Academic Publishing Support

Open Access 

The availability and accessibility of new technologies offers an opportunity to reform the scholarly communications landscape. Open Access publishing aims to create a research system where scholarly works are immediately and freely available online to researchers and the public. 

Open Access scholarship has many benefits: 

• Open Access works are more available.
• Open Access works have a greater impact.
• Open Access helps researchers retain copyright.
• Funding agencies may require Open Access publication. 

Open Access publishing and open scholarship comes in many forms: 

• Open Access Repositories are central, disciplinary, or institutional repositories which make content available. PubMed Central, arXiv, and UTC Scholar are examples.
• Open Access Journals provide immediate open access to all articles, while “hybrid” journals have some open access articles with others only available to subscribers. Not all Open Access journals are the same. Authors should investigate and understand journal policies and author agreements before making a decision about publishing in any journal. 

Although most Open Access Journals do not charge authors to publish, many prominent OA publishers require that authors pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to cover the costs associated with publication. 

Open Publishing Support Fund 

In partnership with the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, the UTC Library supports researchers who choose to publish in Open Access journals with the Open Publishing Support Fund. The Open Publishing Support Fund (OPSF) covers article processing charges for eligible peer-reviewed, open access journals. Publications in hybrid journals are not eligible for funding. Funds are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum award of $2500 per request. Requests for funding should be made immediately after an article is accepted for publication. Visit the InfoReady Review portal to preview the application and apply. 

Author Publishing Charges Discounts and Waivers 

UTC negotiates for discounted APCs from publishers as part of our subscriptions to their journal packages. A list of currently available APC Discount Agreements is on the Transformative Agreements page.