Sloan Kettering Open Access Publication (SKOAP) Fund: Requirements/Eligibility

The Sloan Kettering Open Access Publication (SKOAP) Fund will underwrite reasonable article processing fees for open access journals when funds are not otherwise available. The fund is administered by the MSK Library and Research Funding and Project Administration.

Reimbursement for article-processing fees that conform to the requirements below may be requested using this form (MSK STAFF ONLY; campus access or via VPN).

Eligible Authors: The SKOAP Fund is available to any researcher, clinician, staff member, or student author.

Eligible Articles: SKOAP funds apply to article-processing fees for scholarly peer-reviewed articles.

Eligible Publication Venues: SKOAP funds may be used to pay publication and processing fees in open access journals (i.e., journals that do not charge readers or their institutions for access to the peer-reviewed articles they publish). To be eligible, a journal must meet these additional requirements:

• Be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
• Be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or adhere to its Membership Criteria (Code of Conduct).
• Provide unrestricted access to all peer-reviewed articles. In other words, journals with a hybrid open access model or delayed open access model are not eligible.
• Have publicly available a standard article fee schedule.
• Have a policy to waive fees in case of economic hardship.

No Alternate Funding Available: Articles for which alternate publication funding is available are not eligible for SKOAP funds. This includes articles whose research was funded by grants or gifts that allow grant funds to be used for article processing fees (regardless of whether that particular grant had budgeted for such fees). SKOAP funds are intended to be a funding source of last resort and to support open access to articles whose research was not grant funded.

Article Reimbursement Cap: The most that the SKOAP Fund will reimburse for a single article is $3,000.

Author Reimbursement Cap: Authors may receive reimbursement for all submission and publication charges, based on the current funds available.

Multiple Authorship: In the case of an article with multiple authors, each author is responsible for a prorated portion of any publishing fees. For example, for an article with three authors that is to appear in a journal with a $3,000 publication fee, each author is responsible for $1,000 of that fee. If two of the authors are from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, each may enter an application for $1,000. If both apply, $2,000 will be sent to the journal. If the journal has a $6,000 publication fee, the $3,000 per article cap will apply and each MSK author may only apply for $1,000.

Reimbursement Mechanism: Once a request has been approved, the author may direct the journal to send the invoice to the attention of Donna Gibson, Director, Library Services (gibsond@mskcc.org) to process payment.

Fund Cap: Funding for articles that comply with the eligibility criteria will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the availability of SKOAP funds.

Application Process: Articles submitted for publication after March 1, 2010 will be eligible for this program. Requests for funding may be made before an article is accepted or immediately upon acceptance. Requests should be made using this form (MSK STAFF ONLY; campus access or via VPN).