SPIE Journals Open Access
SPIE journals are dedicated to advancing the science and application of light-based technologies, and committed to broad dissemination of the scientific record. In order to help SPIE journal authors reach a broad global audience, all of our journals offer open access publication. See the chart below to find a specific journal's open access policy.
Why Publish with Open Access?
- Open access increases visibility. Open access papers are downloaded 6× more on average than papers published under subscription access control in SPIE journals.
- Open access enables free information exchange.
- Authors who have open access mandates from funders can easily comply.
- Open access fees support SPIE as a not-for-profit society publisher with a mission to advance light-based research and technologies for the betterment of the human condition.
Open Access Policies for SPIE Journals
| Journal Name | Open Access Model | Publication License | Open Access Fee | Discounted Rates ( see below for discount details) |
| Advanced Photonics | Gold open access |
|
Waived through 2021 |
|
| Journal of Applied Remote Sensing | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Biomedical Optics | Gold open access |
|
$1675 (required) |
|
| Journal of Electronic Imaging | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Medical Imaging | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Optical Microsystems | Gold open access |
|
Waived through 2021 |
|
| Journal of Nanophotonics | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Journal of Photonics for Energy | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
| Neurophotonics | Gold open access |
|
$1675 (required) |
|
| Optical Engineering | Author choice |
|
$1675 (author choice) |
|
One Flat Fee, Fully Open Research
- Gold open access. Gold open access means publication under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license, where the authors retain ownership of the copyright. All paid open access SPIE journal papers are published under a CC BY 4.0 license.
- No overage charges for extra pages. The fee is the same whether your paper is 4 pages or 40. Additionally, all SPIE journal papers are professionally copyedited and typeset for no additional cost to authors.
- No embargoes. If you pay for open access, then your paper will be published on the SPIE Digital Library with open access from day one.
- No additional article processing fees. For our author-choice journals (see table above), there are no mandatory publication fees. If you don't want to publish with open access, you don't pay anything.
Different Needs, Different Choices
Author-Choice Open Access
We know that not all research communities value open access publication in the same way, and for many journals author-choice open access is the best of both worlds. Most SPIE journals are published under this model. By allowing you to choose open access only when you want it, you control how your research budget is spent.
Because SPIE's author-choice journals are funded by both open access fees and subscription fees from institutions and members, we are able to keep both open access fees and subscription rates low. Our author-choice open access fee is considerably lower than most similar journals, and to support libraries SPIE has either frozen subscription prices or had below industry average increases over the past ten years.
Gold Open Access
Our biomedical optics community asked SPIE to make their journals fully open access to reflect the publication trends in these research communities. We listened. Both the Journal of Biomedical Optics and Neurophotonics became fully open access journals in January 2019, including the entire back file of previously published articles. The open access fee is mandatory for all papers submitted to these two journals and must be paid upon acceptance. Discounts may apply (see below).
Advanced Photonics is a new fully open access journal copublished by SPIE and Chinese Laser Press. The open access fee is waived through 2020.
Discounts
Discounts to the open access fee may be applicable. Note that only one discount can be applied per paper.
- Waivers for special paper types: SPIE waives the open access fee on specific paper types, such as Reviews and Tutorials. See the table above for information about paper-type fee waivers specific to each journal
- Members: If any author of a paper is a member of SPIE, the paper is eligible for a 25% discount on the open access fee, reducing the fee to $1255.
- Authors affiliated with an institution that subscribes to the SPIE Digital Library: The SPIE Digital Library holds the world's largest collection of optics and photonics applied research, which contains more than 470,000 articles from SPIE journals, proceedings, and books. If any author on a paper is affiliated with an institution that has a full subscription to the SPIE Digital Library, the paper is eligible for a 25% discount on the open access fee, reducing the fee to $1255.
- Special economic consideration nations: If all authors on the paper are from eligible countries on the SPIE special consideration list
, the open access fee will be $425. - SPIE journal editors: Editorial board members and guest editors receive a 25% discount on the open access fee on any paper on which they are an author, reducing the fee to $1255.
License Types
Details about rights and restrictions of the SPIE Copyright Transfer and the CC BY 4.0 license can be found on our webpage about article-sharing policies.
