University of Georgia Libraries Graduate Student Open Access Publishing Fund

Current Status

As of May 2023, all funds for FY23 have been exhausted and applications are not being accepted at this time.

 

Introduction

The Open Access publishing model provides free and immediate access to publications. To that end, The UGA Libraries support the Open Access publishing endeavors of graduate students with payment of their Article Processing Charge (APC) for their accepted manuscript. This website provides an overview of support available to graduate students who are interested in publishing their work Open Access. We also provide an application form to apply for funding. For questions about the program and the application process, please contact Emily Gore: emily.gore@uga.edu

 

Program Goals

  • Advance graduate student careers by making their works more discoverable, and thus citable and influential
  • Promote the visibility of graduate student research
  • Advance and share new knowledge generated from the University of Georgia worldwide, and to those who cannot otherwise pay for content
  • Foster an environment of open knowledge sharing among graduate students in preparation for their professional careers
  • Foster cost-effective models of scholarly publishing in the student’s given field
  • Help the University of Georgia recoup its investment in research with access to research generated by its graduate students
  • Establish sustainability for Open Access publishing for graduate students at UGA

 

Program Administration

  1. Applicant Eligibility Criteria:
    • Any graduate student enrolled in a degree-granting graduate program (full or part-time) at the University of Georgia is eligible to apply for funding.
    • The applicant must show proof of manuscript acceptance and the Article Processing Charge (APC) amount due from the publisher.
    • The applicant must have no other means of financial support for the APC.
    • Eligible applicants may apply to have ONE article funded through the fund per fiscal year - multiple articles will not be funded.
       
  2. Journal Eligibility Criteria:
    • Funding is for journal article publications that will be published as Open Access (free and immediate publication)
    • Peer-reviewed or otherwise high quality academic or creative journal. The applicant may consult key the Open Access journal resource, The Directory of Open Access Journals.
    • Journals with predatory practices are not eligible for funding. Predatory means aggressive and high-pressure solicitation of student content for publication, lack of clear publication policies, and unreasonably high-priced APCs.
       
  3. Requirements

    In order to promote transparency of research products, the awardee is required to:

    • Provide a supporting letter from the applicant’s academic advisor or other faculty member. The letter should address the student’s scholarly work and the quality of the journal in which the student’s work has been accepted
    • Submit the final published article to ScholarWorksUGA, the University of Georgia’s Open Access digital repository.
       
  4. Funding Procedure
    • Eligible authors may use the application form to apply for funding. Review of requests occurs upon application submission and is subject to availability of funds.
    • The Scholarly Communication Librarian reviews funding applications and contacts the applicant via email upon approval, request for more information, or rejection of the request. Final funding approval is subject to approval by the University Librarian and Associate Provost.
    • If the Library approves the funding, the author is expected to notify the Scholarly Communication Librarian of the article's publication date. A publisher's letter to the author to this effect is an acceptable form of notification.
    • The author should send the publisher invoice to the Scholarly Communication Librarian for the Library to pay the publisher directly.
    • Matching departmental funds are strongly encouraged.
       
  5. Questions

    Emily B. Gore, Associate University Librarian: Emily.Gore@uga.edu

 

Program Sustainability

With launching this pilot, UGA Libraries encourages matching funds from the awardee's department to sustain this program beyond the pilot phase.