Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity

Compact institutions will need to establish criteria for what constitutes an eligible open access journal. It is envisioned, however, that open access journals include those that at least provide unfettered online access to all scholar-contributed peer-reviewed articles. This does not preclude a journal from charging a subscription fee for the totality of the journal’s content or for formats other than online distribution. However, journals that require a supplemental payment for open access on an article-by-article basis, so-called hybrid open access journals, would not be expected to be eligible. Other factors affecting eligibility might include quality of the journal and fee-waiver policies of the journal.