Frequently asked questions for transformative agreements

What benefits will authors get from publishing under a transformative agreement with IOPP?
As well as removing the administrative burden of dealing with invoices for APC’s, authors will benefit from greater visibility and impact for their research. IOPP’s open access articles typically receive 70% higher downloads and 12% higher citations when compared with non-open access articles in the same journal. Authors can also comply with, and future-proof themselves against, a growing number of funder requirements while retaining their copyright with a CC BY 4.0 license. Find out more about the benefits of open access.

How does IOPP identify an author’s eligibility?
We use the corresponding authors’ affiliation to determine eligibility. It must match an institution name (using the associated Ringgold number), for an eligible institution.

Which author is the eligible author?
All our agreements are based on the corresponding author at the time of submission. The corresponding author is the person listed as Corresponding Author at the time of submission, and is the person responsible for communicating with the journal during the peer review and publication process.

Please see our corresponding author policy for more details.

What do authors need to do to take advantage of a transformative agreement?
At submission, please supply your affiliation clearly. Choosing from the matching list of institutions in ScholarOne, our main submission system, will help to ensure we can identify your paper correctly. When your article is accepted for publication, you will receive an email from SciPris asking you to login and confirm you would like to be funded under your agreement.

What date do you use to decide eligibility?
Eligibility is assessed using the acceptance date of the article.

Can authors opt out of open access publishing under the transformative agreement?
Publishing within a TA is always the author’s choice.  In case the benefits are unclear, we encourage authors to read our guide that debunks some of the myths surrounding OA publishing.

Is there a period of time in which the author must opt out?
We encourage corresponding authors to make a decision within 5 days to ensure our excellent author service standards are maintained. However, to publish open access, all authors have to sign a CC BY license associated with their article, so the timing choice is ultimately theirs to make.

What copyright license is applied to articles published through transformative agreements?
Articles published through transformative agreements are published under a CC BY 4.0 license. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the author’s work, even commercially, as long the original work is appropriately credited. See our short video for more information on signing your copyright form to publish under a transformative agreement.

What happens if an article is missed? 
In the unlikely case that an article that should have been made open access under the agreement was missed, we will quickly investigate. We will contact the author to request they sign a CC-BY license, which is required before the article can be made open. We will also re-check our identification process. We will make every reasonable effort to correct the error promptly.

Can IOPP include an acknowledgement of the transformative agreement funding on the published articles?
IOPP’s agreement allows the author to mention transformative agreement funding text in their own articles at the author’s discretion.

Where can I find a list of journals that are included in the transformative agreement?
The included journals can be found in your license agreement/proposal. They can also be found on our website here.

Does IOPP provide support during the transformative agreement term?
IOPP’s dedicated staff will work with you to provide resources to help make your agreement a success, and can provide resources including a library toolkit and training workshops.

What happens if an author opts out of publishing open access under the agreement?
If an author opts out, we will make every effort to inform our library partner in case they wish to make direct contact with that author to understand their reasons.

We are implementing SciPris to manage and monitor open access publishing under your transformative agreement with IOP Publishing. It will be available shortly.

What is SciPris?
SciPris is a specialised third-party platform from Aptara to automate operational processes and deliver significant improvements for institutional customers in open access agreements.

How do I get access to SciPris?
When you enter into a new open access agreement with IOP Publishing, we will set you up with an account on SciPris. If you are a customer with an existing open access agreement and you do not have access to SciPris, you can request access via email: openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org.

Can I add more than one user from my institution to my account in SciPris?
Yes, you can specify additional users to be linked to your account in SciPris. These users will all receive email notifications for articles funded through your agreement as required.

Can I change the notification settings for SciPris?
Yes, just email openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org and we can switch off email notifications for your account. Please note this can only be switched off at the account level, so please check in with all the linked users on your account before requesting this.

What should I do if I see details in my organization profile that are not correct?
Please contact openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org.

What can I do if I get locked out of my SciPris account?
Email openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org and we will reactivate your SciPris account.

Where can I get reports for my open access agreement? 
Self-service reporting on your agreement is available from the SciPris platform at any time. Reports can be downloaded in CSV or Excel by selecting Reporting option from the menu. The Article Report provides detailed information of funding transactions.
Customers with access to the OA Switchboard can also monitor their open access publications through their OA Switchboard’s ‘reporting made easy’ service.

Will I have access in SciPris to reporting data for articles that were funded through our agreement before the launch of SciPris?
Data for articles funded before the launch of SciPris will not be available in the platform. Customers will receive their regular quarterly excel report of articles funded through agreements between 1 Jan 2026 and 30 June 2026. A 2026 full year report will be available on request to openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org. From Jan 2027 onwards all reporting will be on SciPris. 

We do not approve/validate articles, but I have seen an article on my SciPris account that I do not agree should be funded. What should I do?
If for any reason you disagree with an article that has been funded through your account, please send the article details to openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org and we will investigate.  

What about authors who do not choose open access?
We will continue to contact authors who may be eligible and encourage them to choose the open access licence before their article is accepted. We will also endeavour to make librarians aware if we see eligible authors who have published behind the paywall.  There will be an opportunity to retrospectively make articles open access within 11 months of publication, if the author agrees to sign an open access copyright.  

If I have a capped agreement, how will I know when it runs low?
Customers will receive automated notifications when their article balance has less than 10% remaining. The balance is also displayed on your SciPris CBP dashboard.  

Why does my capped agreement balance not show the total cap?
If you have a capped agreement, the balance that you will see will be from go-live onwards. Articles that were already published earlier will have been already deducted from the balance that is shown.  

What is an OAPA in SciPris?
This stands for Open Access Prepaid Account. All transformative and institutional open access agreements will be set up as OAPAs. The OAPA will incorporate your current agreement parameters, e.g. unlimited or capped. 

Why am I seeing two OAPA’s on my account?
Reports on Progress in Physics has been set up as a separate OAPA because it excludes review articles.  

As an author, what should I do if I paid an APC invoice and then discover I could have been funded through a TA?
Contact our Open Access team: openaccesscharging@ioppublishing.org. They will verify funding eligibility and arrange retrospective funding and a refund of your APC payment if your article is found to be eligible. 

Can authors update the details in their SciPris profile?
Your name, email and country will be pre-populated with information from your submitted article. You can update some of the details directly within your profile in SciPris. Please be aware that this will only update your SciPris profile and not your ScholarOne profile. Your e-mail address can’t be edited as it is associated with your paper. Authors can only use one email address for their SciPris account.