Open Access publications are available online without paywalls. Anyone with an internet connection can read these works. Open Access publications have greater diversity in citations. Any item that has been published Open Access should stay available to you. You do not have to worry that, if changing institutions, your next institution might not pay for a journal in which you have published.
Many Open Access pathways require payments, but there are three major ways to publish Open Access at South without paying any money out of your or your department’s pocket.
You can take this route after you have already published your paper the traditional way, and your publication is behind a paywall.
Most publishers allow the Accepted Manuscript version of your publication to be uploaded to South’s Institutional Repository, JagWorks@USA. The Accepted Manuscript is the version of your paper right after acceptance. Your paper has been approved through peer review, but the journal has not edited your paper to add any branding yet.
You can use the Submit Your Research form to contact the IR team.
The Library has Transformative Agreements with some publishers.
Transformative Agreements mean that we have a certain amount of Article Processing Charges (APCs) that are already covered. You can have your APC cost covered if you publish open access in one of the listed journals. Please check the list of journals. Not every journal under that publisher is covered.
To use these funds, the corresponding author for the publication must be affiliated with the University of South Alabama.
If you are applying for a grant, include the Open Access publication cost as part of your grant.
Some journals are published outside of the United States, and conversion rates might change between applying for grant funds and publication.