The One University Open Access Author Fund Annual Reports

Background

In signing the Berlin Declaration in October 2011, Chancellor Gray-Little committed KU to "supporting the transition to the Electronic Open Access Paradigm" in part by "encouraging our researchers/grant recipients to publish their work according to the principles of the open access paradigm." The University of Kansas has been active in scholarly communications reform for over a decade, with significant progress made in recent years to:

Expand opportunities for faculty and students to disseminate their scholarship via open access publishing (KUMC - funding support to cover author fees for publication in BioMedCentral and PloS (open access) journals; KU and KUMC - OA journal publishing through ScholarWorks, Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Archie, where over 11 journals are hosted.)
Inspire faculty to assert their author rights to provide broad, free access to their journal articles (KU - Open Access Policy; Scholarly Communications Program)
Assert KU's place as a leader in supporting open access initiatives (multiple submissions by KU/KUMC faculty, staff, and administrators to the OSTP's Request for Information regarding public access to federally-funded scientific publications and digital data; KU's founding of the Coalition of Open Policy Institutions, COAPI)

Given this progress, KU still lags behind its peers in one key area: providing financial assistance to cover author processing fees for faculty and students who wish to publish with open access journals.

Recommendations

As a natural progression of efforts already underway... Develop a KU "one university" Open Access Publishing Fund program to showcase KU's continued leadership in open access initiatives.

Establish a fund to underwrite article processing fees associated with publishing in open access journals that require authors to pay an "author processing charge" when the paper is accepted
Develop a pilot project, administered by the KU/KUMC Libraries, to test the creation, administration and effects of a fund that all KU authors could use when publishing in open access journals

Implementation

Secure funds through contributions from grants, endowment, Provost's Office, Research and Graduate Studies, Research Institute, and KU/KUMC Libraries. Target amount of $50,000, contributed by groups listed, to be used during the pilot for a two-year period.
Develop an FAQ and web form to facilitate faculty and student requests for funding
Eligibility limited to KU-Lawrence and KUMC-Kansas City faculty and graduate students during pilot period, who do not have existing grant funding

Criteria for author participation

Current faculty or graduate students, limited to KU-Lawrence and KUMC-Kansas City during pilot period, not currently receiving grant funding
Payment of "author processing fees" limited to peer-reviewed, open access journals

Best practices/Case studies

Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity is a consortium of universities committed to supporting scholarly communication by "underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds."
1. By establishing OA funding for KU scholars, KU can join other signatories of COPE. Among these signatories are Cornell, Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, and Duke.
2. Each COPE signatory manages an OA funding process that contains website information on how to request funding, guidelines for eligibility and an established article reimbursement cap.

Options for fund distribution

Cover author fees on a journal-by-journal basis, provided that journals meet standards for open access publishing
1. Establish cost ceiling: per person, per article, per year
Purchase annual institutional memberships to Open Access publishers: e.g. BioMed Central, PloS, Hindawi
Purchase lifetime memberships for authors: e.g. peerj.com/

Open Access Author Fund Timeline 2014-2015