Florida State University Libraries debuts new open access publishing program

Strozier Library at Florida State University. (FSU Photography Services)
Strozier Library at Florida State University. (FSU Photography Services)

Florida State University Libraries is launching FSU’s first open-access publishing program.

Florida State Open Publishing (FSOP) provides the university’s faculty, students and staff with the digital publishing tools and support needed to produce peer-reviewed, open scholarly publications, educational resources and other digital research outputs.

Created to address gaps in traditional scholarly publishing, FSOP aims to make FSU’s scholarly output more accessible, diverse and innovative.

“We are excited to launch the university’s first open publishing program, which will support our community’s cutting-edge research and foster a more diverse scholarly publishing ecosystem at FSU,” said Gale Etschmaier, dean of FSU Libraries. “Through FSOP, our researchers will be able to publish on a range of interdisciplinary topics for which there may not be established publishing venues. They can create publications that push beyond the limitations of traditional books and articles and share their scholarship with more people around the world.”

Designed to serve as an alternative to commercial academic publishers, FSOP is a digitally focused, fully open-access publishing program that supports a diverse range of publications and projects, including experimental scholarship and student research. The program offers platform hosting, technical support and other publishing support services for peer-reviewed journals, open textbooks, monographs, research reports, conference proceedings and additional forms of digital scholarly publishing.

FSOP welcomes projects from all disciplines, languages and FSU-affiliated authors regardless of the scope of their work. Founded on principles of inclusivity and diversity, the program is particularly interested in promoting scholarship by or about underrepresented groups. FSOP’s publications are released under flexible copyright licenses that allow authors to retain their copyrights, enabling them to share their work with colleagues and research communities to reuse their work in innovative ways.

The program has helped scholars like Giray Ökten, associate chair for Graduate Studies and director of Financial Mathematics, publish their work.

“Thinking about my experiences with various publishers, I can say that the quality of publishing services FSU Libraries provided was top-notch,” Ökten said. “To this day, they continue helping me with occasional updates of the book. They are very capable and prompt, and I encourage FSU colleagues to explore publishing open access with our wonderful libraries.”

For more details about FSOP’s scope, services and digital tools, as well as information about its new and forthcoming titles, visit the Florida State Open Publishing website. If you are interested in publishing with FSOP, please complete a Digital Project Consultation Request form.