Date/Time: Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 11:00am–12:30pm Location: Zoom only. Register via LibCal.
Are you wondering what processes, platforms, and funding are available at UC Berkeley to publish your research open access (OA)? This workshop will provide practical guidance and walk you through all of the OA publishing options and funding sources you have on campus. We’ll explain: the difference between (and mechanisms for) self-depositing your research in the UC’s institutional repository vs. choosing publisher-provided OA; what funding is available to put toward your article or book charges if you choose a publisher-provided option; and the difference between funding coverage under the UC’s systemwide OA agreements vs. the Library’s funding program (Berkeley Research Impact Initiative). We’ll also give you practical tips and tricks to maximize your retention of rights and readership in the publishing process.
This post provides information to UC Berkeley authors about programs that our Library and the UC system offer to help defray open access article processing charges. It also offers tips about how to plan or budget in advance for these fees when possible.
The University of California has been a long-time supporter of open access publishing—that is, making peer-reviewed scholarship available online without any financial, legal, or technical barriers. Just because the publishing outcome is open to be read at no cost, though, doesn’t mean the publishing enterprise as a whole is “free.” One of the most common ways for open access publishers to continue to finance their publishing and production of journals in the absence of selling subscriptions for access is to instead charge authors a fee to publish—moving from a publishing system based on paying to read to one based on paying to publish. Of course, not all methods of funding open access require authors to pay publication fees in this way. And in all cases (except those rare instances in which a publisher requests that you waive this right), the UC’s open access policy makes it possible for UC authors to share their author-accepted manuscript version of their articles on eScholarship, the UC’s research repository, immediately upon publication in a journal.
But when a publisher does charge a fee to publish, we want to help you understand what UC Berkeley resources are available—whether from your grant funds or the University of California Libraries—to help with those costs.
Typically publishers refer to author-facing fees as “article processing charges”, or “APCs”. APCs can range from a few hundred dollars all the way up to $10,000 or more for some select Nature journals.
UC authors may be able to cover or contribute to these fees by leveraging research accounts or grant funds (to the extent available). But there are also other University Library programs available to support payment when research accounts or grant funds are not available.
UC-wide open access publishing agreements will cover some (or all) APCs
UC corresponding authors can take advantage of funding opportunities to defray the cost of publishing their scholarship open access where their grant or other research funds come up short or are not available. The University of California libraries have entered into a growing number of systemwide transformative open access agreements with publishers. UC libraries’ transformative agreements aim to transform scholarly publishing by moving from a publication model based on subscription access to an open access model.
When a UC-affiliated corresponding author has an article accepted for publication in a journal with which the UC has an open access publishing agreement, the UC libraries will pay some or all of the associated publishing fee. So, when it comes time to pay the APC, the UC libraries will pay at least the first $1,000. If there’s any remaining balance due on the APC, the publisher’s payment system will ask if the UC author has grant funding available to cover the remainder. If the UC author cannot contribute the remaining balance, the UC libraries will pay the entire APC on their behalf. (Note: there are a few instances where the UC libraries will contribute a maximum of $1,000 toward the APC, such as Nature-branded titles.)
The UC maintains an updated list of Publisher OA Agreements and Discounts where you can explore which journals are available for partial or full APC coverage under the open access agreements.
The UC Berkeley Library-specific fund can reimburse open access fees for other fully open access journals
UC Berkeley’s Library also has a campus open access fund that UCB authors can use if they are publishing in a fully open access journal and are required to pay an APC. The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) is open to any current UC Berkeley faculty, graduate student, postdoc, or academic staff who does not have other sources of funds to pay article processing charges. The BRII fund is available for journals other than those with which the UC has entered into a systemwide transformative open access agreement.
For BRII APC coverage to apply, the entire journal must be freely available to the public without subscription fees. BRII cannot cover fees for publishing in “hybrid” OA journals—which are subscription-based journals that only offer open access options if an author decides to pay an additional fee to make their individual article open access. BRII reimbursements are capped at $2,500 per article, and a UC Berkeley author can use BRII funds once per fiscal year.
How to plan in advance
If your research is grant funded, it is important to think about publishing costs at the beginning of your research cycle and account for them in your grant applications and annual research budgeting. For grant recipients (such as researchers with funding from NIH, NSF, etc.), open access publishing costs generally are considered an allowable direct expense unless funders explicitly prohibit them. For more information on how and why to plan in advance, check out the Open Access Fact Sheet for Researchers Applying for Grants.
Click the image above to view the full guide “Open Access Fact Sheet for Researchers Applying for Grants”
Planning in advance allows you to be a partner in the publishing process. It allows the UC libraries to cover some of your article processing charge ($1,000) and, where possible, you to use grant or research funds to cover the rest. The more researchers are able to contribute, the farther the UC agreements can go in publishing more articles open access, and the better UC libraries are able to help provide financial support to researchers who do not have specific access to grant funds.
