Open Access Publication Initiative

The Open Access Publication Initiative is funded by the Office of Research and Innovation and is intended to help increase the research and publication profile of Texas Tech faculty. The funding is intended to help authors defray the costs of open access publication fees and expedite the dissemination of research findings. Generally, awards will be granted on a first-come, first served basis but priority will be given to faculty who have not received funding from the Open Access Publication Initiative in the past three years. Funding is limited to up to $1,000 per publication, per faculty member, per academic year. Faculty members may apply for an unlimited number of awards but may only receive up to $1,000 per academic year. If the costs associate with open access publication exceed $1,000, faculty are encouraged to seek funding from their department and/or college.

Applications for funds will be reviewed and awarded on a rolling basis until funding is expended each fiscal year. Funding is available for journal articles and non-textbook open access book chapters from reputable academic presses.

To apply or learn more about application eligibilty and availabilty, please visit https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/funding/index.php 

Requirements and Restrictions:

The person requesting open access funds must be (a) the lead, senior, and/or corresponding author (the person most responsible for the work), and (b) a current permenant, full-time Texas Tech faculty member. Students are not eligible to apply. The bulk of the research presented in the article must have been conducted while the lead author was a faculty member at Texas Tech University. Co-authors can be affiliated with other institutions. Priority will be given to faculty who have not received assistance from the Open Access Publication Initiative in the past three years.

Applications for funds should be submitted only after the article or book chapter has been accepted for publication, as funds are intended to be disbursed quickly to cover the cost of a publication fee. Funds are available for three months following the granting of the award. For Example, if a faculty member is awarded funds on February 8th, the funds are available until May 8th.

Publication fees paid prior to 9/1 or more than one (1) month prior to the application date cannot be reimbursed with a new fiscal year budget. For example, an invoice for an accepted paper paid on August 5th cannot be reimbursed with an OAPI application submitted on September 1st with the new fiscal year

To be eligible for Open Access funds, your journal article or book chapter must be published by:

A member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (http://oaspa.org/) OR
A member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org) OR
A publisher listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) OR
A reputable academic press
Your manuscript must NOT:

Include any mandatory embargoes or other restrictions that limit or delay access OR
Be considered a predatory journal. Several ways to identify predatory journals are at the following websites (1) Spotting a Predatory Journal; (2) Everything You wanted to Know about Predatory Journals; and (3) Predatory journals: no definition, no defence (see PDF).

For assistance with selecting or evaluating open access journals, please contact Brian Quinn (806-834-2148, brian.quinn@ttu.edu).

Published manuscripts must be deposited in the Texas Tech Institutional Repository available at http://thinktech.lib.ttu.edu/. For individual assistance with this requirement, please contact Heidi Winkler (806-834-1304, heidi.winkler@ttu.edu). 

If awarded, you may not spend more than your awarded amount. Any over-expenditures must be repaid through your department's accounts.

TTU faculty should be aware of a new agreement between the TTU Libraries and Cambridge University Press regarding open access publications. Faculty publishing their work in journals published by Cambridge University Press open access journals do not have to pay any open access author fees, and should not submit an application to our funding opportunity. For more information, and for a list of eligible journals, see: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies/read-and-publish-agreements/oa-agreement-texas-tech-university.

Many journals have alternative open access publication options. If the funds are no longer available, please contact Heidi Winkler, Digital Services Librarian, at heidi.winkler@ttu.edu, for assistance in alternative routes of open access publication.

If you are looking for other assistance, the TTU Libraries offers a variety of programs including Open Access Award which recognizes faculty for open access activities and RAIDER Publishing that provides assistance to publish textbooks and other materials for use at TTU.