Information about Open Access
Open access refers to free access to scientific research results and their unrestricted reuse. Neither technical nor legal barriers should impede this access.
Forms of Open Access
There are various forms of Open Access (OA). We provide a brief overview below. Further information can be found on the information platform open-access.network.
Diamond Open Access
Diamond Open Access (DOA) refers to publications and publication platforms that do not charge readers or authors. DOA is the simplest and fairest form of OA for everyone involved, as no one is prevented from participating in scientific discourse by payment barriers. DOA infrastructures are often operated at scientific institutions or financed via memberships. The topic of DOA has close links to scholar-led publishing.
The University of Göttingen's Open Access Policy encourages university members to take responsibility for OA publication channels and particularly supports OA publication infrastructures that do not incur any costs for the authors.
The SUB Göttingen is involved in projects and committees to formulate criteria for DOA journals (Operational Diamond Open Access Criteria for Journals) and contributes to the standardization of DOA (The Diamond Open Access Standard - DOAS). It is also involved in setting up DOA infrastructures for the Göttingen Campus. This includes the possibility of first publishing via GRO.publications and the development of a journal service. External DOA infrastructures are also supported via memberships.
Green Open Access
Green Open Access is also referred to as the green way or self-archiving. Green OA refers to the secondary publication of a publisher's publication in an institutional or subject-specific repository. The secondary publication can take place parallel to the publisher's publication or subsequently or after a time embargo has expired. The possibility of secondary publication is regulated by the policies of the publishers, the licenses used and the statutory secondary publication right.
The University of Göttingen's Open Access Policy calls on university members to publish their publications in GRO.publications, the University of Göttingen's publication management system. In addition to the operation of GRO.publications, the SUB Göttingen supports green OA with an advisory service.
Gold Open Access
Gold Open Access refers to direct publication in OA, for example in OA journals or OA books. The publication is thus directly accessible to everyone free of charge. As a rule, these publications are provided with open content licenses (e. g. Creative Commons licenses), which allow both read-only access and subsequent use of the content.
The University of Göttingen's Open Access guidelines recommend OA publication and thus the greatest possible public availability of one's own results.
The SUB Göttingen supports gold OA with its own publication services (GRO.publications, GRO.journals, Göttingen University Press) as well as the publication funds and publishing agreements.
Open-access.network
Information platform on all aspects of Open Access: forms of Open Access, legal aspects, positions from politics and research funders etc.
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Reasons for Open Access
There are many reasons in favor of Open Access publication:
- Free and fast access to scientific information
- Good findability and permanent access
- Good information provision
- Greater visibility and better reuse (e. g. citations)
- Many research funding bodies and institutions recommend open access publication in their guidelines
- Retention of rights for authors through the use of open licences
- Collaboration and networking through freely accessible research results
- Efficient research and innovation
- New methods and new knowledge (e. g. improved automatic text analysis through free access)
- Fair and transparent use of public funds
Common Objections to Open Access – Fact Check
Alongside many good reasons for open access publishing, there are also reservations and doubts about OA. The information platform open-access.network has compiled these and presented counterarguments.
Lack of reputation
This was a legitimate reservation in the early days of OA, because many OA publications were new and therefore did not yet have a reputation. OA is now such a widespread access model that it no longer has any influence on the reputation of a publication or publisher.
Lack of quality assurance
Quality differences can occur regardless of the business model and also occur in publications behind a paywall. In addition, OA has led to the development of further quality assurance procedures (e. g. open peer review). Nevertheless, authors are encouraged to consider the quality assurance and credibility of the selected publication, regardless of whether the publication is OA or not.
Poor findability and lack of long-term archiving
The responsibility for this lies with publishers and repository operators. To ensure good discoverability, standards for recorded metadata have been developed in recent years. Furthermore, OA publications are often assigned persistent identifiers, which allow the publication to be retrieved even after a change in the URL. To ensure long-term archiving, there are collaborations with national libraries and long-term archiving services.