Most of the UC transformative open access agreements are set up to cover the full article processing charge should UC authors not have research or grant funds to contribute to making their journal articles open access. But there are a few journal titles and series within transformative agreements for which the libraries were unable to negotiate full coverage. For example, if a UC author has an article accepted in Nature Communications, the UC libraries cover only the first $1,000 of the article processing charge through the terms of the UC-Springer Nature transformative open access agreement. Since the current APC for Nature Communications is $6,290, then the UC author must pay the remainder of the fee ($5,290).
Another instance in which an author may need to pay a balance is when the author is publishing in a fully-open access journal not covered by a transformative agreement at all, and in turn when that journal’s article processing charge exceeds what can be covered through the BRII program. For instance, if a UC Berkeley author has an article accepted for publication in JAMA Network Open, the BRII program is capped at covering $2,500 of the article processing charge. Since the APC for JAMA Network Open is $3,000, then the UC Berkeley author must pay the remainder of the fee ($500).
Since both of the examples above are journals in which an APC is required in order to publish there, authors are responsible for securing the remainder of any publishing fees should the open access publication costs exceed the amount of UC libraries (or UC Berkeley Library’s) support.
In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott
“James C. Scott is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time.”
The Oral History Center at UC Berkeley is proud to release, In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott, a documentary that offers an unprecedented look at the famed Yale political scientist. Created and produced by UC Berkeley Oral History Center (OHC) historian Todd Holmes, the film draws from nearly thirty hours of oral history interviews with Scott and affiliated scholars at Yale and UC Berkeley to trace the intellectual journey of the award-winning social scientist from his childhood in New Jersey through each of the ground-breaking works he produced throughout his accomplished career. Overall, the film presents an intellectual biography of one of the world’s preeminent academics, a feature that will serve as a treasured resource for students and scholars around the globe.
While intellectual biographies may not be a typical genre, Scott is far from a typical academic. Over the last fifty years, few scholars have achieved such prominence within the American academy as James C. Scott. The Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, with appointments in anthropology and the school of forestry and environmental studies, he is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Throughout his career, his scholarship became a series of major interventions that impacted dozens of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. From the strategic rhythms of peasant life to notions of resistance and the functioning of the modern state, his work continually shaped and reshaped research agendas and discourses in the academy. By his retirement in 2022, Scott stood as one the most widely read social scientists in the world – an influence and distinction that placed him, as the film title suggests, “in a field all his own.”
The idea for the documentary developed out of the Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project, which Holmes conducted between 2018 and 2020. The focus of that project was to document the career of James C. Scott, as well as the thirty-year history of the renowned Yale Agrarian Studies Program he founded. Those oral history interviews, which the OHC released in 2021, served as the basis for the film. Holmes had worked for both Scott and the Agrarian Studies Program during his graduate studies at Yale. His motivation for both the project and documentary was to capture Scott’s story—in his own words—for future generations. As Holmes recalls, “I had the privilege of meeting and working with Jim Scott before ever reading Jim Scott, a unique vantage point that allowed me to develop a deep appreciation for the brilliant scholar behind the books—his limitless curiosity, his wit and humor, and the welcoming nature of his intellect. I wanted to capture these qualities in telling his story. His books will be read for generations to come; it was my hope that this film could serve as a companion and allow students and scholars to get to know James C. Scott and the inspiration behind his work.”
The film was made possible through the generous support of Yale University’s Program in Agrarian Studies, InterAsia Initiative, and Council on Southeast Asia Studies. It was produced by Todd Holmes in association with the UC Berkeley Oral History Center and Teidi Productions, a digital creations label he operates with his partner Heidi Holmes. The film is available to the public via YouTube.
About the Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
It’s that time of year when we choose new ebook titles from OpenEdition. Below you will find a few that have made it to the list. Please send other recommendations to the Librarian for Romance Languages by April 1.
Since 2014, the UC Berkeley Library has supported this initiative based at the Université d’Aix-Marseille to open scholarly content from Europe and France in particular to the world. The Freemium program allows the UC Berkeley community to participate in an acquisitions policy that both supports sustainable development of open access (OA) and that respects the needs of teaching, research and learning communities. With our participation, faculty, students, and other researchers can benefit from greater functionality while making it possible for anyone in the world to view in html and in open access 70% of the ebook catalog of more than 13,000 titles.
Through the Freemium model, UC Berkeley gains access to preferred formats (pdf, epub, etc.) with no DRM quotas and seamless access to the content with UC Library Search.
