Open Access
Looking for a way to strengthen the visibility, reach, and impact of your scholarship? Confused by your grant funder's public access mandate? Searching for article processing charge support? UC Libraries can help you navigate the complexities of the open access landscape.
What Is Open Access?
Open access describes any publishing model that provides barrier-free electronic access to scholarly content. Open access content is not behind a paywall or gated in any other way and is available to anyone with an internet connection, making it a more equitable option for sharing your work with the world. The exact form that this takes varies from publication to publication with variations in how much content is open, how it is funded, and how it is licensed.
How We Can Help
The library supports open access at the University of Cincinnati through a variety of services and programs, including:
Dissemination planning is a tool for expanding the reach of your research, providing a roadmap for how your work will reach the people that need to see it most. Librarians can help you:
- Identify audiences for your work (in academia and beyond)
- Understand and meet funder mandates (e.g., federal public access)
- Plan engagement strategies
- Locate open access publishing options
- Navigate open licensing (e.g., Creative Commons [CC])
- Utilize cost-free avenues to open access
Consider scholarly dissemination planning at the proposal stage of your next project.
UC Libraries currently has agreements in place with eleven different scholarly publishers that waive article processing charges (APCs) for authors affiliated with the University of Cincinnati, including faculty, staff, and students. Waivers are intended to remove the financial barrier to engaging with publisher open access models.
Learn more about how your research can benefit from this program.
Self-archiving, also called green open access, is a fee-free route to open access that takes place outside of the publisher's workflow where the author uploads the accepted version of their article (pre-peer review and pre-layout) to a repository. Librarians can help you
- Decode publisher limitations on self-archiving (e.g., version, embargo period, license)
- Understand compliance with funder mandates
- Select a repository
- Prepare submissions and metadata
- Utilize the institutional repository
UC Libraries supports fee-free diamond journals publishing by providing access to, and support for, Open Journals Systems (OJS).
Looking for information on UC Libraries' support for open educational resources (OER)? Visit our Zero Textbook Cost Grant Program page.
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