Effective January 1, 2018
[REVISED April 22, 2019]
The University of Florida Open Access Publishing (UFOAP) Fund supports the goal of making UF research findings available immediately without charge to all readers. When funds are not available from other sources, the Fund will assist UF authors by paying reasonable Article Processing Charges (APCs) assessed by publishers of open access journals, including hybrid open access journals.
The Fund does not cover the assessment of page charges, color illustration fees, reprints, etc.
Articles that comply with the Application Guidelines set forth below will be funded on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the availability of funds.
No endorsement of any journal or of the research merit of any article is implied by this funding.
UFOAP funds are only available to cover publication costs of research articles where funds are not available through grants, departmental funds, discretionary funds, endowments or other sources.
NOTE: Effective immediately, articles that meet any of the following criteria are NOT eligible for support from the UFOAP Fund:
- The research being published was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is subject to the NIH public access mandate;
- The research being published was funded by a grant from another funding source with a public access mandate that was in place at the time the grant was funded (For US Federal Agencies: https://www.cendi.gov/projects/Public_Access_Plans_US_Fed_Agencies.html); or
- The research was conducted while the author received a stipend or salary from a training, career development or similar award from a funding source subject to a public access mandate.
Eligible Authors: Eligibility status is determined as of the date the article is accepted for publication. Any UF faculty, post-doctoral researcher, staff member, or student author who is the first named or corresponding author on an eligible article may apply. Eligible authors will be funded up to a maximum of $1,500 per year to pay for APCs.
Eligible Publications: To be eligible, the article must be an original peer-reviewed research article or a systematic review (this excludes case reports, book reviews, and notes, as well as other types of articles that are not full scholarly research manuscripts published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal). The article must not have been previously published and must be accepted for publication in an open access or hybrid open access journal that meets the quality criteria set forth below.
Open access journals provide free, immediate, online access to the full text of research articles without restrictions on reading, downloading, or sharing.
To be eligible, the open access journal must meet at least one of the following quality criteria:
- Journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (https://www.doaj.org)
- Publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher’s Association (https://www.oaspa.org)
- Journal and publisher’s policies adhere to the quality standards set forth in OASPA’s membership criteria (https://oaspa.org/membership/membership-criteria/)
- For more information on assessing journal quality, see UF’s Guide to Evaluating Journal Quality. We also recommend the resource Think, Check, Submit (https://thinkchecksubmit.org). If you need assistance with evaluating a publication for quality, please contact the Fund Administrator at ufoapf@uflib.ufl.edu.
Hybrid articles eligible for support from the UFOAP Fund will receive 50% of the APC assessed, not to exceed $750, subject to the available annual cap per author.
To be eligible, the hybrid journal in which the article will be published must meet at least one of the following quality criteria:
- Publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher’s Association (https://www.oaspa.org)
- Journal and publisher’s policies adhere to the quality standards set forth in OASPA’s membership criteria (https://oaspa.org/membership/membership-criteria/)
Application Form: The online application form must be completed and submitted by the eligible author. A copy of the letter of acceptance for publication and the official publisher’s invoice in US dollars must be uploaded with the completed application. Only completed applications with required documentation will be considered.
Applications must be made within 60 days of receipt of the letter of acceptance of publication and are subject to availability of funds.
One application per article should be submitted and will only be considered if submitted by the eligible author as defined above. Reimbursement to a personal or institutional account is preferred, with a copy of the paid invoice and proof of payment. If necessary, unpaid invoices showing an amount due in US dollars are also acceptable and will be paid directly to the publisher as soon as practicable by the Libraries if submitted in a timely manner.
IR@UF Submittal Requirement: Applicants who receive funding from the UFOAP are required to submit the published version of the funded article, subject to publisher restrictions, to UF’s institutional repository IR@UF (https://ufdc.ufl.edu/ir).
Attribution: Authors should include, whenever feasible, the following statement in the final published version of the article: Publication of this article was funded in part by the University of Florida Open Access Publishing Fund.
Program Review: An annual report will be prepared and submitted to the UF Faculty Senate’s University Libraries Committee and Research and Scholarship Council. Program continuation will be based upon availability of funds. Questions relating to the administration of the Fund should be addressed to the openaccess@uflib.ufl.edu.