APS to Adopt Creative Commons Licensing

["APS ASSOCPUB" <assocpub@aps.org>]

American Physical Society to Adopt Creative Commons Licensing and 
Publish Open Access Articles and Journals

  Ridge, NY, 15 February 2011 - As of 15 February 2011, authors in 
most Physical Review journals have a new alternative: to pay an 
article-processing charge whereby their accepted manuscripts will 
be available barrier-free and open access on publication. These 
manuscripts will be published under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY), 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, the most permissive 
of the CC licenses, granting authors and others the right to 
copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work, provided that 
proper credit is given. This new alternative is in addition to 
traditional subscription-funded publication; authors may choose 
one or the other for their accepted papers.

The new article-processing charges, which will cover all costs 
and provide a sustainable funding model, have been set at $1700 
for papers in the Physical Review and $2700 for those in Physical 
Review Letters. The resulting open access articles will appear 
alongside and mixed in with subscription-funded articles, 
converting these journals into 'hybrid' open access journals.

"The most selective of our journals must have higher 
article-processing charges for their open access articles," said 
Gene Sprouse, APS Editor in Chief. "Physical Review accepts about 
60% of articles submitted and Physical Review Letters roughly 
25%, so the costs are higher than in less selective journals."

Revenue from the article-processing charges will decrease the 
need for subscription income and help to keep the APS 
subscription price-per-article among the lowest of any physics 
journals. "We'd like to reduce the pressure on library 
subscriptions, while opening access more widely. 
Article-processing charges are a means to accomplish both," said 
Joseph Serene, APS Treasurer/Publisher.

Also as of 15 February, Physical Review Special Topics - 
Accelerators and Beams (PRST-AB) and Physical Review Special 
Topics - Physics Education Research (PRST-PER) will have their 
full archives and all future papers made available under the 
CC-BY license, thereby converting both of these journals to 
'gold' open access journals. PRST-PER's publication-charge scheme 
has been realigned with the new program. PRST-AB will continue to 
be funded by its sponsors. Finally, APS's Free to Read program, 
http://publish.aps.org/FREETOREAD_FAQ.html, will be phased out, 
and all of these papers covered by the CC-BY license.

These developments for existing APS journals follow the 
announcement in January of a new journal, Physical Review X (PRX) 
http://prx.aps.org/, an online-only, fully open access, primary 
research journal covering all of physics and its applications to 
related fields. As a 'gold' open access journal, PRX opened its 
doors wide to all fields of physics, including those that have 
not conveniently fitted within the scope of our existing 
journals.

Contact: James W. Taylor, American Physical Society 
james@aps.org, 631-591-4221

   About APS: The American Physical Society (www.aps.org) is a 
non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse 
the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research 
journals, scientific meetings,and education, outreach, advocacy 
and international activities.  APS represents 48,000 members, 
including physicists in academia, national laboratories and 
industry in the United States and throughout the world. Society 
offices are located in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, 
NY, and Washington, DC.