SPARC defines an open access fund as a "pool of money set aside by an institution to support publication models that enable free, immediate, online distribution of, and access to, scholarly research."

The University of Rhode Island Open Access (URI OA) Fund has been established to support members of the URI community who want to publish in open access journals and who do not have other sources of funding to cover open access publication fees.

The URI OA Fund was created in December 2013 as part of the University's commitment as a signatory of the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE) to "the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds."

COPE's goal is to support alternative, sustainable business models for scholarly publishing by helping open access journals compete with subscription journals on a more level playing field. Just as universities subsidize publication costs through library journal subscriptions, so too should they help subsidize publication fees for open access journals.

URI OA Fund

The URI OA Fund will underwrite reasonable publication fees for articles published in eligible open access journals when other funding is not available. The fund is managed by the University Libraries with financial support provided by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

 

Eligible Authors

The URI OA Fund is available to all current University of Rhode Island employees (including faculty, researchers, administrators, staff, postdocs, and fellows) and students.

Authors who apply for funding must have an ORCID and include it in their request for funds.

Faculty members applying for reimbursement from the URI OA Fund must be in substantial compliance with the URI Open Access Policy. Compliance for this purpose means that you have signed an Assistance Authorization Form and have submitted appropriate versions of a substantial number of your policy-covered articles for deposit in DigitalCommons@URI. 

 

Eligible Articles

The URI OA Fund supports publication fees for articles published in fully open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

Eligible articles must be published under a Creative Commons license.

 

Eligible Publication Venues

The URI OA Fund may be used to pay publication fees in open access journals (i.e., journals that do not charge readers or their institutions for access to the peer-reviewed articles they publish). Eligible journals must:

• Be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
• Be published by a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or a publisher that adheres to its Code of Conduct.
• Provide unrestricted access to all peer-reviewed articles in the journal. (Subscription-based journals that charge a fee, sometimes called an "author's choice" or "open choice" fee, to make single articles available open access are not eligible, nor are subscription journals that make articles available open access after a time delay or "embargo.")
• Have publicly available a standard article fee schedule.
• Have a policy to waive fees in cases of economic hardship.
• Make articles open access under a Creative Commons license.

 

No Other Sources of Funding Available

The URI OA Fund is a limited resource intended to support open access publishing across the university. We expect researchers to request funding for open access publication from their funding agency if they can do so. These funds are intended to be a funding source of last resort. For this reason, the URI OA Fund will only issue reimbursements for personal expenditures. It will not reimburse or transfer funds to other budget lines at the university. It will not reimburse P-Card charges. 

 

Article Reimbursement Cap

The maximum dollar amount that the URI OA Fund will reimburse for a single article is $2,000.

 

Author Reimbursement Cap

Each URI author may receive reimbursement for up to $3,000 per fiscal year (July-June) for open access publication charges. Unused amounts do not roll over to future years.

 

Multiple Authorship

In the case of an article with multiple authors, each URI author may apply for reimbursement for a prorated portion of the publication fee. For example: An article with three authors, two of whom are employees and/or students at the University of Rhode Island, is to appear in a journal with a $1,500 publication fee. Each URI author may apply for reimbursement for $500. In the hypothetical case of an eligible journal with a $6,000 publication fee, each URI author may apply for reimbursement for a prorated portion of the $2,000 funding cap per article, or $666.67.

 

Application and Reimbursement Process

Please submit your request for reimbursement after your article's acceptance for publication by following the instructions on the "Apply for Funds" tab of this page. Authors must submit their reimbursement requests within 60 days from receipt and payment of the publisher's invoice for the accepted article.

 

Fund Cap

The Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development have made funds available to support the URI OA Fund. Funding for articles that comply with the eligibility criteria will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

Regular Review

All aspects of this initiative, including the amount of funding provided, will be analyzed and reviewed on a regular basis, and reports of articles supported will be made publicly available.

The URI Open Access Fund is managed by the University Libraries.

Financial support for the fund is provided by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

Reimbursements are processed through the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

University Libraries contact:
Andrée Rathemacher
(401) 874-5096
oafund-group@uri.edu

Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development contact:
Patti Correia
(401) 874-4576
pcorreia@uri.edu

Andrée Rathemacher, 12/2013-