Why ICTSPP requests publication fees from authors?
All original research papers published by International Institute of Christian Theologians, Scholars and Professionals Press (ICTSPP) are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. We guarantee that no library or individual reader will ever have to buy a subscription or pay any pay-per-view fees to access articles in the electronic version of any journal. There is hence no revenue at ICTSPP from the sale of subscriptions to the electronic version or from pay-per-view fees. Yet, the online publication process does involve logistics including those pertaining to setup and maintenance of the publication infrastructure, routine operation of the journal, processing of manuscripts through peer-reviews, editing, publishing, maintaining the scholarly record, and archiving. To cover these costs, ICTSPP requests publication fees (also called Article Process Charges, henceforth APC) from authors and subscription charges only for its printed version. APC are due when a manuscript has been accepted for publication.
Sources for Article Processing Charges (APC)
Authors of an article are responsible for arranging the payment of APC. Still, that typically does not mean that authors end up paying for the publication of the article. The cost of APC is very often assumed either by the organization funding the research published in the article, or by an Open Access Publishing Fund, or by the institution at which the author is employed.
Please relay with your local institution or organization to know more about ways of supporting Open Access publication.
ICTSPP’s Open Access Publishing Fund (IOAPF)
ICTSPP offers extremely generous APC reductions to support authors from Low-Income Countries. This scheme is free of any bureaucratic or administrative barriers. To give this scheme a name and to refer to it in an easy way, ICTSPP’s APC reduction scheme is called ICTSPP’s Open Access Publishing Fund (IOAPF). In fact SCIRP is subsidizing authors by giving money back to them if compared to the amount of ICTSPP’s regular APC.
Usually the first author of the paper will also be the corresponding author. ICTSPP will just look at the country of origin of this author and will initiate the online invoice accordingly. In case the first author and the corresponding author differ, APC reductions are determined for each author’s country of origin and the least favorable APC reduction is used. This is to protect ICTSPP from possible unfair exploitation of IOAPF.
Fair Dealing – Authors and Publisher
When an author submits a manuscript for review at one of ICTSPP ‘s journals, the submitted manuscript should not have been previously published in any form and must not be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. The manuscript should also not be submitted to any other journal during the review process at ICTSPP. In case the review process at ICTSPP takes much longer than stated and the author wishes to end the review process at ICTSPP, he/she should get in contact with the Editorial Assistant of the journal at ICTSPP and come to an agreement suitable for both sides after looking at the stage of the manuscript in the review process.
With the APC specified above, the author is given an indication what the APC will be. ICTSPP is charging Publication Fees (APC) but not Submission Fees. This is to the benefit to authors because payments are only due once the author knows the manuscript is accepted. ICTSPP with editors and reviewers puts much effort in dealing with the manuscript and expects the authors to stick to the common plan of publishing the paper which is linked to payments of APC as given above at the end of the review process. The author is not legally bound at this time, but it would be seen as a strong breach of academic conduct to back off from the publication process. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, ICTSPP will issue an invoice in the Paper Submission and Manuscript Tracking System. This is ICTSPP ‘s legal offer and will state the regular APC of the journal or the reduced APC in accordance with IOAPF. The Corresponding Author is expected to arrange payments of the amount stated at this time. If the author thinks APC reduction is not in accordance with IOAPF, this can be discussed and doubt will certainly be addressed.