Open Access and Scholarly Publishing @ UNO

To encourage the University community to publish their research in open access platforms, the Criss Library has established a fund to finance payment of article processing fees for UNO authors who wish to publish in open access journals or open access articles in hybrid journals. In addition to this, a pilot project has been launched for the 2019-2020 academic year in which we will be providing funding for open access books and book chapters. Open access funds demonstrate an institution’s support for new and innovative research publishing models.

Goals of the program

• Support for UNO affiliated authors who wish to publish open access
• Support for transition to a more sustainable scholarly publishing model
• Greater equality of access to information
• Greater visibility and accessibility of UNO scholarship
• Encouragement of authors to retain rights to their work

Funding
Initial funding for this program is provided by Criss Library.

Author eligibility
All University of Nebraska at Omaha employed staff, researchers and tenure-track/ tenured faculty are eligible to apply for the Employee Open Access Fund. Students are eligible to apply for the Student Open Access Fund. Applicants must be employed or enrolled, both when they apply to the fund and when they submit an invoice following acceptance. The following rules apply for both funds: 

Journal eligibility
Peer-reviewed articles must be published in open access or "hybrid" journals.

• Fully open access journals must allow immediate, free access to all their articles upon publication. The journal title must appear in the Directory of Open Access Journals or the publisher must be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.
• “Hybrid” open access journals, which are subscription-based journals, must allow for public access of the article once the open access fees have been paid. The publisher must appear in Sherpa/RoMEO’s list of Publishers with Paid Open Access Options or the publisher must be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

Journals not meeting the above requirements may be eligible, but will require additional review and justification. In addition to this, the journal must have a publicly available standard article fee schedule. A policy of waiving fees in case of economic hardship is desirable. Preference will be given to fully open access journals.

Books and Book Chapters

Edited or peer-reviewed books, book chapters or monographs must be published open access with a free online download.

• Fully open access books/ chapters/ monographs, which allow immediate, free access to all their contents upon publication. The book publisher must appear in OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks), DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books), TOME (Toward an Open Monograph EcoSystem) or the publisher must be a member of OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association).

Books, book chapters or monographs not meeting the above requirements may be eligible, but will require additional review and justification. In addition to this, the publisher must have a publicly available standard publishing fee schedule. If you are looking to produce an Open Educational Resource (OER) book for classroom instruction, you may wish to apply for the Affordable Content Grant.

Conditions of funding

Funds may be used for open access publishing and processing fees, including open access page charges. Funds are not available for reprints, color illustration fees, non-OA page charges, permissions fees, web hosting for self-archiving, or other expenses not directly related to open access fees. The fund will be suspended for the year once available monies are expended.

• Authors may not submit open access articles/ book/ book chapters accepted by publishers who institute embargo periods.
• Authors who have external funding which can be used for publishing fees are expected to use those funds whenever possible.
• The funding limit is $3,500 per author per academic year. 
• Authors who receive OA funding must also deposit their publication in DigitalCommons@UNO
• You may be required to submit additional information such as a scanned copy of the publication agreement.

Process

Requests for funding must be submitted online UNO OA Fund application form. Requests should be submitted as soon as the article, book or book chapter is accepted for publication. They will be reviewed on a regular basis and every effort will be made to provide confirmation of approval within 5-7 days.

Author Responsibilities

• Once the funding request is approved, the author should notify the library when the article, book or book chapter is published or if the author withdraws it from consideration with that publisher.
• Authors must provide a copy of the publisher’s original invoice. Payment will be handled through the library's business office.
• The author must also provide a full bibliographic citation plus a copy of the funded article, either the author’s final version or the published version, for deposit in DigitalCommons@UNO.

Questions? Simply email UNODigitalCommons@unomaha.edu with a question or comment. We will be in touch.