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Intro Academic Publishing: Open Access Gold Source: based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 An open access journal can be published in different ways: it can be run independently, published at a research performing organisation, or with the help of a publishing house. 2 When starting an open access journal, roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined from the very beginning. 3 Overlay journals use the technical infrastructure of preprint servers. As in the case of other types of journals, an editorial team takes care of other processes, for example peer review. Starting and Publishing an Open Access Journal Open access journals are freely available – immediately and to all interested parties. This has various advantages for authors, readers and the academic community. But how are open access journals published? And what should be considered when starting an open access journal? This article addresses important points that should be considered when starting and publishing an open access journal. Many of these points are also of relevance when converting an existing journal to open access ( Journal Flipping ). What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Converting Journals to Open Access Find here more information about "journal flipping" (the conversing of an existing journal to Open Access). Praxistipp Beitritt zum Editorial Board einer bestehenden Zeitschrift: Ja oder Nein? Diese Handreichung liefert Kriterien zur Entscheidungsfindung: https://zenodo.org/records/12801460 . Concept First of all, in view of the editorial effort required, you should consider whether publishing your own journal is plausible within the limits of your resources. You should also find out whether and to what extent existing journals already cover the subject area of your planned journal. To do so, you can consult, among other things, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) , the German Union Catalogue of Serials (ZDB) , and JSTOR . Against this backdrop, you should then consider whether starting a new journal actually makes sense ( Pilaar Birch, 2014; Blechl et al., 2016 ). Depending on the existing situation, it may be more plausible to assume a role in an existing journal or to encourage the conversion of a closed access journal to open access. In the case of a start-up, you should ask yourself the following questions, which will help you to develop a concept (Blechl et al., 2016; Pilaar Birch, 2014; van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021; Kaier & van Edig, 2020; K, 2021) : How can my journal fit in with the existing range of journals in terms of topic and target group? After finding a thematic niche in the existing range of journals, you should determine whether the interest of researchers in the niche topics is sufficient for the scope of a new journal. To this end, you should define and analyse the potential readership. If you conclude that the establishment of a journal makes sense, it is advisable to draft a mission statement, which will appear on the journal website. It should be the length of an abstract and should present the unique thematic features of your journal. What expenditure and revenue are to be expected? To help those thinking of starting an open access journal to develop a business plan, SPARC Europe provides the New Business Plan Toolkit for OA Journals . As a basis for negotiations with potential funders , it is advisable to plan the first three years in advance. The legal form of the journal should be considered, and a financial buffer should be included in the plan. It is advisable to draft a written concept with essential project information. How can the journal be run in the long term? Share the tasks and responsibilities so that as many team members as possible develop expertise in different areas. Document processes in order to conserve knowledge. Long-term preservation is important because it is the best way to ensure the permanent availability of the content. If your own institution does not operate a professional long-term preservation service of its own, all contributions should be archived externally. Examples of professional long-term preservation services include LOCKSS / CLOCKSS and Portico . Ideally, these services offer to transfer, or migrate, content into other (modern) formats should the existing formats become obsolete Content should be migrated into open, machine readable formats. Do I aspire to have an international reach? Decide on the language or languages in which your content and the information about your journal should be available. English-language journals tend to be noticed more and to reach a wider readership. If you want to publish in other languages, you should check whether your journal can reach your target group. What should I call my journal? Find a concise title and an abbreviation for your journal. Avoid special characters, such as ß . It is also important that the title is tailored to the desired target group. Via the serials directory UlrichsWeb , or other search engines, you can find out whether your desired title is still available. As UlrichsWeb is a subscription-based service, you should ask your library whether they can help you access it. Also for ethical reasons, the name should be chosen in such a way that it is not possible to confuse it with the names of other journals. Who exactly should the editor or the owner of the journal be? The editors determine the scientific focus of the journal and usually de­cide which contributions should be published. In many cases, the editors are scholars who work on a voluntary basis, However, some open access journals work with permanently employed editors. In most cases, how­ever, editorial boards act as editors. Editorial boards are often hierarchic­ally organised and divided into areas of responsibility (chief editor, mana­ging editor, handling editor, etc.). Further details can be found, for example, in Kaier und van Edig (2020) . The ownership of the journal may lie with the editors themselves, with institutions (e.g. universities or professional associations), or with publishers. How can I find co-publishers, members of the editorial board, authors, etc? Although renowned researchers often have only very little time to give, the participation of established academics in the editorial board is highly recommended in order to increase the visibility of your journal. You should therefore start searching as early as possible. Ideally, your edito­rial board should consist of individuals from different institutions, and – especially in the case of a journal with an international focus – it should include persons of different nationalities. It is important that the journal is affiliated with several stakeholders; too strong an affiliation with individual persons can lead to