Open Access APC Fund

JMU Libraries and the Office of Research, Economic Development and Innovation are pleased to be able to continue this fund for the 2024-25 academic year!

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About the Open Access APC Fund

JMU Libraries and the Office of Research, Economic Development and Innovation are supporting a discipline-agnostic open access fund, which provides subsidies for APCs (article processing charge) for articles by JMU authors that have been accepted for publication in scholarly peer-reviewed open access (OA) journals. Please read the Applicant Criteria and Publication Criteria to determine eligibility. Application instructions are linked to from the Application Process.   

Not all open access publishing requires APCs, and JMU Libraries invests in a variety of models for making the scholarly communications ecosystem more open and equitable. Some OA fees for JMU authors may already be eliminated or reduced through discounts offered by the Libraries’ memberships, subscriptions, and participation in the VIVA consortium. Authors are encouraged to review the Libraries’ list of existing publisher agreements. 

Funding offered is limited and will be disbursed to authors upon approval and in the order in which requests are received. Funding is not guaranteed beyond the 2024-25 academic year. As part of our efforts to increase equity in the scholarly communication and research landscapes, 20% of this funding will be earmarked for publishing in Global South focused journals.

Members of the Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Strategies team are available to assist researchers in understanding the Fund publication criteria listed below, negotiating article licensing options and publishers’ contracts, and in identifying markers of high quality in open access journals.   

Program Goals

JMU Libraries administers this program in order to: 

• Empower JMU faculty and staff to participate in changing the scholarly publishing ecosystem to a more sustainable, inclusive, equitable, and accessible model. 
• Increase the visibility of JMU scholarship, by funding dissemination in publications which are open to scholars, students, and members of the public from around the world. 

The success of the fund will be evaluated for continuation after every spring semester.

Applicant Criteria

• May be any current JMU faculty or staff member.  
• May apply for maximum funding of $2,400 per article, in a non-subscription-based, 100% open access journal. 
• May apply for maximum funding of $1,200 per article, in a hybrid open access journal. Hybrid journals are subscription journals that allow individual articles to be made open access for an additional fee. Funding for hybrid journals is reduced due to existing subscription fees collected by the journal and may be eliminated based on assessment of this funding program after its pilot phase.  
• An individual may not receive more than $4,000 from this fund per fiscal year (July – June). In the case of multiple JMU authors on a single publication, the funding allowance will be split among them to allow for prorating the $4000 individual max. 
• Must use external grant funding, if available, before seeking open access funding through the Libraries. Authors are strongly encouraged to write costs of open access dissemination into future proposals for sponsored research. 
• Authors must deposit their work into JMU’s Scholarly Commons upon publication. Instructions on this will be provided with the funding email.

Publication Criteria

• Scholarly and creative works must be peer reviewed or invited for publication with editorial review.
• The journal’s publisher must be a member of the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) or the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), or comply with a similar Code of Conduct.  
• OA journals should be registered in an open access directory such as the Directory of Open Access Journals or Sherpa/Romeo. 
• Articles published in “mirror” journals are not eligible for funding. 
  • Mirror journals: open access journals which duplicate a subscription journal, including the same editorial board, scope, and peer review processes.
• Costs for reprints, color illustration fees, art fees, non-open access page charges, administrative charges, book subventions, or other fees are not eligible.
• Scholarly and creative works must be made freely available online at the time of publication, with no embargo period. 
• Authors must retain copyright. 
• Scholarly and creative works must be openly licensed, with a Creative Commons license or similar.

Application Process

• Submit your scholarly or creative work to a qualifying open access journal.
• When your scholarly or creative work is accepted for publication, submit an application through the application form below, including a copy of the notice of acceptance.
  • Authors who wish to submit to fully open access journals may put in a request to earmark funds prior to acceptance but will still follow the reimbursement process upon acceptance.
• The Libraries will review your application to ensure that it meets all criteria, with particular attention to the journal’s publishing practices. 
• If your application is approved, you will receive a notification that will include details of the fund transfer process. 

Apply Here

Funding Process

Open Access support is granted through reimbursement of funds to the author’s department/college. The department/college must send the Libraries receipt of fees paid within fourteen days of fund transfer in order to be eligible for the reimbursement.