Open access and OERs
K-State Libraries is committed to the advancement of open access initiatives. Open access is the free, immediate online access to research and scholarly information and has many benefits for an academic community. Sharing the results and knowledge produced at the university is essential to the research process and remains at the core of our mission.
K-State Libraries has several programs and initiatives that help support open access and open educational resources (OER).
Why open access
Open access has direct and widespread implications for academia, industry, medicine, science and society overall. There are several resources available to learn more about the importance of open access and what we are doing at K-State.
Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative (Textbooks 2.0)
The Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative provides grants up to $5,000 to K-State faculty and instructors to help them develop or adopt open educational resources or alternatives to traditional textbooks.
Grants are funded by K-State, donor support and a portion of a $10 fee paid by students. Since 2015, K-State's Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative has saved students $6.8 million.
K-State Open Access Publishing Fund
The K-State Open Access Publishing Fund (KOAPF) supports making K-State research and scholarship immediately, freely and globally available through open access. When funding is available, the KOAPF will assist K-State authors in helping pay article processing charges for publishing in open access journals.
Navigating publishing and predatory publishing
It is not uncommon for some publishers to solicit manuscripts or journal articles either by contacting recent graduates directly or putting out a “call for papers." While most publishers are legitimate, some are considered predatory, and their offers are often scams. We offer assistance with navigating and identifying legitimate open access publishers and offer advice on how to retain author rights.
Open access agreements
As academic publishers transition to open access publishing in whole or in part, a growing number are approaching libraries with offers to bundle both the cost of a subscription to read their articles along with funds to help cover charges for authors to publish articles as open access. The details of these read-and-publish agreements vary from publisher to publisher. Funding is provided currently via the Libraries’ annual collection budget. One direct advantage to some of these agreements is that K-State authors publishing in the covered journals could have Article Publishing Charges (APCs) waived in part or in full.