University of Wyoming Geology Bookstore

Introduction

Publication of Rocky Mountain Geology (RMG) is overseen by the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming. As reflected in the journal’s title, emphasis of its contents is regional. Its focus on publication of high-quality original research on the greater Rocky Mountain region, however, brings contents to the global stage of geosciences. RMG’s editorial staff seeks every opportunity to maximize public availability of our authors’ labors. To aid in this endeavor, RMG has implemented the following policy.

Applicability

RMG’s open-access policy applies to all authors whose articles are published in RMG and to all forms of RMG’s publications. This policy will be updated as needed. It remains the author’s responsibility to ensure that the chosen route to publication complies with any additional contractual agreements into which the author may have entered. Contributing authors should not hesitate to inform RMG’s editorial staff of extenuating circumstances, should they occur.

Policy

Open access allows unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed works and is a priority in scholarly publishing. Individual scholars gain benefit from open access principally through wider availability of their articles, resulting in potential for greater research impact through time.

There are many different forms of open access, but RMG’s open-access policy is designed to provide a flexible outlet for authors of differing means and circumstances. Because of unavoidable production costs related to equipment, materials, on-line site-licenses, and personnel, cost-free publication of RMG currently is impossible. While RMG is supported by the University in many ways, RMG’s production budget operates on a self-sustaining basis. With that said, we actively strive to keep costs to contributing authors as low as possible. When an author’s work is selected for publication, as part of executing the Publishing License Agreement , the author will need to choose between two models (as outlined below) for financial contribution toward publication. Whether an author chooses model 1 or 2 will not impact RMG’s decision to publish the article.

Options

Regardless of the model selected, we require a mandatory functionally essential fee of either $850*or $1,500* for each article based on the options below. There are no additional page charges for use of color in any of RMG’s digital publications. Additionally, materials published under either model are subject to RMG’s licensing terms and conditions along with version 3 of Creative Commons (CC)-BY creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us.

Option 1

Option 1 is an access-controlled, ‘traditional (green) model.’ Under this model, authors are required to pay an open acess publication fee of $850 (650 for repeat authors) per manuscript. 12 months after RMG’s online publication of the work, authors are permitted to release to their website or an institutional repository a copy of the accepted manuscript (i.e., a version that precedes RMG’s officially published, final PDF copy), along with a link to the work of record at pubs.geoscienceworld/rmg.

Option 2

Option 2 is an ‘fully open-access (gold) model.’ Under this model, authors are required to pay an open acess publication fee of $1,500 ($1,250 for repeat authors) per manuscript. Payment of the fee is required prior to assignment of a publication date. While there is a fee under Option 2, there is not a year-long hold period. Under this model, the author is permitted to share the official version of the article with anyone at any time. Additionally, the work would become accessible without cost to the public immediately upon the publication date and would be clearly flagged as ‘open access.’

Additional Information and Resources

Mandatory Publication fee per accepted paper	Color figure costs	Length restrictions	Gold Open Access (voluntary)
$850* $650: repeat authors**	Free	None	$1,500*** $1,250: repeat authors

*Authors who are unable to pay the mandatory publication fee may apply for a waiver.
**Authors who have previously published an article in RMG receive a $100 discount for Green Open Access articles.
***Authors who pay the Gold Open Access fee (Publishing Option 2 in RMG’s Licensing Agreement) won’t be assessed the publication fee.

RMG’s Annual Subscription Rates

Current annual subscription rates can be found on the subscribe page.

Archives

To help assure permanence of availability and functionality of articles published in RMG (and its predecessor, Contributions to Geology), we remain in an active partnership with GeoScienceWorld and CLOCKSS Archives. For more information on GeoScienceWorld, please see www.geoscienceworld.org/pages/about. For more information on CLOCKSS, please see www.clockss.org/clocks.