Sage Journals open access

Hybrid Open Access (Sage Choice) FAQs

Why publish Sage Choice?

The Sage Choice publishing option was designed to support authors who wish to have their research article made open access immediately upon publication, or are required to do so by their funding body. The policies of grant funding bodies throughout the world (e.g., NIH, Wellcome Trust, RCUK etc.) vary widely with regards to open access requirements and Sage Choice is designed to be compliant with some of the most stringent requirements.

Which journals are included in the Sage Choice program?

Most Sage journals offer Sage Choice. See our small list of subscription-only titles that do not offer Sage Choice and the current Sage Choice price list on the Sage Choice page.

Will I need to deposit my article to PubMed Central, or will Sage deposit on my behalf?

Sage will arrange for the deposit of the final version of your article to PubMed Central once it has been published as Sage Choice and will authorize its replication in UK PMC and PMC International when available, where your funder requires it. Some articles are published Online First prior to publication in an issue; please note that Sage Choice articles are not deposited in PubMed Central until they have been published in an issue.

Article processing charge (APC) payment

Why is there an APC for Sage Choice?

The fee, to be paid by the author(s) prior to publication, will offset publishing costs inherent in article submission and peer review, typesetting, tagging and indexing, hosting on dedicated servers, supporting sales and marketing costs, permanently archiving the final article, and posting to the requisite repositories that will house the article for public view.

What if I cannot make the payment in time before publication?

Sage will publish your paper in the traditional manner on Sage Journals in order not to delay availability of your article to subscribers. Please contact Sage and we will assess whether we can retroactively include your article in the program.

Can an institution or funder pay the Sage Choice charge for authors?

It is the ultimately the responsibility of author(s) to arrange payment of the APC. However, a number of institutions and funding organizations (e.g., the Wellcome Trust) have declared their willingness to make additional funds available to cover the costs of open access. Please contact those responsible for administering funds at your institution or organization, or your grant funding body.

Authors’ rights

What about copyright?

You retain copyright of your Sage Choice article. Sage will publish your article under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license (CC BY-NC) which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. Authors required to publish under a CC BY licensing by their funder can publish under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which allows use of the work for commercial purposes.

What if I have co-authors contributing to this article?

You must ensure that you have the consent of all co-authors to submit the article for publication and that you have the right to sign the copyright agreement on their behalf. Should you opt for the Sage Choice option, all authors must be in agreement and at least one author will need to provide payment for the publication fee.

What if my employer holds the copyright to my work?

Please contact Sage directly, as you may need to sign a separate form.

What if I am a government employee?

Please contact Sage directly, as you may need to sign a separate form.

What are my rights as an author under the Sage Choice program?

On signature of the Sage Choice Contributor’s Publishing Agreement (CC BY-NC) and payment of the fee, Sage will license you with the following worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual rights to your Contribution.

You may re-publish and/or reproduce the whole or any part of your Contribution in any printed or electronic work written, edited or compiled by you, or any collective works with which you are directly affiliated, following publication in the Journal, provided the usual acknowledgements are given regarding copyright notice and reference to first publication by the Journal and Sage. You may make photocopies of your article for your own teaching needs or to supply and distribute on an individual basis to research colleagues. You may also create and reproduce derivative works based on your Contribution in all media provided acknowledgement is given regarding your original Contribution to the Journal and Sage.

All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by Sage. (e.g., you may not sublicense the Contribution for any commercial use or purpose).

Should you wish to use the article for commercial purposes please contact us here.

You (or Sage) may post/make electronically available the abstract and up to 100% of your own version of your paper as accepted for publication, including all corrections made by you following peer review, copyediting, and proofreading on:
(a) your employer’s website or repository and/or
(b) on your own personal website
(c) in PubMed Central

On publication in the Journal, provided the usual acknowledgements* are given regarding copyright and reference to first publication by the Journal and Sage, and provided this is not through a third party commercial provider, as all third party requests for use of material from the Journal should be forwarded to Sage. In each case we ask that you provide a link/URL from the article you have posted to the Sage Journals Online page where the final, definitive article is published.

(*) Authors must include the following acknowledgement whenever making electronically available/posting the Contribution:

“The final version of this paper has been published in <Journal>, Vol/Issue, Month/Year by Sage Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © <Your name>, year of publication. It is available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/<journal's three-letter acronym>.

If applicable, the acknowledgment should include: “This paper has been funded by a research grant from <>, Grant Reference #: <>”

Full information will be provided in the license form

Authors required by funding mandate to publish under a CC BY license can publish under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) that allows use of the work for commercial purposes. This allows all users to:
(a) Share (copy, distribute and transmit) the work
(b) Remix (adapt) the work
(c) Use the work for commercial purposes

Citing Sage Choice articles

How do I cite an open access article?

Any article under open access may be cited in the same way that you would cite any other article. Articles that are online prior to their publication in the print issue of the journal can be cited using their DOI (Digital Object Identifier-see www.doi.org).

Rather than giving the volume and page number, you can give the article’s DOI at the end of the citation.

For example: Author(s) J Psychopharmacol, day month year (doi:10.1177/0269881106066333)