The Furman University Libraries are committed to supporting the creation, publication, and online dissemination of open access resources and projects produced by the Furman community and beyond. This guide highlights some of the ways that the Furman University Libraries supports both internal and external initiatives that seek to advance open access.

The Furman University Libraries also provide introductory information on Open Access and Open Educational Resources.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a community-curated list of peer reviewed Open Access research journals, periodicals, and their articles metadata. The DOAJ has the following aims:

• be the starting point for all information searches for quality, peer reviewed open access material.
• be comprehensive and cover all open access academic journals that use an appropriate quality control system and is not limited to particular languages or subject areas.
• increase the visibility and ease of use of open access academic journals—regardless of size and country of origin—thereby promoting their visibility, usage and impact.

Benefits to Furman

Furman is a DOAJ funder. The Libraries pay an annual contribution to financially support DOAJ's mission of increasing the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage, and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.

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Lever Press is a publisher of pathbreaking scholarship. Supported by a consortium of liberal arts institutions focused on excellence in research and teaching, we have founded our press on three essential commitments:

• To be a press aligned with the ethos and mission of liberal arts colleges
• To be a peer-reviewed, open access press that charges no fees to either authors or their institution
• To publish rich media digital books simultaneously available in print.

Benefits to Furman

Furman is a Supporting Institution for Lever Press. The Libraries pay a subscription which contributes to funding the ongoing operations of the Press. With this support, any author from any liberal arts college may publish open access with no cost to the author.

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MDPI is a scholarly open access publisher based in Basel, Switzerland. MDPI has the mission to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines. Their 210 diverse, peer-reviewed, open access journals are supported by over 35,500 academic editors. They serve scholars from around the world to ensure the latest research is freely available and all content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

Benefits to Furman

Furman is a member of the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). As a member of this program, all Furman authors who publish in an MDPI publication receive a 10% discount on their article processing charges (APCs). Authors who need financial support to pay the remainder of their APCs, may submit an application to the Furman University Libraries Open Access Fund.

Disclaimer

MDPI meets all of the reputability and quality standards set by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Even so, the publisher has been the subject of several accusations related to predatory publishing. The Furman Libraries will continue to monitor MDPI to ensure it meets the standards set by DOAJ and OASPA. Should the publisher's status change, Furman will re-assess our relationship.

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The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a charitable organization located in the U.K. It supports an international network of scholars, librarians, programmers, and publishers. The OLH publishing platform supports academic journals from across the humanities, as well as hosting its own multidisciplinary journal.

All OLH academic articles are subject to rigorous peer review and the scholarship they publish showcases dynamic research taking place in the humanities disciplines today – from classics, modern languages and cultures, philosophy, theology and history, to political theory, sociology, anthropology, film and new media studies, and digital humanities.

Benefits to Furman

Furman is an OLH supporting institution. The Libraries pay a yearly subscription fee, which enables all Furman authors to publish their articles in OLH for free.

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The Open Textbook Network (OTN) promotes access, affordability, and student success through the use of open textbooks. OTN helps higher education institutions and systems advance the use of open textbooks and practices on their campuses.

They maintain the Open Textbook Library, the premiere resource for peer-reviewed academic textbooks. All of the textbooks are free, openly licensed, and complete; their adoption creates a measurable, positive impact on student success.

Benefits to Furman

Furman is a member of the Open Textbook Network because of our membership in the PASCAL library consortium. As a member, we get access to training and a community of experts which allow us to educate the Furman community about open textbooks. If you are interested in learning more about open textbooks, and/or open educational resources, please contact the Libraries' Scholarly Communications Group.

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South Carolina Affordable Learning (SCALE), is an initiative of the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries that seeks to reduce the overall cost of higher education for students by promoting the use of quality low-cost and no-cost learning materials.

Benefits to Furman

Free webinars and training related to open access and open educational resources.

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As a member of the Carolina Consortium, Furman is part of a transformative agreement to accelerate open access publishing in the Carolinas. This new agreement provides the Furman community with access to all Wiley journals. It also enables Furman researchers to publish accepted articles open access (OA) in Wiley’s hybrid journals.

Benefits to Furman

All Furman researchers have the ability to make their work available for everyone to read, cite, and share, without direct cost to themselves.

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