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Open Access

What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) is a pioneering development in academic publishing and opens up numerous new possibilities. The term "Open Access" refers to free and unrestricted access to scientific literature. Another advantage: publishing in Open Access promotes the simple and wide dissemination of research results, which facilitates scientific exchange.

Numerous sponsors and institutions already expect publication as open access. This is to ensure that publicly funded results are available to society. At present, the path of a scientific publication (as a rule) still looks like this:

  • The public sector pays for the research, the scientists employed there publish and transfer the exploitation rights to publishers.
  • The publishers offer these publications for sale and the libraries, which are also financed by the public sector, purchase them.

Policy

Our policy is available in a German version only.

Advantages of Open Access

Below we would like to explain the advantages of open access:

Visibility and feedback

By publishing open access, scientific texts are made available quickly, easily and free of charge to interested parties worldwide. This enables a quick exchange and authors also receive more feedback. The increased visibility of publications increases the number of citations.

The interested public has uncomplicated access to the scientific results, which promotes competition within the various research disciplines.

Rights

The authors of open access publications have a wide range of exploitation rights and therefore have greater creative freedom. This makes them less dependent on publishers than with "closed access" works.

Quality

Numerous high-quality open access journals with strict quality control have been established. As with traditional journals, open access (OA) involves peer reviewing, among other things.

Green open access - Secondary publication of literature on document servers (repositories)

Green open access refers to the secondary publication or self-archiving of scientific literature on document servers (repositories)

Numerous publishers allow their authors to publish their publications on an institutional server, so-called secondary publications. This depends on the respective contractual conditions of the publishers.

S(kim) offers you the opportunity to publish your scientific publications on the university's own university publication server. You can publish works with us as a preprint and as a postprint.
Preprint: This is a manuscript version. The text has not (yet) been revised.
Postprint: This publication has already been reviewed and has been accepted for publication.

All publications are published under a CC license selected by you. This gives you the opportunity to decide for yourself how your publication can be used.

The SHERPA/RoMEO database was developed to provide an overview which publishers support secondary publications. Using this research tool, it is possible to view the license conditions of a traditional publisher and to search for suitable subject-specific journals in the open access area.

We will help you

A secondary publication via S(kim) on the university publication server offers you numerous advantages. For example, each scientific publication is linked to a constant, permanently citable link (DOI). In addition, you can be clearly identified as the author of your scientific publications via an ORCiD.

In the SHERPA/RoMEO database you will find information on the rights you can usually obtain from publishers. We will be happy to help you with your research in SHERPA/RoMEO.

Financing

Publishing on our university repository is free of charge for members of the Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe.

Gold open access - First publication of scientific literature as open access

Gold open access refers to the first publication of scientific literature as open access. Numerous established scientific publishers offer "open access" journals, with articles subject to a high quality standard. Some of these publications are financed by publication fees, which are charged per accepted and published article. Other high-quality OA journals allow their authors to publish articles free of charge.

Of course, we also offer you the option of first publication. You can publish in digital form free of charge on our university publication server.

Many publishers already offer publication options in several thousand established open access journals. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides a comprehensive overview of the range of high-quality open access journals and their publishers.
Good to know: It is also possible to publish free of charge in open access journals.

We will help you

We are happy to advise and support you regarding open access publishing. Among other things, we can help you find a suitable open access journal via the DOAJ and select a suitable CC license. In the area of financing, we check the legality of article fees for you.

Financing

In many cases, publication costs are covered by research budgets (third-party funding, grants). Publication fees that are not financed by research budgets must be paid by the authors or the departments.
S(kim) provides financial resources to support authors and to establish Open Access. In the future, S(kim) plans to set up a publication fund together with the university.

The publication fees are covered by S(kim) on a pro rata basis, provided that the article fee does not exceed € 2,000. As a member of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts, you must be explicitly named as the corresponding author. In addition, your article must appear in a journal whose content is made available free of charge via the Internet immediately after publication and which applies acknowledged and strict quality assurance measures.

Publication fees are not covered if the article is published in a journal in which only individual articles are published "open access" (so-called hybrid journals). The fee will also not be paid if the publisher does not guarantee publication of the article.

In addition, publications often have additional charges (page charges, color charges, image charges, etc.) that are not part of the publication fee. These additional costs cannot be co-financed by S(kim).

DEAL contracts: Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley

DEAL consortium - The DEAL consortium was initiated by the German Rectors' Conference to conclude nationwide license agreements between universities and major scientific publishers. Contracts have already been in place with the publishers Springer Nature and Wiley for several years and have now been signed for a further term from 2024 - 2028. The contract concluded with Elsevier is the third new contract with a term from September 2023 - 2028.

The agreements aim to

  • to improve access to the full texts of e-journals
  • to promote open access publishing
  • to implement the transition from subscription costs to the pure calculation of publication costs

Elsevier - The agreement covers reading rights to almost the entire journal portfolio, including the journals of the Cell Press and The Lancet brands. We have archive rights to the volumes published during the contract period and to the 2023 volume.
Authors from the participating institutions can publish Open Access in more than 2500 journals at discounted conditions.

Springer Nature - The new contract from 2024 - 2028 includes reading rights to almost the entire journal portfolio. The first contract includes archive rights to the entire portfolio published up to 2023, the new contract follows on from this and includes archive rights for the respective contract years.
Authors from the participating institutions can publish Open Access in more than 2000 journals at discounted conditions.

Wiley - The new contract from 2024 - 2028 includes reading rights to almost the entire journal portfolio. The first contract includes archive rights to the entire portfolio published up to 2023, the new contract follows on from this and includes archive rights for the respective contract years.
Authors from the participating institutions can publish Open Access in more than 1,300 journals at discounted conditions.

Publishing - In principle, only authors from participating institutions who are the "corresponding author" or "submitting author" of the article will be considered for DEAL contracts. The costs for articles in hybrid journals (PAR fee) are calculated at fixed negotiated amounts. Articles in journals that are published completely open access (Fully Gold) are charged at the list prices less the negotiated discounts.
In the years 2024 - 2028, the amount originally paid in 2023 will be taken into account when calculating the costs for Springer Nature and Wiley. In this way, a gradual transition is made to calculating publication costs only.
S(kim) will provide funding as long as funds are available. This does not apply to fees that exceed the publication fees - e.g. page or color fees.

Detailed information on DEAL contracts and price conditions

Support

We at S(kim) will be happy to advise you on the possibilities of Open Access (OA). Get in touch with us to discuss your individual questions.

Contact us

E-Mail: support@th-owl.de
Phone: +49 5261 702-2222

Open Access - Just one aspect of Open Science

Open Access ist nur ein Aspekt aus dem vielfältigen Spektrum Open Science. Informieren Sie sich über weitere Aspekte von .
Open Access is just one aspect of the broad spectrum of Open Science. Find out more about other aspects of Open Science.