Provost’s Open Access Publishing Fund

**We are not presently accepting applications for this fund**

Goals

The goals of the fund are to:

  • Aid Tufts faculty who want to publish in open access journals but who do not have other sources of funding to cover article-processing fees.
  • Raise visibility of open access publishing options available to Tufts authors.
  • Increase access to Tufts’ research and scholarship.

Eligibility and funding guidelines

Authors who satisfy all of the following are encouraged to apply for funding:

  • Each school has its own eligibility guidelines.
    • Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
      • Eligibility: Voting faculty.
      • Approval: Dr. Sawkat Anwer must approve application.
    • The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
      • Eligibility: Full faculty members (half-time or more with a multiyear contract).
      • Approval: Submit application directly to SCT; Jeff Kosokoff (Director of Ginn Library & Information Technology) will verify applicant’s faculty status.
    • Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
      • Eligibility: Faculty with primary appointment at Friedman, Center staff within the Friedman School (John Hancock Center, Feinstein Center, etc.).
      • Approval: Patrick Webb must approve application.
    • School of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
      • Eligibility: Tenured and tenure-track faculty only (titles are professor, associate professor, assistant professor, or instructor).
      • Approval: Department Chair must approve application.
    • School of Dental Medicine
      • Eligibility: All faculty, full- and part-time.
      • Approval: Dr. Gerard Kugel must approve application.
    • School of Engineering
      • Eligibility: Tenured and tenure-track faculty, Professors of the Practice, and Research Professors.
      • Approval: Submit application directly to SCT; Laura Walters (Associate Director Research and Teaching, Tisch Library) will verify applicant’s faculty status.
    • School of Medicine
      • Eligibility: Full-time, employed basic science tenured, tenure-track, or research faculty, and full-time University employed Public Health and Community Medicine faculty (including research faculty).
      • Approval: Department Chair must approve application.
  • Applicant must be listed as one of the authors, and article must indicate Tufts affiliation.
  • Manuscript must be a peer-reviewed scholarly article or monograph (including original research, review articles, etc.).
  • Authors may not submit open access articles accepted by publishers who institute embargo periods.
  • Authors may apply for funds for manuscripts published or accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2011.
  • Applicants are limited to one award per calendar year from either the Provost’s Open Access Publishing Fund or the Provost’s Open Access Digitization Fund.

Funding support will cover the following portions of an author’s submission fee:

  • For journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals or DOAJ-type journals (i.e. true open access journals): 100% of the open access author fee up to $3000
  • For hybrid journals: typically the lesser of 50% of the open access author fee or $1000
  • Reimbursement will cover only direct costs for open access publication (not the cost of reprints, color illustration fees, non-OA page charges, web hosting for self-archiving, etc.)
  • Reimbursement will be available only in cases where the authors do not have adequate grant or contract funding specifically designated to cover author fees. Authors with funding designated to cover publication costs such as author fees from grants, contracts, or other institutional funds are asked to use those funds first and to allow others to share in the benefit of open publications.

DOAJ vs. Hybrid journals

The intention of the fund is to support publishing models that are open access. Therefore, strong preference will be given to applications for publication in true open access journals, such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.  As not all fields have numerous, high-quality, true open access journals, we also support hybrid journals, that is journals that offer an open access option for authors article-by-article, but who still charge subscription fees to access the entire issue.  By supporting hybrid journals at a lesser amount, we hope that authors will gain experience and familiarity with publishing open access, with the ultimate goal of encouraging authors to seek out high-quality, true open access publication outlets in the future (even if this means they have to create them).  Most similar open access funds (see the COPE signatories) do not support hybrid journals at all, but we feel that while the scholarly communication system is in flux, we want to support open access publishing through various models.

Funding process

If you have questions about any details of the process, contact the Scholarly Communication Team.

  • Your application materials are due by February 7, 2013. You must use the OA Publication Fund Application and email an electronic copy to the Scholarly Communication Team at libsct@elist.tufts.edu.
    • Applications submitted farther in advance of the deadline are more likely to receive preliminary review, allowing for questions or issues to be resolved prior to the approval process.
  • Applications will be reviewed by the Scholarly Communication Team and the University Committee on Teaching and Faculty Development.
  • If the funding request is approved, author should notify the Scholarly Communication Team when the article is accepted for publication or if the author withdraws it from consideration in that journal.
  • Reimbursement will be made once the article has been accepted for publication and the author has been invoiced for the submission fee. Authors must provide a copy of the publisher’s invoice to the Scholarly Communication Team. Author must also provide a full bibliographic citation plus a copy of the funded article, either author’s final version or the published version, for deposit in the Tufts Digital Library eScholarship collection, and will be asked to complete a brief survey on experience and attitudes towards open access publishing.

Application Timeline (for last round)

December 1, 2012: Applications open.
February 7, 2013: Applications due.
Feb/March 2013: Notification of grants awarded.

Regular Review

All aspects of this program, including the amount of funding committed to the program, will be analyzed and reviewed on a regular basis and are subject to change.

Acknowledgments

Funding for this program was provided by the Provost.