Instructions for Hybrid Open Access (Sage Choice) Authors

The below instructions will guide you through how to use Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment to select your publishing route in the event you are eligible for Open Access via an Open Access Agreement with your Institution or want to opt for Sage Choice. The Sage Choice program offers authors the option to publish their article Open Access in Sage’s hybrid subscription journals.

Open Access Agreements

After your article has been accepted for publication, following the peer review process, you will be contacted to accept or decline Open Access for your article and to sign an appropriate license.

Sage identifies Open Access agreement eligible authors automatically based on the Corresponding Author’s affiliation details supplied during submission. See the example below from the peer review system where you would have supplied this information.

If you are eligible, you will receive an email from openaccess@sagepub.com with a subject line of ‘Sign the license to publish your article 10.XXXX/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’ – see image below.

• The email invites you to select the publishing route for your article and sign an appropriate license. Begin by clicking on the links provided and you can make your selection in Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment.

• Even if you do not want to publish your article as Open Access, you must follow the link to accept or decline the offer. Depending on your choice, the platform will provide an appropriate license for you to sign to complete the publication process. Without a signed license we cannot publish your article.

The email is sent to all co-authors on the article. Once any author has followed the link from this email to Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment, they can complete the steps below on behalf of all authors. All authors will be notified via email (copied) of the actions taken but only one author can complete the process.

Requesting Open Access via Sage Choice

If your article is not eligible for an Open Access Agreement, you will receive an email from contributorlicenses@sagepub.com with a subject line of ‘Sign your license to publish 10.XXXX/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’. You can still request to publish your article Open Access once your article has reached Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment. There will be a banner at the top of the page directing you to this option, as shown here:

The steps below will be the same for both workflows.

STEP 1: Open Access selection – This first step will give you the option to accept or decline Open Access for your article. You will also see the Article Processing Charge (APC), if applicable, to make your article Open Access.

You must make this selection so that Sage can publish your article, based on your choice the Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment will present an appropriate license for you to sign. Without a signed license we cannot publish your article.

• If you choose ‘Yes, make my article Open Access’, you will asked to sign a Creative Commons license and pay/assign any Article Processing Charge (APC), if applicable. Your article will then be published Open Access. These steps are detailed below.

• If you choose ‘No, publish my article subscription’, you will be presented with a Contributor License to sign. Your article will then be published subscription without charge.

STEP 2 Register/Log In – Once you’ve made your choice, you will be asked to complete the registration process. You must login or register to process your decision and sign your license.

Select your name from the dropdown list of authors and create a password to register. If you are a returning user, enter your previously created password to log in.

STEP 3 Sign License – After registering or logging in you will be prompted to select a license type for your article. As you are publishing Open Access, the license type(s) available will be Creative Commons licenses.

You should read the terms of the license and read the Terms of the Agreement (provided in a link).

You will need to tell us who owns the copyright of your contribution, accept the terms and conditions, and warrant that you are authorized to sign on behalf of any other contributing authors.

Once you have made your copyright selection, you will then be asked to accept the terms and conditions, and warrant that you are authorized to sign on behalf of any other contributing authors.

You can then sign using the ‘Sign License’ button.

At this point, your license selection is complete and you will receive another email from openaccess@sagepub.com with a subject line of ‘Open access license chosen for your paper 10.XXXX/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’ confirming your selection. If you have any co-authors, they will be copied on this email.

Please note that if you are an author at an institution that has an Open Access agreement with Sage and no APC is required, this will be your final step to complete.

STEP 4 Assign Payer (if applicable) -- If an APC is applicable, our next and final step will be to assign a bill payer. Your options will typically include one or more of the following choices:

• A predetermined funding agency or institution (if applicable based on your affiliation and funder details)
• Choose a different bill payer
• Yourself (‘I am the bill payer’)

Bill Payer Options

• A predetermined funding agency or institution
  • If your affiliation or funder details provided at submission match to a predetermined bill payer in our system, you will be able to select this option. If you select this route, they will be notified by email.
  • If they approve to pay your APC, you will be notified via email and no further action is required as the funding agency or institution will complete the payment steps.
  • If they decline, you will be notified via email and will need to sign in again to Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment to either nominate an alternative bill payer or select yourself as the bill payer and complete the payment steps as outlined below.

• Choose a different bill payer

Whoever you nominate will receive an email from Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment titled ‘You have been nominated as bill payer 10.XXXX/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’ which invites them to review the APC request. Authors are also copied on these emails. The requested bill payer has 5 days to take action, otherwise the request will time out and you will be notified by email to sign in again and select another payer

Bill Payer Approves: If your nominated bill payer approves, you will be notified via email and no further action is required as the nominated bill payer will complete the payment steps. If the bill payer agrees to pay the APC for your article, you will receive a final email confirming this with a subject line of ‘Transaction complete for your article’

Bill Payer Declines: If your nominated bill payer declines, you will be notified via email as well as within Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment. Bill Payer will include their reason for declining. You will need to sign into Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment again to either nominate an alternative bill payer or select yourself as the bill payer and complete the payment steps as outlined above.

• Yourself (‘I am the bill payer’)

If you select yourself as bill payer, you will be taken through the following workflow:

• Step 1 – Confirm Billing: here you will be able to review your APC pricing information and enter your billing address details.
• Step 2 – Preview Invoice: here you will review a preview of your invoice based on the information you entered on the previous page. You can make further edits to your billing details or if you are ready to proceed, agree to the Payment terms and conditions and select your preferred payment option which include:
  • Pay by credit card

• Send final invoice (which can be paid via bank/wire transfer or credit card

• Step 3 – Make Payment: you will complete this step only if paying your APC by credit card. If you are choosing to pay by credit card for the first time, you will need to enter all required billing information and payment details. Once you hit ‘Pay’ you will progress to Step 4 and will simultaneously receive a confirmation of payment email from Sage Accounts Receivable - Open Access.

• Step 4 - Order Confirmation: If you paid by credit card (Step 3 above) or if you choose to be sent the final invoice, you will then finish here where you will see a summary of your article’s details including Invoice number and APC amount. From here you can

  • Download the Invoice. The invoice will also be sent to you via email. You can pay the invoice via bank/wire transfer or credit card.
  • Return to your main dashboard within Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment
  • Log out

STEP 5 Confirmation – Your license is signed and your APC has been paid or assigned. Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment will show you confirmation of the action completed.

You will see who the signing author was and see confirmation of the publishing route for your article. As you signed a Creative Commons License, your article will be published Open Access.

You will also be provided a link to the Author Dashboard, where you can view (if any) your current and previous actions related to license signing and Open Access transactions.

PLEASE NOTE:
You may only have Steps 1-3 to complete; Step 4 (Assign Bill Payer) will not appear for you if your institution has an Open Access agreement that has paid the APC or if you are an author at an institution that has centralised bill paying arrangements with Sage through which payment of the APC has been agreed under a pre-approval workflow. Where this applies, you will be notified that your institution has agreed to pay the APC.

RETURNING USERS
Once registered on Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment, you can log in at any time to access ‘Your author dashboard’ (see Image below) where you can:

• View Articles in Progress
• View Transacted Articles
• Download an Article Report

For your Articles in Progress, you can:

• Choose a license
• Assign a bill payer
• Pay an APC

For your Transacted Articles, you can view:

• Publication status
• Article details

CONTACT US:
At any point in your Open Access publishing route, you may contact Sage directly at openaccess@sagepub.com with questions.