Open access (OA) publishing makes research freely accessible to readers, with no subscriptions or paywalls. Publishing open access ensures that critical research remains open to scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and the public and addresses mandates by federal funders to make research available without restrictions.
FSU Libraries supports a number of initiatives that help FSU faculty and students publish open access and increase the impact of their research. We negotiate agreements with publishers that cover article processing charges outright, fund publishing costs when no other source is available, offer platforms for publishing and sharing work openly, and invest in the organizations and communities building a more sustainable scholarly publishing system.
Need help getting started?
Contact the Office of Digital Research & Scholarship (DRS): for help with funding, publisher agreements, and sharing your work.
Faculty Senate Open Access Policy
On February 17, 2016, the FSU Faculty Senate adopted an open access policy ensuring that future scholarly articles authored by FSU faculty will be made available to the public at no charge. This policy demonstrates the commitment of our faculty to disseminating the fruits of their research and scholarship as widely as possible, and promises to increase authors’ rights, readership, and citation rates.
Funding Open Access
Many journals charge an article processing charge (APC) to publish articles open access, which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. FSU Libraries helps reduce or remove that cost through publisher agreements and a dedicated open access publishing fund.
Open Access Publishing Fund
The Open Access Publishing Fund supports publishing costs for eligible open access journals and books when no alternative funding is available. FSU faculty and currently enrolled students may apply by submitting an Open Access Fund Proposal.
Transformative Agreements
Read & Publish (R&P) Agreements
FSU Libraries has “Read & Publish” (R&P) agreements with the publishers listed below. Under these agreements FSU Libraries covers the APCs through our subscriptions, so FSU corresponding authors can publish their articles open access in eligible journals at no cost to them. Authors can verify journal eligibility prior to submission by using the publisher’s eligibility checkers.
Publishers may identify eligible authors automatically during submission. Eligibility for most publishers is verified through the corresponding author’s affiliation. Please use your institutional email address and list Florida State University as your primary affiliation.
Visit the publisher sites to review eligible journals covered by our agreements and review author guidelines.
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles. Be sure the corresponding author is clearly designated in the journal or conference submission system. See author resources and the list of participating institutions.
- Cambridge University Press: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles. Eligibility is detected automatically at submission. Confirm your journal with the Cambridge eligibility checker.
- Canadian Science Publishing: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles in all of CSP’s hybrid journals; fully open access journals are not included. See the institution eligibility checker.
- Company of Biologists: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles. This agreement includes Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open. See the author OA resources and the list of Read & Publish agreements.
- De Gruyter: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles. Eligible articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license at no cost. See the De Gruyter Brill agreements checker and author guide.
- IOP Publishing (Institute of Physics): Covers 100% of APCs for a limited number of articles. APC coverage is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. At submission you’ll be shown the open access option if an institutional waiver is available. Review the list of eligible journals or search by institution in the IOPP journal finder.
- Microbiology Society: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles across all eligible titles, excluding Microbiology Outlooks and Microbiology Horizons. See the Publish and Read information and the institutional agreement checker.
- Royal Society: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles in all hybrid and gold open access journals. See the Read & Publish agreements page and the author guide.
- Royal Society of Chemistry: Covers 100% of APCs for an unlimited number of articles. Make sure your submission profile lists your institution, country, and FSU email address. Use the journal eligibility checker or see author resources.
- Springer Nature: Covers 100% of APCs for a limited number of articles. APC coverage is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. Includes Springer, Palgrave, and Adis journals on Springer Nature Link, plus academic journals on Nature.com. See the Springer author guidelines and eligibility checker.
For journals that are not covered under an agreement, check the journal’s website for information about their OA policy and APCs. You may be able to ask the publisher to waive your APC.
Subscribe to Open Agreements
“Subscribe to Open” (S2O) is an approach for converting subscription journals to open access without charging costs to authors. S2O relies on existing library subscriptions and allows publishers to convert journals from subscriptions to OA, one year at a time. As an author, you can publish open access in Subscribe to Open journals regardless of your affiliation or your university's agreement with that publisher, as long as the journal has met the threshold to remain open for that year.
FSU Libraries has S2O agreements. You can review a list of journals currently open under a S2O model. This list is maintained as part of the Open Access Directory.
For more information on this model, visit: Subscribe to Open community
Discount Programs
Elsevier offers FSU authors a 15% discount on article prossessing charges for open access publications.
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) offers FSU authors a 10% discount on article processing charges for open access publications.
FSU Research Repository
The FSU Research Repository hosts scholarly and creative works by Florida State University faculty, staff, students, and their collaborators. Depositing your work in an institutional repository is a form of open access often called green open access. Most publishers permit you to deposit your accepted manuscript (the peer-reviewed version, before the publisher’s final typesetting) in your institutional repository. Some require a delay before the deposit becomes public. Make sure to review your publishing agreement for what is permitted. Submit your work to the repository.
Florida State Open Publishing
Florida State Open Publishing is FSU Libraries’ in-house publisher and provides publishing services for academic journals, monographs, open educational resources, and other projects. If you are looking to start an academic journal or publish a long-form project, you can review our publishing process and submit a proposal to publish with us.
Find Open Access Journals & Publishers
These directories list open access journals that meet recognized standards for peer review and transparency and offer insight on their OA policies.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a trusted index of open access journals across all disciplines. For monographs, see the Open Book Publishers.
- Open Library of the Humanities publishes humanities and social sciences journals fully open access with no author fees, funded by supporting libraries rather than authors.
- Jisc Open Policy Finder allows you to review journal OA and self-archiving policies and see how it may comply with funders’ OA publishing requirements.
FSU Open Access Advisory Board
The Open Access Advisory Board (OAAB) is a campus-wide board formed in 2016 following adoption of the Faculty Senate Open Access Policy, and it guided the policy through implementation in 2018. The Board meets each semester, with members representing the Libraries, Faculty Senate, Office of the Provost, and Office of Research.
Open Scholars Project
The Open Scholars Project is an informal monthly forum for learning about and discussing developments in open access. FSU researchers and scholars share experiences with open publishing, open-source code, and open data across subject areas. This initiative is currently on hiatus. Check back in 2027.
Open Memberships and Partnerships
FSU Libraries supports organizations and projects advancing affordable publishing, repositories, and open scholarship: