Open Access

The policy is currently being prepared by the university's committees.

For the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts, active knowledge transfer with partners in science, industry, and society is a central task. With a view to the internationalization of research and teaching, it also pursues the goal of making the publications of its scientists as widely accessible and usable as possible. Publications made available in open access can be used without access restrictions and make research results visible worldwide. This directly and sustainably promotes research and innovation processes in science, industry, and society. Science funding bodies such as the German Research Foundation and the European Commission promote and require open access to scientific publications and research data.

In this spirit, the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts supports the global "open access" initiative, which is confirmed as a forward-looking strategy for scientific communication in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities and in the Joint Declaration of Science Organizations on Open Access and Copyright. The OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts expressly recommends that scientists make their scientific publications available in open access as early as possible and supports them in doing so.

At the same time, the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts respects the principle of free choice of publication channel, which is protected by academic freedom, as well as the specific characteristics of the subject cultures and the individual career situations of the authors. Publication should ensure the protection of personal and company-related data, copyright, and the legitimate interests of third parties, and should be subject to binding license conditions.

The support provided to scientific authors by the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts includes both primary publications in an open access publication (known as the golden route) and secondary publications on a publication server (known as the green route).

• When concluding publishing contracts, scientific authors should not assign exclusive rights of use and should at least reserve simple rights of use for the open access provision of their publications in order to enable secondary publication on the publication server of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts or in specialist open access repositories. The majority of internationally active publishers have long since accepted this practice of self-archiving scientific publications.
• Authors should, if possible, make a copy of their publication available on the publication server of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts at the time of publication. A version should be chosen that can be made available online as soon as possible.
• The OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts supports publication in open access publishers. Where possible, publication funds should be applied for directly in third-party funded projects (e.g., DFG, EU).
• In addition, the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts plans to set up a publication fund.
• The OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts recommends choosing publication licenses that support open access distribution (e.g., Creative Commons), if possible directly with the publisher at the time of publication or by making a copy of the publication available in open access repositories, provided that the publishing contract allows this.

The university library of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts provides advice and support for the practical implementation of open access.

Below, we would like to explain the advantages of open access in more detail:

Visibility and feedback

By publishing as open access, scientific texts are made available quickly, easily, and free of charge to interested parties worldwide. This enables rapid exchange and also provides authors with more feedback. The increased visibility of publications leads to a rise in citation rates.

The interested public gains easy access to 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 thus gain greater creative freedom. This means they are less dependent on publishers than in the case of "closed access" works.

Quality

Numerous high-quality "open access" journals with strict quality control have established themselves. As with traditional journals, open access (OA) publications undergo peer review, among other things.

The green road refers to the secondary publication or self-archiving of scientific literature on document servers (repositories).

Numerous publishers allow their authors to publish their works on an institutional server, known as secondary publication. This depends on the respective contractual terms of the publishers.

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

All publications are published under a CC license of your choice. This allows you to decide for yourself how your publication can be reused.

To get an overview of which publishers support secondary publications, you can use the Open Policy Finder platform. This research tool allows you to view the license terms of a traditional publisher and search for suitable subject-specific journals in the open access sector.

We can help you with this

Secondary publication via S(kim) on the university server offers numerous advantages. For example, every scientific publication is linked to a constant, permanently citable link (DOI). In addition, you are clearly identifiable as the author of your scientific publications via an ORCiD.

The Open Policy Finder database provides information on the rights you are generally granted by publishers. We are happy to assist you with your research in Open Policy Finder.

Financing

Publication in our university repository is free of charge for members of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

The golden road refers to the initial publication of scientific literature as open access. Numerous established scientific publishers offer open access journals, and the articles are subject to high quality standards. These publications are financed in part 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 digitally free of charge on our university publication server.

Many publishers already offer publication opportunities 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: Free publication is also possible in open access journals.

We can help you

We are happy to advise and support you in the area of open access publishing. Among other things, we can help you find a suitable open access journal via the DOAJ and select an appropriate 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 Faculties. S(kim) provides
funds to support authors and establish open access. In the future, S(kim) plans to set up a publication fund together with the university.

