Open Access Publishing

For FY24-25 the process for receiving funding for Open Access Publishing is changing.  Please read the new process, and take note of the new forms for funding inquiry and requesting reimbursement, below. 

Jefferson’s Open Access Publishing Fund reimburses Jefferson authors up to $2,500 for article processing charges (APC) for publication in qualified, fully open access journals. 

Workflow:

• Before manuscript submission, the author(s) should review the fine print of funding guidelines and journal eligibility, below, and check with fund administrators, via the Inquiry form, for:
  • Journal eligibility and legitimacy
  • Likely funding amount based on percentage of Jefferson authors and expected APC
• After manuscript acceptance:
  • Author pays the publisher invoice, or publisher’s agent, for the APC.
  • Author submits the Application for reimbursement of APC, attaching a copy of the paid invoice.
• Upon receipt of the funding reimbursement form the fund administrators will reimburse the author or the author’s department for the covered amount of the APC.  Reimbursement will be done through an IDT or CONCUR.

Thomas Jefferson University supports open access publishing through two channels:  first, transformative (read-write) agreements with publishers and second, funding to authors.  Transformative agreements provide no-fee open access publishing with a small group of publishers. These publishers are listed in the column to the left.  As our transformative agreements begin with manuscript submission, please check to see if your journal is covered by one of these agreements prior to submitting. 

If your journal is not covered by one of our agreements, Jefferson provides financial support to Jeffersonians through the Open Access Publishing Fund. Financial support from the fund covers Article Processing Charges (APC).

Open Access Publishing Fund Policies:

• The maximum support Jefferson will provide is $2500 per article for the fiscal year (July 1 - June 30).
• A lead author will only receive funding once per fiscal year, regardless of the amount provided.
• The amount funded is based on the number of Jefferson authors. For example: If a paper has two authors, and one is not affiliated with Jefferson, with an APC of $1000, Jefferson would cover 50%, or $500, of the cost.
• Funds will be provided on a first-come, first-approved basis.
• Funding recipients should include the following statement in their article acknowledgments:

Publication made possible in part by support from the Thomas Jefferson University Open Access Fund.

• Articles that receive funding will be uploaded to the Jefferson Digital Commons (JDC).
• As funding is limited, we strongly encourage researchers to include a line-item on future grant proposals for dissemination or open access costs.

Journal Qualifications:

• The journal must have either or both of the following:
  • a listing in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
  • membership in the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
• The journal must be fully open access.  Hybrid publications that make some articles free while keeping others behind a subscription paywall are ineligible for funding.

You may find it helpful to review the guide on predatory/deceptive publishing.

If you are unsure if your journal meets these criteria, please complete the Open Access Funding Inquiry form and the fund administrators will get back to you.  If you have other questions, please contact Irma Qavolli.

Articles funded by the Jefferson Open Access fund are included in the documents below according to the fiscal year in which they were funded and published.