Funding Open Access Research from MSU

The general fund is CLOSED for FY23.

If you have questions about this funding source or open access in general, please contact Leila Sterman. We recomend writing open access funding into your grant proposals to ensure that there is funding when research is ready for publication. Additionally, copies of most publications are legally allowed in our institutional repository, ScholarWorks. Please contact Leila Sterman for more information about posting articles, open access, and writing these funds into grants. 

Open Access Author Fund at MSU

Open access (OA) is the ability to download and freely read scholarly works. OA removes barriers between readers and information. At Montana State University, our goal is to remove those barriers to access so that anyone in the world may read and benefit from the research conducted here in Montana. Publishing articles and books carry associated costs, even if the publication is purely digital. Journals spend money managing review, copy editing, and formatting articles, publishing them in print or online, and promoting them. To pay for this work, some journals ask that the author pay a charge (commonly referred to as an Article Processing Charge or APC). This fee often becomes a barrier between an author and open access publishing.

The Open Access Author Fund

The MSU Library provides an open access author fund to help remove the barrier between MSU authors and open access publishing. For FY23 the library has three separate funds.

1. The Hybrid fund for FY21:  $5,000 of those funds will fund articles in hybrid journals. These Authors will receive no more than $2,000/MSU author per fiscal year on a rolling basis.

2. $45,000 will fund articles in pure open access journals. These Authors will receive no more than $2,000 per fiscal year on a rolling basis.

3. The Library contracts with multiple publishers allows for open access articles to be published in eligible journals.

    1. Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    2. Taylor & Francis
    3. The Company of Biologists
    4. Royal Society of Publishing
    5. IOP Publishing
    6. Rockefeller University Press
    7. Wiley

Definitions

In the Gold Open Access model, all articles and related content are available for free immediately on the journal's website through payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). Hybrid Open Access journals contain a mixture of open access articles (paid by APCs) and closed access articles (available through library subscriptions). A publisher following this model is partially funded by subscriptions and only provide open access for those individual articles for which the authors (or research sponsor) pay a publication fee.

Goals

  • To allow MSU created research to reach the greatest number of potential readers.
  • To remove some of the burden on authors as they work to make an impact in their field of expertise. 

History of the Program

The program was started in 2014 and has funded over 230 articles. The program has grown in popularity, with more applications every year.  Please feel free to browse the many the articles funded. Note the many departments and array of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students represented in this funding pool.

The Application Process

Eligible Publications

The publication must be an established peer-reviewed journals. We will fund articles in Open Access journals that allow readers to access articles without subscription fees and hybrid publications, or those journals that have both subscription and open access articles.

Journals should fit at least one of the following criteria:

  • Be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (unless the journal is too new for DOAJ eligibility), OR
  • Be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or adhere to its Code of Conduct, OR
  • Have a publicly available standard fee schedule.
  • Be an open access journal, without subscription fees.

Eligible Articles

Articles/data should:

  • Be a peer-reviewed article submitted to an open access/hybrid journal.
  • Have Publication Status of 'accepted-for-publication'.
  • Not have been published prior to the authors' request for funds.

Articles will be considered only if there is no other source of funding available. We expect researchers to request funding for open access publication from their funding agency if they can do so. For example, the National Institutes of Health will fund open access publications as part of their research grants. If such funds are not available, we welcome your application.

Eligible Authors

Funds are available for faculty, staff, professional and research positions, and students at MSU - Bozeman.

Eligible Fees

Article processing fees may include publication fees (charges levied on articles accepted for publication, including Open Access page charges). Eligible fees must be based on a publication’s standard fee schedule that is independent of the author’s institution. Reprint fees are not eligible. Reimbursement will cover only direct costs for open access publication (not the cost of reprints, color illustration fees, non-open access page charges, etc.). Requests for funding will be reviewed by the Scholarly Communication Librarian and a decision for funding support will be communicated to the author.

Fund Limits

Each author is limited to $2,000 per fiscal year. Publication charges will be paid to the publisher on behalf of an author on a first-come, first-served basis.

Institutional Repository

As an added service, the library will deposit a copy of funded articles in the institutional repository, and willingness to deposit here is a requirement of receiving funding. The placement of an article in the repository helps to build the collection of publications, supports the self-archiving arm of the open access movement, and provides institutional preservation and discoverability.

How do I apply?

 

 

The general fund for open access publishing is CLOSED for FY23. The application should still be used for Publishing Agreement funded articles.