- Author: Jim Downing
In the past year, UC has announced several agreements with major publishers of scholarly journals, including Elsevier and Springer Nature. These agreements include provisions for funding to cover the article processing charges (APCs) for open-access publication of articles in those publishers' journals. APCs would otherwise be borne by authors.
Under the agreements, UC campus libraries all contribute to a systemwide fund to cover the APCs.
This message is to clarify that all UC ANR personnel – advisors, specialists, academic coordinators and all staff – are eligible for funding for open-access article processing charges under these agreements.
Here's how the process works: After acceptance of an article in one of the journals covered by the agreements, the corresponding author will see the default open-access option in the publishing workflow. If the author chooses open access, the systemwide fund will automatically cover the first $1,000 of the APC to the publisher. APCs are typically greater than $1,000. If the author has research funding to cover the remaining APC, those research funds will be used to cover the balance. If the author does not have research funding to cover the remaining open access fee, the systemwide fund will cover the balance.
Here's a link to a comprehensive FAQ about the Elsevier agreement, which takes effect April 1. The agreement also restores and expands online access for UC personnel to Elsevier's paywalled journal content.
The Springer Nature agreement went into effect in January – here's information on that agreement.
Here's a page with information on all the other similar agreements with journal publishers.
The UC Davis Open Access Publishing site is a good resource for general questions about open access publishing.
Jim Downing can also help answer questions at jdowning@ucanr.edu.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
The University invites comments on the proposed draft Presidential Policy on Open Access, which is based on the Academic Senate Open Access Policy for all Academic Senate members adopted on July 24, 2013.
The proposed new policy extends open access rights and responsibilities to all non-Senate members of the UC community who are authors of scholarly articles, including faculty, other academic personnel, students, administrators, and staff. The policy allows non-Senate authors of scholarly articles to maintain legal control over their research articles while making their work freely available to the public. In addition, the proposed policy outlines procedures for implementing the policy for all UC authors, both Senate and non-Senate. Although the policy assumes all authors will make: their scholarly articles available to the public, there is a procedure, which authors must undertake proactively, to opt out of the open, access process.
The proposal is located on the UCOP Academic Personnel and Programs website at http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/academic-personnel-policy/policies-under-review/index.html under "Policies under review" on the lower left navigation bar, under “Systemwide Review.”
Please send comments and questions to Robin Sanchez at rgsanchez@ucanr.edu no later than January 15, 2015.