Legal reservations regarding exploitation and usage rights
Copyright also applies to OA publications, with so-called open content licences regulating permitted reuse. In OA, authors usually retain their full exploitation rights because they only have to grant publishers or journals simple rights of use.
Affordability and high publication fees
The financing of information provision and publishing in OA is currently complex and not without conflict. Profit-oriented publishers in particular charge high prices for OA, while at the same time there are low-cost or free (see DOA) publication options that offer comparable quality. With OA, however, the costs of reader access and the expenses of restricted access provision are always eliminated. In order to control price increases in commercial OA, libraries are forming consortia and are thus able to negotiate favourable terms with publishers. Research funding bodies also support the financing. Increased activities in the area of DOA and scholar-led publishing are intended to help reduce the costs of OA in the long term.
Time commitment
OA has expanded the publication options for scientific research results, meaning that the choice of publication venue and the publication process have become more complex. The Göttingen State and University Library supports you in your publication plans with a comprehensive range of advisory services.
Be Careful when Choosing a Publisher
The free choice of publisher is guaranteed by academic freedom. However, when submitting manuscripts, authors should pay attention to the reputiability and quality assurance of publishers, journals and publication platforms in their own interest.
The OA publication market is highly competitive in the for-profit sector. As a result, even established publishing groups are launching new ventures with inadequate scientific quality assurance, and there are publishers offering dubious or even fraudulent products. The latter are often referred to as predatory publishers and cannot always be identified as such straight away. For example, a website may contain fake journal impact factors or list people on the editorial board who are not even active there. Aggressive advertising measures, extremely short payment periods and similar practices are also not uncommon.
The following checklists can help you recognize problematic publishers:
- Checklist journals (Initiative Think - Check - Submit)
- Checklist books (Initiative Think - Check - Submit)
- Checklist for journals (information platform open-access.network)
The information platform open-access.network has created a free online course that provides basic information about predatory publishing. The course also addresses the risks involved and outlines steps to take if a publication has inadvertently appeared in a predatory journal.
Please be especially careful with publishers and platforms you are not familiar with. You are also welcome to contact us if you are unsure about the assessment.
Newsletter Publishing
Everything about publishing: Open Science, Open Access, funding options and events.
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Free Publication Channels and Diamond Open Access
A number of free publication channels have now been established for OA first publications that guarantee quality assurance, such as
- Open Library of Humanities: platform for journals from the humanities and cultural sciences
- SciPost: platform for journals from various subject areas
- Open Book Publishers: publisher of OA books that are free of charge for both authors and readers
- Language Science Press: OA books in the field of linguistics with a peer-review process
- Open Research Europe (ORE): The open-access platform is supported by a network of research and funding organisations from a total of eleven European countries. Researchers at German research institutions can use the platform free of charge – both for their own publications and for participating in the peer-review process. This process is designed to be open and helps to strengthen academic communication and make quality assurance processes transparent.
This and other publication platforms are based on the Diamond Open Access model. The SUB Göttingen supports DOA platforms through institutional memberships. Furthermore, institutional repositories, subject-specific repositories and preprint servers offer the opportunity to make research results available and visible worldwide free of charge.
Finding Open Access Journals and Publishers
DOAJ
The Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) lists pure OA journals. The journals listed there are therefore generally eligible for funding from the publication fund (exceptions: mirror journals and the publisher MDPI). Among other things, it is possible to search by journal title, publisher, and subject area.
B!SON
B!SON is an open-source recommendation tool for quality-assured OA journals. Based on the manuscript title, abstract, or references, B!SON suggests suitable open-access journals. The tool also provides information on the publication process.
oa.finder
With oa.finder, you can search for a suitable OA journal or OA publisher for your upcoming book publication. The search can be linked to your own institution to obtain results tailored to the University of Göttingen, for example.