Guides: Penn Libraries Open Access Agreements for Penn Authors: SAGE

Which articles are eligible?

The Penn Libraries has a 3-year agreement (2023-2025) with SAGE Publishing for Penn authors to publish articles open access with no article processing fees (APCs). Charges other than the APC may still apply, please refer to individual journal submission guidelines. Read more about the Sage-Penn Libraries Read and Publish agreement at Sage.

Which journals are included under the agreement?

Journals in these packages are included under the agreement:

SAGE publishes both Hybrid (subscription based) and Gold (100% open access) journals. Their hybrid journal program is called "SAGE Choice." The majority of SAGE journals are hybrid and offer the option to publish OA with payment of an APC. Under this agreement, the APC is covered for your eligible articles. For more information, see SAGE Choice - FAQs.

SAGE Gold OA Journals are entirely open access--free to all readers and do not require subscriptions. Most SAGE Gold OA journals require an APC. Under this agreement, the APC for your eligible article is covered.

There are a few Gold OA journals that are exceptions to Penn Libraries' agreement. For full details please see SAGE's Gold OA discount eligibility list.

What articles are eligible under the agreement?

The article must be accepted by an eligible journal and enter SAGE's production system during the term of the agreement, January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025
The corresponding author on the article when submitted must be a current Penn faculty, researcher, student, or staff with access to Penn Libraries subscribed resources

Please note that SAGE will only look at the affiliation of the corresponding author for the article to determine eligibility. Authors will not be permitted to change the designated corresponding author of the article in order to qualify.

How can I tell if I am an eligible author?

Authors who are affiliated with Penn as current faculty, researchers, students, or staff and who have access to Penn Libraries subscribed resources are eligible.
You can test your access to Penn Libraries subscribed resources through this link which will ask you to log in with your Pennkey and password. If you are successfully able to log in, you are eligible under the agreement.

Not sure if you have an eligible affiliation? Contact your subject librarian

Open Access Definitions

GOLD open acces
GOLD open access journals are free to anyone to read but usually require an author to pay an "article processing charge" or APC.
Hybrid Journals
Hybrid journals are usually subscription journals to give authors the opportunity to publish their article as open access. This is usually accompanied by an "article processing charge" or APC
APC or Article Processing Charge
Article processing charges are established by the publisher to cover the overhead attributed to making an article openly accessible immediately upon publication. These charges are usually covered by authors, funders, or institutions.
For more information on OA publishing please see the Libraries' Services for Authors guide
For additional information on the agreement please see the SAGE site on OA Agreements

How does the process work?

Authors do not need to take any action to benefit from this offer. SAGE will contact all eligible authors to inform them of the agreement and invite them to the SAGE Open Access Portal to take up the offer as soon as their accepted article has been received into SAGE’s Production department.

How does it work?

Hybrid journals - Once an article with an eligible corresponding author is accepted, all authors of the article will receive an email from SAGE informing them that the Penn Libraries have entered into an agreement that allows them to make the article open access without a fee.

To move forward with publishing the article OA, one author on the article (does not need to be the corresponding author) must go into SAGE's Open Access portal to:

Confirm acceptance of OA publishing for the eligible article
Select a creative commons license
Digitally sign the Open Access license

If the author(s) decide to reject Open Access publishing or do not sign the Open Access license within 14 days, the article will be published in a traditional subscription access-only format.

Gold OA journals - Once an article with an eligible corresponding author is accepted, all authors of the article will receive an email from SAGE informing them that Penn Libraries have entered into an agreement that allows them to publish the article with no direct cost.

To move forward, one of the article's authors (does not need to be the corresponding author) must go into SAGE's Open Access portal to:

Select a creative commons license
Digitally sign the Open Access license

For Gold OA journals, publication can only proceed once the OA license has been signed.