Sociology

In sociology, there are many different attitudes towards open access. Whereas digital resources are widely used in research and teaching, sociologists are as yet rather hesitant about publishing their works open access (Graf et al., 2019). One reason for this is the culture of publishing in the humanities and social sciences. In these disciplines, to which sociology belongs, books in the form of monographs, thematic edited collections, conference proceedings, etc. are the predominant types of publications. In addition, many sociologists lack information on open access, with the result that they often classify open access publications as qualitatively inferior, and rely on established publishers as supposed guarantors of quality. Furthermore, there is often a need for information and clarification in the areas of licences and copyright (Graf et al., 2019). Financial questions also play a major role for authors and publishers. In many cases, for example, it is unclear how financing can be arranged if nobody has to buy the work (Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2020). 

Hesitancy on the part of sociologists is also reflected in the attitude of large professional associations. Neither the German Sociological Association (DGS) nor its US counterpart, the American Sociological Association (ASA), are among the signatories of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. 
Although institutional expressions of commitment to open access are lacking in sociology, the groundwork for open access has been laid, as the following offerings on this page show.

As of December 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 1,019 titles under the subject "sociology", and the online library OAPEN listed around 1,264 titles under "sociology". 

The publishing landscape in the book-friendly social sciences is extremely heterogeneous, broad, and fragmented. However, the publishers Springer VS, Nomos, Barbara Budrich, Routledge, transcript, Campus, and LIT are particularly worthy of mention (Graf et al., 2020, p. 22; Projekt OGeSoMo, n.d.).

Open access publishing faces diverse challenges in book-friendly disciplines such as sociology. To make it more attractive, a suitable infrastructure for and trust in the quality of open access books must be established. Especially worthy of mention in this connection are the quality standards for open access monographs and edited volumes formulated by the consortium of university presses AG Universitätsverlage (Arning et al., 2022). Furthermore, several business models for open access books have become established in recent years (OAPEN, 2020).

The Specialised Information Service (SIS) Sociology is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is operated jointly by the University and City Library of Cologne, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, and the Research Data Center (RDC) Qualiservice. With over 3,300 registered members, the collaboration portal SocioHub serves as a central platform to promote research communication and improve the supply of scientific information in sociology. The focus is on a combination of collaboration, open science, and research data management. In addition, users can search for subject-specific literature, research data, groups, and persons.

The development and implementation of the services of the SIS Sociology take place in close consultation with the Scientific Advisory Board and are supported by the German Sociological Association (DGS) and the Academy of Sociology

Open access offerings of the SIS Sociology:

• Classics of Sociology – From Comte to Weber: 100 works from the sociological canon are available as open access full texts. The collection comprises original editions in German, English, French, and Italian and covers the period from 1826 to the 20th century.

• SSOAR: As GESIS’s open access repository, SSOAR is integrated in the SocioHub index, its content can be accessed directly via SocioHub. In addition, registered SocioHub users can upload documents directly to SSOAR without having to log in again.
• Preregistration in the Social Sciences: With the module “Preregistration in the Social Sciences”, SocioHub offers an innovative way of preregistering sociological research projects and thus making them known. This enables early contact between similar projects and an intensification of scientific exchange, thereby possibly avoiding the duplication of work. The substantive concept and technical implementation of the module was developed by the SocioHub team and is based on a standardised template for preregistrations provided by the Open Science Framework (OSF).
• Journal hosting: The SIS Sociology supports the founding of new and the migration of existing open access journals of sociology. With the help of the open source software Open Journal Systems (OJS), the entire digital publishing process – from submission to publication – is technically supported.
• SOCIOS: A satellite project of SocioHub, SOCIOS is a publication platform for collaborative writing and open peer review in the social sciences.

The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content of relevance to sociology.

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) enables subject-specific searches for digital full texts. Sociological content can be browsed using the Dewey Decimal Classification Code 301.

Within the framework of the project OGeSoMo – Förderung von Open-Access-Publikationen in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften mit dem Schwerpunkt Monografien [Promotion of Open Access Publications in the Humanities and Social Sciences with a Focus on Monographs], which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, numerous flyers with comprehensive information on open access publications in the humanities and social sciences were produced. In the successor project, AuROA - Autor:innen und Rechtssicherheit für Open Access [Authors and Legal Certainty for Open Access] a contract generator was developed with which modular sample contracts for open access book publications can be individually and interactively generated.

The project ENABLE! aims to bring together in a network the individual players in the open access publishing system in the humanities and social sciences to promote open access publishing and develop new publishing models, among other things.