Open Access Publishing Fees: Responses, Strategies and Emerging Best Practices Page: 842

                                
Open Access Publishing Fees:
Responses, Strategies and Emerging Best Practices
Laura Waugh
University of North Texas
laura.waugh()unt.edu
Abstract
The Open Access (OA) movement has led to a rethinking and restructuring of traditional publishing
funding models. A growing number of OA journals require authors to pay an Article Processing Charge
(APC) in order to have their articles published in their journal. In addition, hybrid journals (i.e. traditional,
subscription-based journales), are beginning to offer the option to make an article OA if authors pay an
APC. Building on the research initiatives of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
(SPARC), the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries conducted a review of thirty North American
universities' OA fund initiatives, fifteen OA journal funding models, and twelve hybrid journal funding
models in order to better understand this trend. This poster illustrates the findings of this research and
identifies emerging best practices among universities that have implemented an OA fund.
Keywords: open access, funding models, OA journals, hybrid journals, article processing charges
Purpose
The Open Access (OA) movement has led to a rethinking and restructuring of traditional
publishing funding models. A growing number of OA journals require authors to pay an Article Processing
Charge (APC) in order to have their articles published in their journal. In addition, hybrid journals (i.e.
traditional, subscription-based journales), are beginning to offer the option to make an article OA if
authors pay an APC. This practice of charging an additional APC in order to provide open accessibility to
articles is seen by many publishers as a transitional method from subscription-based models to more
inclusive models of funding to incorporate OA initiatives. In response to the increasing number of journals
charging APCs that authors are responsible for paying in order to have open accessibility to their work, a
growing number of universities are creating OA funds in order to help cover a portion of the costs.
Methods
Building on the research initiatives of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
(SPARC), the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries conducted a review of thirty North American
universities' OA fund initiatives, fifteen OA journal funding models, and twelve hybrid journal funding
models in order to better understand this trend. The review included consulting research by SPARC
(Open-access funds in action, 2012), the University of California Berkeley (Selective list of open access,
2010), BioMed Central (Comparison of BioMed Central's, 2010), Virginia Tech University Libraries (Open
access subvention fund, 2012), Tufts University (Provost's Open Access, 2010), and the University of
Connecticut Health Center (Open Access Author, 2012). The UNT Libraries' research focuses on the
funding sponsors of the OA funds, the eligibility requirements of authors and articles, the reimbursement
criteria, examples of OA journals and APCs, and any stipulations placed on the OA fund for authors.
Results
Of the thirty universities reviewed, twenty-seven are sponsored completely, or in part, by their
university's library. Fourteen of the thirty universities reviewed receive co-sponsorship through other
administrative or institutional initiatives.

Waugh, L. (2013). Open access publishing fees: Responses, strategies and emerging best practices. iConference 2013
Proceedings (pp. 842-843). doi:10.9776/13427
Copyright is held by the author.