Five Years of Funding Open Access APCs: Where Did the Money Go?

Abstract

Objective: We describe the IUPUI Open Access Fund’s implementation model and we provide a report on its outcomes--including, the authors’ research areas, the journals and publishers supported, and the change in article processing charge rates over time. Methodology: In 2013 the IUPUI University Library, in coordination with the IUPUI Office for the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR), launched an open access publishing fund. Following a successful two year pilot, the Fund has been supported annually with financial contributions from the University Library, the OVCR, the Ruth Lilly Medical Library, and eleven schools on the IUPUI campus. The Fund has provided more than $200,000.00 in support of fully open access journal articles, conference proceedings, and monographs over 5 years. Methods: We use R, an open source programming language, and it’s libraries to analyze and visualize the Fund data. The visualizations depict the flow of funds in different departments of the institution, total amount each publisher is allocated with over time, how the publishing rates varied over time for different journals and the number of articles published by each publisher. Conclusion: This presentation will help others see how the Fund is working at IUPUI and to identify ways in which a similar fund might work at their institution. In addition, attendees will to see how the availability of funding has increased participation in open access publishing by IUPUI faculty and graduate students.