UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Beginning in fall of 2012, University of California Irvine Campus is launching a pilot open access fund. This fund will pay open access publishing charges for researchers who do not have grant funds available to cover them. Eligible charges include Article Processing Charges (APCs) for fully open access journals, article fees for hybrid journals (where an author pays to make a single article Open Access in a journal that is not fully open access), charges for publishing peer reviewed open access monographs, and fees for open access data archiving.

UC Irvine faculty, post-doctoral scholars, researchers, and staff  are eligible to apply for funds. The fund will pay up to $3000 per article in a fully open access journal, $1500 per article for hybrid journals and has a cap of one article per author per year.

The California Digital Library (CDL) and UC Irvine campus are providing the funds in order to support UC researchers interested in reshaping models of scholarly publishing. Campuses will track how the funds are spent, and the success and sustainability of the pilot will be evaluated. The chief goals of the program include fostering greater dissemination of the work of University of California scholars and encouraging faculty control of copyright.

Authors can apply for funds using the online application form.

When does the pilot begin and end?

The pilot will begin fall quarter 2012 and be evaluated after 12-18 months.

Is this related to the draft faculty-proposed Open Access Policy for the University of California?

No, it's unrelated. This pilot will pay costs publishing new research in open access journals, and will involve funds provided by CDL and UC Irvine campus, administered by the UCI libraries. The proposed Open Access pilot is focused on open access archiving regardless of place of publication, and under discussion by faculty senates.

Where is the money from the fund coming from?

This effort is partially funded with money from CDL, and the rest is from funds donated to the University Librarian's discretionary fund. We chose to move forward with this pilot in order to get experience with an alternative funding model, and we expect that it will give us valuable information about the costs faculty may incur and need support for if more journals move to an Article Processing Charge financial model.  

How much do Open Access charges cost?

It varies dramatically depending on the journal and the publisher. Many do not charge authors fees (e.g. Open Humanities Press journals); some charge hundreds of dollars (e.g. SAGE Open is $695), some charge thousands (Wiley journals are $3000). For more examples, see this list at the Berkeley Libraries website.

For further information on the UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund, contact the Mitchell Brown (Scholarly Communications Coordinator) at mcbrown@uci.edu or (949) 824-9732.

Who is eligible?

UC Irvine faculty members, post-doctoral scholars, researchers, and staff  are eligible to participate in the pilot. We request that authors with sufficient funding from grants or contracts not utilize these funds to allow others to share in the benefit of open publications.

Whether grant funds can be used to cover open access charges will vary by funding agency and grant. BioMed Central has compiled a partial list for funders of biomedical research. For other disciplines, check the policies of your granting organization. If in doubt, contact the granting organization. UCI researchers are encouraged to add open access fees or article process charges to their future grant proposals.

What types of charges will the fund cover?

Funds are available to pay open access/ processing fees for:

• Fully open access journals - fees to publish in journals in which all articles are immediately available open access
• Hybrid open access journals - fees to publish in journals in which the default is for articles to only be available to subscribers, but authors may pay to make individual articles open access
• Open access monographs - fees for publishing open access ebooks with reputable publishers
• Open data archiving - fees charged by a data repository for archiving open access data

Articles must be made freely available at the time of initial publication. No embargo periods. 

Funds from the UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund are not available to cover

• color charges
• page charges, or
• illustration charges
• submission charges. 

We encourage UCI authors to choose journals published by organizations who are members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association and adhere to its code of conduct. If you have a question about a journal or publisher, contact us.

How much will the fund pay?

$3000 is the maximum any one applicant may be awarded in one year. The person who completes the application form will be considered the applicant for that article.

UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund will cover a maximum of $3000 for any one article in a fully open access journal - journals in which all articles are published open access. Some examples include PLOS journals in the sciences (particularly biology and medicine) and SAGE Open in social sciences and humanities. To search for open access journals, use the box to the right.

The pilot Fund will cover a maximum of $1500 for any one article in a hybrid open access journal. Hybrid journals charge readers a subsciption fee, but allow authors to pay a fee to make a single article open access. The UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund is funding articles in these journals at a lower level because they represent a model in which a publisher is getting paid twice for the same content, and they seem a less effective route toward transforming scholarly communication.

To see a selective list of open access publishers - fully open and hybrid - and their associated fees, visit this list at UC Berkeley.

To see a list of UC Discounts on Article Publication Charges for Open Access Journals, visit this list at the UC site Reshaping Scholarly Communications.

Acknowledgment

Authors shall add an acknowledgment to all articles sponsored by the fund, such as:

Funding for Open Access provided by the UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.

or 

Partial funding for Open Access provided by the UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.

Q: What are the benefits of Open Access publishing?

If you retain important copyrights in your work and use one of the alternative forms of publishing that do not place restrictions on access, you enlarge your audience, increase the sharing of knowledge, and accelerate research. To learn more, please visit the University of California's Reshaping Scholarly Communication (http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/), or the Scholarly Communication and Management Program (SCAMP) (http://www.lib.uci.edu/about/projects/scamp/scholarly-communication-and-management-program.html).

Q: Who is eligible?

UC Irvine faculty members, post-doctoral scholars, researchers, and staff  are eligible to participate in the pilot. We request that authors with sufficient funding from grants or contracts not utilize these funds to allow others to share in the benefit of open publications.

Q: What types of charges will the fund cover?

Funds are available to pay open access/ processing fees for:

• Fully open access journals - fees to publish in journals in which all articles are immediately available open access
• Hybrid open access journals - fees to publish in journals in which the default is for articles to only be available to subscribers, but authors may pay to make individual articles open access
• Open access monographs - fees for publishing open access ebooks with reputable publishers
• Open data archiving - fees charged by a data repository for archiving open access data

Articles must be made freely available at the time of initial publication. No embargo periods. Funds from the pilot are not available to cover color charges, page charges, illustration charges, or submission charges. 

Q: How much will the fund pay?

The fund will pay up to $3000 per article in a fully open access journal, $1500 per article for hybrid journals and has a cap of one article per author per year.

Q: Is this related to the draft faculty-proposed Open Access Policy for the University of California?

No, it's unrelated. This pilot will pay costs publishing new research in open access journals, and will involve funds provided by CDL and UC Irvine campus, administered by the UCI libraries. The proposed Open Access pilot is focused on open access archiving regardless of place of publication, and under discussion by faculty senates.

Q: How do authors distinguish the good OA journals from the bad ones?

Open access is not a designation of quality. OA journals should be judged by exactly the same criteria as any traditional publication: the caliber of the research published, the peer review process, the composition of the editorial board and staff, impact factors, or any other trusted metrics of quality. Contact the Library if you would like more information about a particular publisher or journal.

Q: When does the pilot begin and end?

The pilot will begin fall quarter 2012 and be evaluated after 12-18 months.

Online application form

For further information on the UCI Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund, contact the Mitchell Brown (Scholarly Communications Coordinator) at mcbrown@uci.edu or (949) 824-9732.