James Madison University
AC-11: Open Access to Research

JMU Scholarly Commons is an open repository service provided by JMU Libraries to showcase research and scholarship from the JMU community. It includes peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers and posters, theses and dissertations, Special Collections materials, and more.

JMU Libraries and the Office of Research, Economic Development and Innovation began supporting a discipline-agnostic open access fund in 2023, which provides subsidies for APCs (article processing charges) for articles by JMU authors that have been accepted for publication in scholarly peer-reviewed open access (OA) journals. There are Applicant Criteria and Publication Criteria to determine eligibility. Application instructions are linked to from the Application Process.   

Not all open access publishing requires APCs, and JMU Libraries invests in a variety of models for making the scholarly communications ecosystem more open and equitable. Some OA fees for JMU authors may already be eliminated or reduced through discounts offered by the Libraries’ memberships, subscriptions, and participation in the VIVA consortium. Authors are encouraged to review the Libraries’ list of existing publisher agreements. 

Funding offered is limited and will be disbursed to authors upon approval and in the order in which requests are received. Funding is not guaranteed beyond the 2024-25 academic year. As part of our efforts to increase equity in the scholarly communication and research landscapes, 20% of this funding will be earmarked for publishing in Global South focused journals.

Members of the Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Strategies team are available to assist researchers in understanding the Fund publication criteria listed below, negotiating article licensing options and publishers’ contracts, and in identifying markers of high quality in open access journals.   

See https://www.lib.jmu.edu/publishing/apcfund/ for more information.

Several open access journals are hosted in our institutional repository, JMU Scholarly Commons. Librarians offer technical and administrative support to authors and editors. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu

Information updated by Kelly Giles, Applied Sciences Librarian. Changes entered by CJ Hartman, ISNW, on January 5, 2024. Keith Holland Associate Vice President for Research and Economic Development reviewed August 15, 2024 and suggested adding the APC program. Essa Patterson, ISNW, updated on August 19, 2024 and had the credit rereviewed. The APC fund was added since JMU's last submission.