S(kim) will cover a proportion of the publication fees, 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 with your university email address. In addition, your article must be published in a journal whose content is made available free of charge on the Internet immediately after publication and which applies recognized and strict quality assurance measures. The journal must be listed in the DOAJ.
Please contact us in advance by email to discuss co-financing.

Publication fees will not be covered if the article appears in a journal in which only individual articles are published "open access" (so-called hybrid journals). Likewise, the fee will not be covered if the publication of the article by the publisher is not guaranteed.

In addition, publications often incur additional fees (page fees, color fees, image fees, etc.) that are not included in the publication fee. S(kim) cannot co-finance these additional costs.

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

The aim of the agreements is

• improve access to the full texts of e-journals
• to promote open access publishing
• to transition from subscription costs to a model based solely on publication costs

Elsevier – The agreement covers reading rights to almost the entire journal portfolio, including journals from the Cell Press and The Lancet brands. We have archiving rights for the volumes published during the term of the agreement and for the 2023 volume.
Authors from participating institutions can publish open access in more than 2,500 journals at discounted rates.
 

Springer Nature - The new contract for 2024-2028 covers reading rights to almost the entire journal portfolio. The first contract covers archival rights to the entire portfolio published up to 2023, and the new contract follows on from this and covers archival rights for the respective contract years.
Authors from participating institutions can publish open access in more than 2,000 journals at discounted rates.
 

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

Publishing - As a general rule, only authors from participating institutions who are the "corresponding author" or "submitting author" of the article are considered in the DEAL contracts, provided that the author uses their university email address. The costs for articles in hybrid journals (PAR fee) are calculated at fixed negotiated amounts. Articles in journals that are published entirely in open access (Fully Gold) are charged at list prices minus the negotiated discounts.
In the years 2024-2028, the costs for Springer Nature and Wiley will be calculated based on the amount originally paid in 2023. This will allow for a gradual transition to the calculation of publication costs alone.
S(kim) will cover the financing as long as funds are available. This does not apply to fees that exceed the publication fees, e.g., page or color fees.


Publications by emeritus professors—a prerequisite for financing under the DEAL agreements is that the author has a current institutional affiliation. 
Upon leaving active service at the university, this institutional affiliation ceases to apply. An affiliation can continue to exist and be stated if, for example, you are involved in an ongoing research project at the university, are a member of a graduate college, or are supervising ongoing doctoral theses.
Unfortunately, it is therefore no longer possible to automatically cover publication costs for emeritus scholars. In order to enable a fair and transparent solution, we review such applications on a case-by-case basis. If you provide us with the title, journal, and, if applicable, your current affiliation with the university, we will be happy to decide whether funding is possible.
  

Detailed information on the DEAL agreements and pricing conditions

• DEAL-Elsevier
• DEAL-Springer Nature
• DEAL-Wiley
• Journals included in the agreements
  (section: In which journals can open access publications be made?)

TH OWL is a member of the Institutional Open Access Program of the MDPI publishing house.
The MDPI publishing house publishes peer-reviewed open access journals. The consortium, which is managed by the Central Library of Medicine, enables authors from participating institutions to publish at discounted rates.

In order to publish at a discounted rate, the corresponding author must be affiliated with TH OWL and publish using their university email address.

The author will be charged 15% off the regular price for each individual article.

If the author wishes to publish in a journal listed in the DOAJ and has inquired in writing in advance whether S(kim) can possibly contribute to the financing, the invoice can be sent centrally to S(kim), in which case the APC will be discounted by 30% by MDPI. Under these conditions, the amount to be paid is financed jointly by S(kim) and the author.

At S(kim), we can advise you on the following topics, among others:

• Selecting appropriate publication channels and formats
• Open Access and funding opportunities
• Consortium agreements and licenses, secondary publication rights, copyright
• Visibility of your publications (e.g., via a DOI or an ORCID entry)
• Use and interpretation of publication metrics

Please contact us to discuss your specific questions.

Contact

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

Open access is just one aspect of the diverse spectrum of open science. Find out more about other aspects of open science.