Since 2010, the Library has financially supported authors through the direct funding of APCs with varying criteria and coverage. In 2016, the Library revised criteria and introduced the Shared Support Fund, a shared cost model of financially supporting APCs paid by researchers publishing in fully open access journals. This program has since ceased, but during its operation, the Library reimbursed close to 1000 grants to uO researchers across its 10 faculties, funding over $1.8 million in APCs.
In recent years, the uO Library has been analyzing the sustainability of directly supporting APCs. The Library strives to maintain a balanced approach to open access investments, focusing equitable and sustainable options for open access publishing beyond APCs. As we move to align with institutions across Canada and global developments, we remain committed to ensuring our authors can access a diversity of supports in order to publish open access.
The following options enable authors to publish open access:
- Authors can deposit their publications in uO Research, uOttawa’s institutional repository, without cost, to provide open and permanent access to uOttawa scholarship and ensure wider dissemination and increased visibility.
- Authors can take advantage of publishers' discounts negotiated by the Library to publish open access. The Library has recently confirmed its participation in many agreements that allow authors to publish open access without paying article processing charges, or for a discount. Please continue to refer to our website, under "Discounts with Publishers", as new agreements are announced
- When possible, publish in journals without article processing charges. You can find journals that do not charge APCs on The Directory of Open Access Journalsnorth_eastexternal link, an index of open access journals. Select "Journals without Fees" below the search bar on their homepage.
- We always encourage authors to choose to publish in journals that allow authors to retain copyright.
Please contact the Scholarly Communication team at [email protected] for publishing advice and continue to refer to the website for updates.