Methodological guidelines

1. Selecting a journal

Journal in the DOAJ database

As of 1 July 2021, it is not a requirement for a journal to be fully open access and articles published in so-called hybrid journals are also supported. However, if a journal is fully open, it must be indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals database. At doaj.org, search for a journal by title or by ISSN. If you can find the journal there, you have met the first condition.

Publishing under a Creative Commons license

The journal must also publish articles under one of the Creative Commons licenses. You can usually find which license the articles are published under directly next to the published articles, in the journal information (About page, etc.), but you can also find this information on the journal's profile page in the DOAJ database.

Quartile of the journal according to AIS

The journal must be ranked in the Q1 quartile of the field according to the Article Influence Score metric in the Journal Citation Reports database. Detailed instructions on how to determine a journal's rank are provided on the Central Library website.

It is important to pay attention to the year from which the data comes (called the JCR Year). For the Fund in 2021, they are calculated from JCR Year 2019 or JCR Year 2020 (which is always published later in the year, around June). Note that a journal is often indexed in different categories and may be ranked differently in each. However, a search may not show the category with the better ranking. The best ranking always counts for ranking purposes.

ATTENTION! Journal Citation Reports is currently switching to a new visual. To search for a quartile, go to the old view under Products (top right corner) and select Journal Citation Reports (Classic).

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2. Application for support from the Open Access Fund

Process the application using the Requests module within the BUT Intraportal. Be sure to include the following information in the description of the request:

Title of the article:
Department:
Journal:
ISSN:
Publisher:
Price:

Application for support is made by the first and/or corresponding author at the time after the article is accepted for publication.

The applicant shall provide proof of acceptance - e.g., a printed email acknowledging acceptance or a certificate of acceptance.

Applications are accepted from 1 January to 20 December of a given calendar year or until the Fund is fully depleted. An article must be accepted for publication between December 1 of the previous year and the end of that calendar year.

Another document is the first page of the manuscript, which shows authorship and ranking in any author collective.

The last document to be provided by the applicant is an affidavit (downloadable template) from the institute or other authorised official that the article does not originate from a project with funding directly earmarked for open access publication.

3. amount of support

From 2022, the limit for payment of the publication fee changes to allow payment from multiple sources. If the fee does not exceed 85000 CZK, the fee will be fully covered. For a successful application, a signed affidavit stating that the fee cannot be paid in full from any source where funding has been directly earmarked for Open Access publishing is sufficient.

As of 21 December 2021, the approximate limit is EUR 2783, USD 3143, GBP 2372 or CHF 2899. These are values excluding VAT, i.e. the values that appear on the publishers' websites or that appear on the tax invoice. If you are unsure, please contact the Central Library.

If the fee exceeds 85000 CZK, the amount exceeding this limit will be paid from the applicant's own resources. In this case, additional information must be filled in the affidavit: the cost centre or SPP element number and the source (contract) number. The affidavit must then be signed by the operation's principal and the budget manager (model for 2022 available for download).

4. Acceptance of the application

Once the form has been submitted, the application is processed and assessed by the CA within the second working day, and if all conditions are met, an order is issued and the applicant is asked to supply a tax document (invoice) with the exact billing address: 'Brno University of Technology, Antonínská 548/1, 60190 Brno'. This must not be an institutional/faculty address, but must be "Brno University of Technology" in the first place.

Important: the date of the invoice must not be older than the date of the order! The exact date of the order is always provided to the applicant.

If the fee is more than 50 thousand CZK, the date of the delivery must be provided on the date of the order. The issued order must first be confirmed with the publishing house. The confirmed order is published in the Register of Contracts pursuant to Act No. 340/2015 Coll.

Further necessary information on the document:

• Publisher's details: company name, reason for payment, amount, bank details.
• Bank details
  • Europe: Bank name, address, bank account number, Swift code, IBAN
  • USA: Bank name, address, bank account number, Swift code, Rolling Number (sometimes another name)

4. Payment of the document

Once all conditions for the tax document are met, it is processed and paid (by wire transfer or card). After payment and entry in SAP, the applicant is informed and asked to enter the full text into the Digital Library of the BUT via IS Apollo. Detailed instructions are available at https://www.vut.cz/en/uk/digital-library/publishing.