Florida State University
AC-11: Access to Research

FSU supports the principle of open access and officially endorsed it in a 2011 Faculty Senate resolution. University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Office provides consultations and information about open access, as well as resources like DigiNole Commons, FSU's institutional repository, and administration of the Open Access Publishing Fund. DigiNole Commons is a service of The Florida State University Libraries. Research and scholarly output included here has been selected and deposited by the individual university departments, research units and faculty on campus. Currently, 628 disciplines are available for exploration.

The Florida State University Faculty Senate - Open Access Resolution Approved by Faculty Senate, Oct. 19, 2011 The faculty of The Florida State University is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible. This resolution is intended both to confirm the public benefit of such dissemination and to serve faculty interests by promoting greater reach and impact for scholarly publications. In keeping with these commitments, the Faculty Senate adopts the following resolution. Resolution The Faculty Senate of The Florida State University, consistent with the University’s mission to “preserve, expand and disseminate knowledge” and to provide broad access to institutional resources and services, endorses the storage and preservation of scholarly publications in The Florida State University’s open access institutional repository. This resolution aims to extend the university's mission into the digital age. Its goals are to remove access barriers to publicly-funded scholarship, to centralize the University’s intellectual output while maintaining quality filters and supporting established publishing opportunities, and to support faculty who wish to pursue open access publishing whenever consistent with their professional goals. Resolution Implementation Implementation of this resolution is dependent on the foundation and development of infrastructure, including a university library-supported institutional repository and Scholarly Communications staff who will coordinate and facilitate the digital collection process for faculty. The Faculty Senate calls upon the Faculty Senate Library Committee and the Florida State University Libraries to explore and address the implementation of this resolution, including the needs to: ● protect authors’ intellectual property ● maintain Florida State University standards for Promotion and Tenure ● promote quality and prestige in scholarly publishing ● develop policies and procedures for the governance of this resolution ● explore scholarship publishing in emerging platforms and digital contexts The Faculty Senate, Vice President for Faculty Development and Advancement and the Dean of the University Libraries will be responsible for interpreting this resolution. The resolution and its implementation will be reviewed yearly in conjunction with the Faculty Senate Library Committee with a report presented to the Faculty Senate.

The Open Access Publishing Fund, administered by the Florida State University Libraries, is to support publishing costs for eligible open access (OA) journals and books when no alternative funding is available, thereby fostering the exploration of new and innovative publishing models. Florida State University strives to "preserve, expand and disseminate knowledge." One manner of achieving that goal is for Florida State University authors to make their research available as open access. Florida State University joins other universities in the United States and Europe in offering its authors access to funding to assist with publication charges for open access journals and books.