Open Access Article Processing Cost (APC) Reimbursement Steps and Guidelines
Steps to follow when processing requests from faculty:
When a faculty wants to submit a paper to an open access journal, they will have to first get approval from the department chair for reimbursement of submission fees.
If the chair approves,
The chair will contact Christine Lyalko, Executive Director of Finance for Academic Affairs, who monitors this budget – total amount available, spent, and how much is left – for budget availability and approval. If a budget is available, the chair will communicate full approval to the requesting faculty member.
The faculty will charge the submission fee to their travel card and submit the expense report using gift F003 Chester Slade Faculty Support and Academic Development as the source of funding. The expense report will require an email attachment showing approval by the chair.
The expense report will require additional approval on Workday by the Executive Director of Finance for Academic Affairs.
If the chair does not approve, no further action is needed.
Guidance for department chairs when considering faculty requests:
Eligible Uses of the Fund
The open access fund will cover Article Processing Costs (APC) for papers submitted to open access journals that are: (1) the primary venue of publication, and/or (2) meant to enhance visibility and citations of papers accepted for publication by non-open-access-journals.
It will be helpful if the department chair keeps track of whether the APC / submission fee is for either (1) or (2) above.
This fund is not meant to cover submission fees for journals other than open access journals. Please use the department budget (or other mechanisms you may have used in the past) to cover submission fees for journals that are not open access journals.
Publication Impact and Timing
We would like to measure the extent to which these resources contribute to citations/impact and therefore we are relying on chairs to reserve allocating these funds for high quality journals and when open access publication will likely significantly result in more impact/citations.
Given that the timing of open access publications is likely to be important if the purpose of submission is to enhance visibility and citations, as department chairs, please use your judgment to determine whether a previously accepted paper is "too old" (as opposed to a newly accepted paper) to derive meaningful citation and visibility benefits by getting published in an open access journal. It will be helpful for our learning process if you can please make note of the age of the accepted paper (i.e., when was it accepted for publication?) when an accepted paper is submitted to an open access journal for the purpose of enhancing citations.
Funding Priorities and Availability
If funding constraints arise (e.g., if open access funds get depleted at a faster rate than anticipated) during the academic year, in the interest of fairness we may have to prioritize funding papers submitted for the purpose of (1) over papers submitted for (2).
Due to a finite amount available in the fund, if, for instance, a department uses a lot of the funds early on during the academic year, the office of the Provost will most likely reach out to the chair and request that department to pause its reimbursement requests (for funds from this source) until we can be sure that no one else is in need of the funds for the remainder of the year. Thank you in advance for your cooperation on this front.
Reimbursement Limits and Monitoring
A thorough benchmarking analysis by Mystica Alexander and a sub-committee of the Bentley Research Council (comprised of Marco Marabelli, Bonnie Field, and Stephen Tracy) last Spring indicates that other universities typically cap the open access APC reimbursement at between $1000 and $3000 per faculty. While we don't have a cap per se for this pilot year, we must be careful to ensure that the usage of funds is not disproportionately concentrated among the departments relying on open access journals. To this end, Christine Lyalko will keep the office of the Provost updated each month about the frequency and volume of usage by departments.
