system helps librarians by not adding further to their administrative burden. The workflows are simple, and flexible agreements are selected by the institution to fit their needs and capacity.

The IOAP offers effective solutions for librarians in a number of different ways, as explained below.

How the IOAP functions

The IOAP streamlines the open access publishing process for affiliated authors by simplifying APC handling and institutional recognition within the SuSy system. The program supports authors who need to publish in Plan S-compliant journals, which are available within MDPI’s portfolio.

The IOAP offers flexible workflows and billing models that best suit each individual institution. This allows for simple, streamlined administration on their side. The IOAP also provides a point of contact for librarians to simplify publishing processes.

Agreement types

Flat Fee

The flat fee option allows eligible institutions to pay an annual fee. The flat fee is paid annually, enabling corresponding authors to publish a fixed or unlimited number of papers across the entire MDPI portfolio. Eligibility is determined based on an institution’s publication record and activities.

Discounts

Authors affiliated with participating institutions receive an IOAP discount on the article processing charge (APC) for any paper published in an MDPI journal, at no charge to the institution. Additional discounts are offered for MDPI’s other products, including Author Services, Books, and JAMS.

Different workflows

Payment workflows are a key area in which the IOAP helps to streamline administrative processes.

Non-central payments are the default setting for all IOAP members. Authors receiving the discount are billed individually, rather than as an institutional group.

Institutions can also opt in to the central payment option, which provides access to various invoicing and payment models, including direct payment per article, collective invoicing, and prepayment plans.

Through the dashboard, institutions can determine which accepted papers they wish to cover, and they receive invoices only for those designated papers. In addition, they can keep track of and download all invoices for accepted papers.

Institutional dashboard

The IOAP dashboard provides each institution with a dedicated view that reflects its selected workflows, billing arrangements, and affiliated publications.

Information and real-time updates about publications at various stages of the process are all in one place. All data is filterable by manuscript ID or title, corresponding author name, invoicing type, etc. This makes it easier to see the impact and benefits of the agreement for affiliated authors.

The dashboard allows librarians to keep track of all submitted manuscripts for the whole institution. Users can see and download all articles published by affiliated authors, as well as view publication data and manage their email alerts.

Librarians can opt to receive notifications for new submissions as well as papers that have been accepted or published. In addition, easily exportable reports can be downloaded, showing all publications and financial information.

Offering solutions to complex processes, the IOAP is actively helping authors and institutions adapt to this shift to publishing open access. Providing cost-effective pricing and easy-to-use workflows enables librarians, those often responsible for these administrative tasks, to further the commitment to open science.

The IOAP continues to develop this platform to further improve usability and workflow efficiency within the publishing process. Interested to know more? Learn more about MDPI’s Institutional Open Access Program here.

Or email our Institutional Partnerships team at ioap@mdpi.com.