Celebrate International Open Access Week With Scholarly Communications

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The University Libraries are celebrating International Open Access Week! The Open Access Movement strives to make information available to everyone by removing financial and legal barriers. The University Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund does exactly that by assisting with publishers' fees for open access publications by U of A faculty, staff and students. 

As you may know, many professional journals and book publishers offer an open access option, but authors may hesitate to choose it because of the additional charge. Now, through the Publishing Fund, they can receive up to $2,000 per calendar year to cover these charges. 

Created in July 2021 and sustained with generous contributions from colleges and units across campus, the Publishing Fund has already provided $141,671 to help underwrite 81 publications. In the 2022-23 fiscal year alone, it provided $49,866 toward 28 publications. 

Min Zou, professor of mechanical engineering, leads a research group whose publications have benefited from the Publishing Fund.  

"It's been a game-changer for our research group," Zou said. "The Open Access Publishing Fund, with its swift processing and financial support, has empowered us to share our work in higher-impact, wider-reaching open access journals, all while maintaining a quicker publication timeline. It's a remarkable opportunity for researchers seeking broader dissemination of their findings."  

John Veon applauds the fund for supporting student publications.  

"The Open Access Publishing Fund at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville is perhaps one of the greatest resources to students that may not have the funds to publish their work as open access," he said. "Personally, applying for this fund was super quick with prompt replies and status updates. After being awarded funds to help publish my article, those in charge of the fund were also able to process the remaining journal article balance using my project funds. Ultimately, research articles that were associated with my master's career and published open access have gained much more readership — all made possible by funds provided from the Open Access Publishing Fund." 

Are you interested in making your next publication open access? Find out more about the Open Access Movement in general and about the Publishing Fund in particular by visiting the Open Access Library Guide. If you have additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out to the Scholarly Communications Team at scholar@uark.edu.