International OA Week: Online Events & Open Access APC Fund

Posted October 24, 2023 in JMU Libraries News, Open Education News

It’s International Open Access (OA) Week! To celebrate, we’re promoting several online OA Week events and sharing important context on our Open Access APC Fund to help faculty and staff with the costs of publishing open access articles:

Why is there a fee to publish open access articles? Sometimes publishing open access is free. However, many publishers of fully open, peer-reviewed scholarly journals charge article processing charges (APCs) to authors because there are no subscription fees to cover business costs. Some journals that are not open access have also started charging APCs to authors in order to make a single article open access, despite subscriptions covering business costs.

Efforts towards equity. The expense of APCs can prevent authors from publishing in open access journals, and barriers to information access can be harmful to society. This APC Fund is just one of the ways JMU Libraries is working to make the scholarly communications ecosystem more open and equitable.

Apply for funding: Visit our Open Access APC Fund page for details, including the application process and criteria. This program was made possible by JMU Libraries and JMU Research, Economic Development and Innovation.

Want to read more about how organizations and publishers around the world are talking about community over commercialization, the theme of this year’s OA Week? Check out these profiles!

Please contact Yasmeen Shorish, Director of Scholarly Communications Strategies, with questions about this program, open access, or publication fees.