When researchers want to publish open access and make their work freely accessible and easily discoverable online, they often have to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to support production costs. The University Libraries has been a longtime supporter of open access, and provides several different kinds of support for researchers on campus. This spring John Chin, an assistant teaching professor with the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology (CMIST), and a student in the Master of Science in International Relations and Politics program turned to the Libraries’ APC Fund when publishing their research.
Goal
- Publish research about African coups during the pandemic in the journal “Frontiers in Political Science.” The journal is open access, and requires authors to pay an APC.
- Give the research findings the widest possible audience on a global scale.
How We Helped
- Maintain an APC Fund to assist faculty members, research scientists, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students publishing open access.
- Cover 80% of the APC up to a maximum of $1500 per article (with allowances of $3000 total per requesting author per fiscal year).
Results
- Chin and the MS IRP student successfully published their article “African coups in the COVID-19 era: A current history” in March.
- The article is open access, and freely available to anyone online.
- After a recent coup in Gabon, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) reached out to Chin after finding the article online. Chin gave a television interview with DW and was able to share the research findings with an even broader audience.