Virginia Commonwealth University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

Scholars Compass is a publishing platform for the intellectual output of VCU’s academic, research, and administrative communities. Its goal is to provide wide and stable access to the exemplary work of VCU’s faculty, researchers, students, and staff. VCU Libraries administers and oversees the Scholars Compass. Scholars Compass hosts content that is produced, submitted, or sponsored by VCU faculty, researchers, or staff, and demonstrates scholarly, educational, or research value. Presentations at professional conferences and publications in scholarly venues from graduate and professional students are encouraged. Other content produced or submitted by VCU students must be sponsored by VCU faculty, researchers, or staff. Content housed in VCU Scholars Compass can include but is not limited to: published or unpublished faculty research conference papers and proceedings presentations, technical reports and working papers books and book chapters multimedia administrative and policy documents theses and dissertations data sets peer-reviewed journals and other series instructional material and courseware software https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/ VCU Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund supports the publication of research articles in peer-reviewed journals that are available to all on the web without charge. Some open access journals charge author fees to cover costs of peer review and other services common to all scholarly journals. The Open Access Publishing Fund helps pay these fees, thus minimizing the financial barrier to publishing in open access journals. The fund is designed particularly to encourage VCU authors to seek out high quality non-profit publishers to host their scholarship in support of new modes of scholarly communication. Open access journals are available for nearly every area of research; a comprehensive list is found in the Directory of Open Access Journals, https://doaj.org/. The library’s Unlimited membership status already provides free publishing for VCU authors in all Hindawi journals. VCU's Open Access funding has been available since Oct 2015. https://www.library.vcu.edu/services/research-support/oa-fund/

Why open access? Satisfies requirement of many public and private funding agencies that require researchers to make articles open access. Promotes accelerated discovery, allowing researchers to read and build on findings without restriction. Encourages new forms of scholarly communication. Provides an alternative to high-cost, unsustainable commercial publishing. Eligibility VCU faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate and professional students who meet the following criteria are eligible to apply for funds: Author of a peer-reviewed journal article already accepted for publication at the time of applying for funding support. The journal must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals or be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. Hybrid journals (such as subscription-based journals that make some articles open access only after the author pays a fee) are not funded, even if listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. Collection librarians can assist you in selecting qualifying open access journals eligible for funding. Publications from non-profit publishers are given preferential funding. The work must be fully available immediately upon publication. Have the right and agree to upload the published work to the VCU institutional repository, VCU Scholars Compass after publication. Limits Funding will continue until funds are exhausted for the fiscal year. Maximum funding is $2,000 per individual within a fiscal year. Non-profit publications are funded up to $2,000 per article; commercial publications are funded up to $1,000 per article. In the case of multiple VCU authors on a single publication, total reimbursement cannot exceed the Publishing Fund's limit for a single article ($2,000 for non-profit publications and $1,000 for commercial publications). The library will not fund author publishing fees already reimbursed through institutional or other funding sources. In the case of publications with both VCU authors and authors from other institutions, a prorated amount based on the work of the VCU author will be funded. VCU students who are secondary authors will be credited, even if the student has graduated or moved to another institution.