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.
Please note that the guidelines have changed. Please review them below.
The fund will open for new applications (and the button will work!) in the following date windows:
Questions? Please email libscholarlycommunication@tcu.edu.
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 faculty, staff, and students may apply for funding.
When should I apply?
The library will announce when the application period is open.
What types of works are covered?
Open access journal articles, conference proceedings, monographs, monograph chapters, and other scholarly material such as data sets.
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?
Alternative funding
If an author has extramural grant funding, the author must affirm in the application that the funding is insufficient to cover the APC amount. The library reserves the right to contact The Office of Sponsored Programs regarding grant funding availability.
If the APC can be covered by one of TCU's transformative agreements, the author must use that opportunity instead.
Journals must meet two eligibility criteria: One criterion relating to the OA model of the journal, and one criterion related to quality control.
OA Model
The first criterion for approval is that the journal must provide free access to all its published content via the Internet immediately upon publication. Excluded from this program is any journal that either delays online publication of articles or that is open access for only a portion of its content (commonly called a “hybrid” OA journal).
Quality Control
The second criterion relates to quality control. In all cases, the article must undergo peer review. The library recognizes that there exist open access journals that exercise no quality control, or solely exist to scam potential authors. Such “predatory” journals are specifically excluded from this program.
The following journals are eligible for inclusion, assuming that they meet all other criteria in this document. Journals must show eligibility in one of two ways:
For journals that do not qualify under the Quality Control criteria, the library reserves the right to make occasional exceptions.
Monograph and monograph chapters are eligible for the fund if the following two criteria are met:
OA Model
The entirety of the book must be freely available online via the Internet immediately upon publication, regardless of whether the application is for a book or book chapter. Applications where only a portion of a book is freely available will not be considered. The book must be made available under an Open Access license, such as a Creative Commons license.
Quality Control
The book must undergo independent and external peer review prior to publication. The publisher must be a member of either OASPA (described above) or be listed in DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books).
For books or book publishers that do not qualify under the Quality Control criteria, the library reserves the right to make occasional exceptions.
The library will consider these works on a case-by-case basis using criteria analogous to the criteria for journal articles and books. In all cases, the publisher must be committed to making its content freely available upon publication, and must have a peer review process.
The library will announce application periods for funding. To apply simply fill out the online form.
You may apply for funding for any work that has not yet been published. Additionally, the library will pay the publisher directly and cannot reimburse applicants, so please do not pay any fees upfront.
All applications for funding received by the deadline will be considered for funding. A panel will adjudicate the applications. The panel’s decision shall be final.
The panel will use the following guidelines to consider which applications to approve:
The library will notify all applicants whether funding was approved.
This is a list of authors from 2021 to present whom the TCU Library has supported with the Open Access Fund.
This is a list of authors from 2016 to 2020 whom the TCU Library has supported with the Open Access Fund.
Have questions? Contact Jeff Bond today!
j.bond@tcu.edu
817-257-7107
