When the research manuscript by UNMC assistant professor Abbey Jo Klein, PhD, and her team was ready, she had a journal where she was hoping to publish their work.
The research dealt with how women in rural areas managed their urinary incontinence, and Dr. Klein, from the UNMC College of Nursing, hoped to publish their work in the journal Research in Nursing & Health.
As she went through the submittal process, she said, she found out that UNMC has agreements in place to promote publication of research with a number of scholarly journals. Not only are the publication charges discounted or free, but also the research is available as open access, meaning it is publicly available to any journal readers.
“Who doesn’t want their work to be available to everyone?” Dr. Klein said. “I was really excited to know that my article would be available to everyone, not just those with access to journals.”
Now UNMC’s McGoogan Health Sciences Library wants to spread awareness about the availability of the publishing arrangements.
The library has information online about available publications and processes. Authors are urged to contact Heather Brown, an assistant professor with McGoogan Library and scholarly communications librarian, with questions about these agreements.
“Since 2023, nearly 200 articles have been published under these agreements, saving the university — and in turn our UNMC authors and grant holders — hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Brown said.
She cited a study showing that open access articles receive higher citation rates and garner a wider range of audiences than non-open access articles.
“I strongly encourage UNMC authors to take advantage of these discounts,” Brown said, “and please reach out to me if you have questions. I want this to be a smooth process for everyone.”
The publishing agreements are made possible through UNMC’s membership in the University of Nebraska Consortium of Libraries. McGoogan Library subscribes to journals from publishers who provide discounts that are available through the consortium.
The library does not pay for article processing charges or any other fees charged to authors.
Stacey Gilk, PhD, a professor in the UNMC Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, is another UNMC faculty member who worked with McGoogan Library to publish open access.
Dr. Gilk’s team published “Mechanisms of lipid homeostasis in the Coxiella Containing Vacuole.”
She said she found out about UNMC’s arrangement as she worked with the Biochemical Society Transactions.
After the manuscript was accepted for publication, Dr. Gilk said she was completing the copyright agreement when the journal indicated that UNMC might cover the open access fees.
The journal and McGoogan Library then connected to handle the arrangements, Dr. Gilk said, and she received a confirmation email that the funding was approved.
“The process was incredibly easy for me,” she said, “and a pleasant surprise — not only did I save on publishing costs, but I also learned about UNMC’s support for open access.”
Dr. Gilk said she strongly supports open access because it enhances the accessibility and impact of the work by UNMC researchers.
“Now that I know the library has this publication arrangements with some journals,” she said, “I will factor this into future manuscript submissions.”
Dr. Klein said the entire open access process has been seamless, all without adding any burden or time to the submission process. She said she highly encouraged the UNMC research community to explore the option.
“If your research is available open access, that means more folks within and outside of academia can access our work,” she said. “It really opens doors and starts conversations when our work can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection.”
DigitalCommons@UNMC
To further assist in open access strategies, the library provides an open platform that hosts a variety of scholarly outputs, such as conference posters and presentations, preprints, white papers and reports, research instruments, images and videos.
DigitalCommons@UNMC is an institutional repository founded on the tenant of open access and in support of UNMC’s strategic vision to “increase the research scope and prominence of UNMC as a top tier academic health sciences center” by providing online access to faculty, staff and student scholarship.
Open access principles are central to the design of this repository, which breaks down financial barriers to education and also increases the impact of the work contained within it by showcasing it to the global community. It likewise hosts three UNMC-based professional journals, which provide a platform for UNMC and global authors.