Scholarly Communications@TCU: Open Access Fund

The TCU Open Access Fund assists TCU faculty, staff, and students who want to publish their work as open access (OA), but where the cost of doing so is prohibitive to the author.

• We recommend using the TCU Journal Guide to find a good journal home for your manuscript and to identify eligible journals for the fund.
• Please review all guidelines before applying.

Looking for other open access financial support besides the OA Fund? Please check out all of our OA support options.

General Information
The TCU Open Access Fund assists TCU faculty, staff, and students who want to publish their work as open access (OA), but where the cost of doing so is prohibitive to the author.

Who may apply?
All current TCU students, faculty and staff may apply for funding.

When should I apply?
The application form is available year-round.

What types of works are covered?
Open access journal articles, books, and book chapters.

What fee is covered?
The Article Processing Charge (APC) or similar fee is covered under this fund, up to the limits outlined below. No other fees are covered.

What limits apply?

• For each work, the funding may not exceed $3,500.
• The applicant must be a current TCU faculty member, staff, or student. If the applicant is a Burnett School of Medicine affiliate TCU faculty member, then at least one co-author must be a current TCU student or employed faculty or staff.
• Each applicant may be approved for funding a maximum of two times in a fiscal year (June 1-May 31). Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis.
• Each author on the work, including the applicant, must meet ICMJE criteria for being an author on a work.

Alternative Funding

• In the application, the applicant must state that they and their co-authors have no other funding from any source that could be used to pay for the APC.
• If the APC can be covered by one of TCU's publisher agreements, the author must use that opportunity instead.

The library application form is open year-round. To apply simply fill out the online form.

You may apply for funding for a work once it is ready to submit to the publisher, and up until one month after it has been published.

Please do not pay any fees upfront. The library will pay the publisher directly and will not reimburse applicants. If the invoice has been paid by any party besides the library or its representatives, eligibility ends.

All applications for funding will be considered. A selection panel exists to consider matters related to the fund. The selection panel’s decision shall be final. The library will notify you whether your application is successful.

Pre-Approval

• The selection panel will evaluate applications approximately once per month to pre-approve applications for funding. Pre-approval means funding is set aside for you when you get an invoice from the publisher. The deadline to send the invoice is six months after funding is pre-approved, unless the library states otherwise. After the deadline, the funding will expire.
• Before the deadline, if the applicant requests an extension, then the library may extend the deadline for an additional six months. Only one extension will be given.
• Once funding is pre-approved, the funding is dedicated to a particular applicant, work, and journal and cannot be transferred. If the applicant needs to change any of these, then a new application must be completed.
• Once funding is pre-approved, the library recommends that the author acknowledge funding in the work with the following text: "Publication charges for this work were supported by the TCU Library Open Access Fund."

Approval and Payment

When you receive the publisher's invoice, send it to libscholarlycommunication@tcu.edu immediately. We will review it and then approve it for payment. Do not pay the publisher yourself, as the library will not reimburse. Please be patient with the payment process.

Priority processing

Applications where the work has already been accepted for publication and include a payment invoice will receive expedited highest priority for pre-approval, approval, processing, and payment.

Criteria

The panel will use the following guidelines to consider which applications to approve:

• Preferring applicants that have made the most progress towards getting their work accepted for publication.
• Preferring applicants who have not recently received funding from the TCU OA Fund
• Preferring applicants who apply the earliest.

The library will deposit a copy of the work in the TCU Institutional Repository. The author is required to give deposit permission in the application form.

See this document for a list of all articles and books supported by the TCU Open Access fund in prior years.

If you have questions, please contact libscholarlycommunication@tcu.edu. We're happy to help!