About OA at Emory

Emory University faculty passed the Emory Open Access Policy in 2011; shortly thereafter, the Scholarly Communications Office began sharing faculty scholarship in OpenEmory, which preserves faculty works and makes them freely accessible. Supporters of OA scholarship across Emory (and co-sponsors of OA Week 2022) include: the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (FCHI), the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CFDE), the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS), and Emory Libraries.

Bill & Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry

Author's Reception 2019, featuring Dr. Deboleena Roy speaking with microphone and others onlooking in the background. Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Digital Publishing in the Humanities initiative at the Fox Center aims both to educate the Emory community about the emerging publication options in humanities scholarship, and to offer subventions that support the publication of digital/open access monographs by Emory faculty as they navigate the shifting terrain of academic publication. Through programs like TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosytem), the initiative builds an infrastructure that supports humanities faculty at a time of technological innovation and changes in the economic model of academic publishing.

Center for Faculty Development and Excellence

Photo of three people smiling and holding books in the Woodruff Library Jones Room, Emory University.CFDE supports Emory faculty authors, including those who wish to publish their works open access. CFDE works with Emory faculty through initiatives like the Public Scholarship Advancement (PSA) fund, a grant program designed to help faculty advance public scholarship-related activities, and the Scholarly Writing and Publishing (SWAP) fund, a grant program designed to help faculty seeking professional editorial support for projects in development across a range of serious scholarly works, including book manuscripts, article manuscripts, grantwriting, and digital scholarship.

Emory Center for Digital Scholarship

Gathering of people at Post45 launch party at Emory University, featuring a projection screen with Post45 homepage, in the ECDS (third floor Woodruff Library), Emory University.ECDS develops innovative digital approaches to traditional publishing genres such as books, journals, and scholarly editions, and works with scholars to create new forms of digital publishing such as thematic research collections, interactive narratives, and virtual archives. ECDS also hosts a number of open access journals and develops publishing platforms, including OpenTour Builder (a walking tour application) and Readux (a collaborative group annotation software).

The ECDS research and training center, developed in partnership with the Laney Graduate School, provides students with project and process management experience and digital publishing skills that enhance their professional portfolios.

Emory Libraries

Open Access Publishing Fund

Emory University’s Open Access Publishing Fund supports Emory authors in publishing in open access (OA) journals and books when no alternative funding is available. The goal of the fund is to foster the exploration of new and innovative publishing models across research communities.

Digital Collections

Screenshot of Langmuir photograph collection page featuring an African American nurse with an infant. Photo also features cursive text: Miss Payne- ready to go for a ride with her nurse Mary-Lizzie [indecipherable word] 1909 Washington D.C.; below photography is metadata/information about the item.The Emory Libraries launched Emory Digital Collections, its newly rearchitected digital repository, in April 2020. This resource delivers long-term digital access to unique cultural heritage and scholarship collections from Emory. The site currently provides direct access to digitized content from multiple campus libraries, with many of the materials open to the public. Although many items are still protected by copyright, some are in the public domain (i.e., free from copyright and available for reuse). New digital content is being added weekly, and as part of an ongoing Emory Libraries strategic initiative, the Libraries will expand this resource to include material submitted by campus scholars and researchers for long-term preservation.

External OA Initiatives

Emory Libraries recently revised and updated its Open Access Collection Development Policy (Word file download), which serves to guide decision making about which open access initiatives to support with Libraries funding or other types of contributions. Here are a few examples of currently supported efforts.

logo for Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics featuring purple triangle and letters OA encased within. Center of the letter O is green with patterns like a plasma ball.SCOAP3: Emory was one of the original contributors to the SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) initiative. Started in 2014, it continues to support open access journal content in the field of particle physics. The SCOAP3 initiative is piloting a move into monographs as of 2020. Emory continues to support this initiative in light of its strengths in physics scholarship.

South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) logo. On left side, next to name, is a patterned circular logo image, like a mandala, in light blue, dark pink, and gold.South Asian Open Archives: SAOA is an open access resource for research and teaching—a rich and growing curated collection of key historical and contemporary sources in arts, humanities, and social sciences from and about South Asia in English and other languages of the region. Emory Libraries have participated in providing unique digitized material and through direct contribution. 

Logo featuring stylized letters of K and U next to Knowledge Unlatched in bright greenKnowledge Unlatched: Emory Libraries have provided annual funding to support the “unlatching” (or opening) of academic publisher content, which started with the humanities and social sciences and has moved more into open access for STEM monographs. Over 2,000 quality monographs have now been made openly available for users around the world.

Logo for Global Press Archive; white text against dark red background. Above Global Press Archive is a stylized logo for East View, featuring circular lines and thinner hemisphere or globe like lines in the backGlobal Press Archive: This initiative by East View Information Services in partnership with Stanford University Libraries and the Hoover Institution Library & Archives has digitized over 2,000 predominantly foreign-language newspaper titles ranging in coverage from the late 19th century to present times. Emory continues to support this digitization effort because of its importance in preserving and making more widely available these invaluable primary sources.