Florida State University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

The Open Access Publishing Fund(OAPF) supports publishing costs for faculty, post-docs, researchers, and currently enrolled graduate students in open access journals and books when no alternative funding is available, thereby fostering the exploration of new and innovative publishing models. Financial support for the fund is provided by University Libraries, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Graduate School. FSU’s mission to “preserve, expand, and disseminate knowledge’ is supported through the open access policy, endorsed in 2011 and again in 2016 by the FSU Faculty Senate. University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Office provides information about open access for students and faculty. The Libraries also provides resources like DigiNole Commons, FSU's institutional repository, and administers the Open Access Publishing Fund.

Purpose Provide the broadest possible access to the journal literature authored by FSU faculty. Policy Statement The Faculty of Florida State University, consistent with the University’s mission to “preserve, expand and disseminate knowledge,”¹ is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. As such, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to Florida State University permission to make available his or her scholarly articles² and to exercise the copyright in those articles, except when a Faculty member expressly waives this grant of rights. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to Florida State University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit.³ The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or coauthored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Provost or Provost’s designee⁴ will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time upon express direction by a Faculty member. Each faculty member who does not request a waiver of the licensing requirement as described above will provide an electronic copy of his or her final version of each article (i.e., the “final author’s version post-peer review” or the “final published version” where possible) to the appropriate representative of the Provost’s Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost’s Office. The Provost’s designee may make the article available to the public in DigiNole, Florida State University’s institutional research repository. The Office of the Provost will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty Senate. After three years, the Faculty Senate Library Committee will review the policy and present a report on behalf of the Faculty Senate.

FSU Libraries manage the DigiNole Commons, the open access repository, as well as provide funding for publication fees through the Open Access Publishing Fund. Staff from the Libraries are available to provide support to all students, faculty, and staff who are interested in publishing in DigiNole. Students can login through the FSU Libraries and have access to premium research sites such as Web of Science with subscriptions paid for by University Libraries. These subscriptions allow students access to research relevant to their field without cost prohibiting barriers.

The Open Access Policy covers all scholarly articles authored by FSU faculty across all colleges and departments. FSU faculty are encouraged to submit new articles to the Office of Digital Research and Scholarship for DigiNole. Policy information can be found here: http://openaccess.fsu.edu/policy-text