Information for Authors
Who is eligible to apply for the Open Access Fund?
- Current Cal State LA tenure-track & tenured faculty members, Emeriti faculty, lecturers, staff, and students are eligible to receive funds.
Are there limits to the amount that an author can request?
- An author may receive a maximum of $1,500 from this fund per fiscal year (July - June).
What if there are multiple Cal State LA co-authors? Are there limits to the amount that one paper can receive?
- If there are multiple Cal State LA authors on one paper, the maximum funding for the paper will be $3000. Total funds granted per paper shall not exceed the total cost of the article processing charges.
Which Cal State LA co-author should submit the application?
- In most cases, it doesn't matter. It is recommended that if there is a student co-author, that the faculty authors submit an application. If a student does not have a Cal State LA faculty co-author, they will be asked to submit a form individually.
What happens in the case of multiple authorship, when some authors are from Cal State LA and others are not?
- We encourage authors from other institutions to contribute to the cost of publishing, because many institutions have funding similar to Cal State LA Library’s Open Access Fund. Additionally, some journals offer waivers or reduced author processing charges to authors without institutional support. We encourage you to leverage those resources first. However, if external authors and/or their institutions are unable to assist with publishing costs, a Cal State LA co-author is eligible for funding, up to the $1,500 per author limits described above.
Do authors need to exhaust other funding sources that can be used to pay for submission fees before applying to the Open Access Fund?
- Yes, authors with alternate sources of funding, such as other grants or publishing waivers, should use those sources before applying to the fund.
Are Cal State LA University authors being told to publish in certain journals?
- No, Cal State LA authors are welcome to publish in any journal they wish. This fund is in place to assist those authors who wish to publish in open access journals.
Eligibility Criteria & Award Process
What types of journals are eligible for the Fund?
- Funding is available for recently accepted peer-reviewed articles in completely open access journals that charge a publication fee associated with the cost of making an article freely available. Hybrid journal fees are currently not eligible for funding. See the question “What is a hybrid journal?” for more information on hybrid journals.
- Eligible journals must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) or follow best practices in scholarly publishing, as identified by DOAJ. Journals must also make their fee schedule publicly available online.
What types of fees are covered by the fund?
- Fees associated with the cost of making an article freely available in a completely OA journal are covered by the fund. Costs for reprints, color illustration fees, non-open access page charges, administrative charges and other fees are not applicable.
Can the Open Access Fund be used to cover formats other than journal articles that are openly accessible, such as conference presentations and monographs?
- Currently, the Open Access Fund may only be applied to peer-reviewed journal articles.
Can I be reimbursed for an Open Access article I've already published?
- Currently, we are only funding articles that have been accepted, but not published.
What is the procedure for payment?
- The Author should request from the publisher an itemized invoice billed to the author and/or Cal State LA. Please email the invoice to Jenny Tran (htran@cslanet.calstatela.edu) or mail the invoice to the following address:
- Attn: Jenny Tran
- Cal State LA John F. Kennedy Memorial Library
- 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032
Who decides which applications are funded?
- A librarian review committee makes the decision.
After submitting the request form, when can I expect to hear back if I'll receive support?
- Authors should expect to hear back within seven business days.
How do I apply?
Open Access Publishing
What is an open access journal?
- An open access journal is one that provides free global online access with minimal or no copyright limitations. That means anyone, anywhere with access to the Internet may read, download, copy, and distribute that article.
Do open access journals employ peer review?
- Yes, there are thousands of peer-reviewed open access journals. Open access is a method of publishing unrelated to the review process. Currently, nearly one thousand open access journals are indexed in Web of Science, which conducts a rigorous review of journals for quality and only includes journals with high impact factors.
What is a hybrid journal?
- A “hybrid journal” is published by a traditional subscription-based publisher; articles can immediately be made freely available to the public if the author pays an additional publication fee (also referred to as “paid access,” “open choice,” sponsored article,” etc.). “Hybrid open access” differs from the true open access in that hybrid publishers often have restrictions on redistribution and reuse. A fully open access journal, on the other hand, has limited copyright restrictions which means anyone, anywhere with access to the internet may read, download, copy and distribute that article.
How can I make my research freely available to readers if I have used up my grant allotment for the academic year or if the Open Access Fund has run out of money?
- As an author, you have the power to keep some of your key rights when signing the publication agreement with a journal. You can request to reserve the rights that will allow you the option to post the article on your personal website. This is easily done with an author’s addendum, which can be attached to the publisher's copyright transfer agreement you will be asked to sign when your paper is accepted. SPARC has an author addendum available online which you can modify.
- Additionally, the CSU Libraries are currently in a pilot agreement with Elsevier that allows CSU researchers to waive Author Publishing Charges [APCs] for open access publications. You can read more about the agreement and eligibility requirements here.
Do other institutions have this kind of fund?
From where does the money for the Open Access Fund come?
- The Open Access Fund is sponsored by the University Library. Funds allocated for this support cannot be used for and have no impact on monies allocated for a journal subscription.
Where can I get further information?
- For further information or assistance, contact Jennifer Masunaga (jmasuna@calstatela.edu) in the University Library.