relationships of dependency. All members of the editorial board should be listed on the journal website with their full names, affiliations, email addresses, research focuses, and, if applicable, links to their websites. Especially in the start-up phase, an adequate number of high quality con­tributions by renowned authors can build up the reputation of a journal. Do some research, or ask around in professional circles, to find out who would be suitable as authors for your journal, and then actively approach them. You have good prospects of success especially with academics who have reached a point in their careers where they are no longer complete­ly dependent on publishing in already renowned journals. A further possibility is to begin with a small group of renowned contributors, who will attract other renowned contributors over time. It should be borne in mind that the reputation of a journal and its contributors still plays an important role in many disciplines. The Journal Impact Factor is still also of importance in some disciplines. However, a Journal Impact Factor cannot be obtained from the very start, but rather only after meeting various criteria, providing proof of a relatively long publishing history, and undergoing laborious evaluation. The high visibility of a journal ensures increased visibility of its articles. This also enhances the standing of the authors in – and possibly beyond – their disciplinary communities. Who is responsible for what? Responsibilities and competences should be clearly defined. This is especially important when several institutions are participating in the journal, or when external services are used. Clear roles and responsibilities are also important within the editorial board – this point is addressed in more detail in the Editorial Planning section below. How do I connect my journal to the open access community? Consider becoming a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) . For internationally oriented start-ups from the humanities and social sciences, membership of the Radical Open Access Collective is also an option. To fulfil recognised open access criteria with regard to access and reusability , your journal should comply with the following standards and requirements: Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities The Principles and the Technical Guidance and Requirements of Plan S The DOAJ Seal What contributions will my journal publish? The types of contributions that the journal will publish must be specified – for example research articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, or book reviews. It should be considered whether individual issues should have a thematic focus. It is advisable to make research data – for example measurement results or interview transcripts – available as supplementary materials to the contributions in your journal (Hrynaszkiewicz et al., 2020) . These data enable not only peer reviewers but also readers to better understand and check the contributions. It is advisable not only to "store" these data in the journal itself, but also to inform the authors about suitable data repositories such as Zenodo or the Registry of Research Data Repositories, re3data.org . What licensing aspects must be considered? Under what terms and conditions should the contributions be reusable? Authors should not transfer exclusive exploitation rights in their contri­butions to the publishing institution (e.g. a publisher). With regard to distribution and reuse, it is advisable to make contributions available under the current version of the Creative Commons Attribution licence, CC BY , because this licence type complies with Plan S and restricts reuse the least. In the case of other CC licence variants (e.g. CC BY-NC), possible negative effects must be considered. It should be transparently stated – in the metadata, on the landing page, and in the article itself – what licence is used. On our Open Access and Reuse page , you will find detailed information on open licences such as the Creative Commons licences. Further legal aspects are addressed on our Legal Questions pages. What quality assurance procedures (e.g. [open] peer review, editorial review) will be used? On what criteria should the quality assurance procedure be based? Peer review is the most well-known quality assurance procedure. It is still often conducted anonymously, for example in the following forms: Double-blind peer review: The reviewers do not know the names of the authors and vice versa. Single-blind peer review: The identities of the authors are known to the reviewers but not vice versa. However, open peer review procedures are becoming more common ( Ross-Hellauer, 2017 ), for example in the case of overlay journals . Also common are editorial reviews, where the assessment of the article is carried out by one or more members of the editorial staff ( Lange, 2021 ). When choosing a procedure, standard quality assurance practices in the field in which the journal is located should be taken into account. After all, the journal is dependent on the support of the community, and thus on its acceptance. You should also find out what staff capacities are needed for each procedure, whether these capacities are available, and whether enough reviewers can be found. In any case, precise assessment criteria should be defined, and a maxi­mum duration of the review process stipulated, which should not be longer than a few months. Research data, software, and other supple­mentary materials should be included in the first submission of the manuscript and made available to the reviewers. In the interest of transparency, the reasons for using the respective quality assurance procedures should be explained on the journal website. Moreover, you should consider offering authors the possibility of naming undesired reviewers. And finally, it is essential that you check submissions for plagiarism. Open source software for this purpose is uncommon. iThenticate.com is often mentioned as a suitable commercial plagiarism detection service. Is there a demand for an additional print edition? You should find out whether demand for an additional print addition exists in the field in which your journal will be located. Although, generally speaking, demand for print editions is declining, it still exists, for example, in the humanities, although even there it is declining further. Bear in mind that printing even a few copies makes demands on administrative capacities that should not be underestimated, and consider whether it is worth the effort. Consider also that some of the added value of the digital publication (e.g. the direct linking with data) will be lost, and that therefore the question arises of whether a print edition is in keeping with the times. How do I increase awareness of my journal? It is essential that the content of your journal is easily findable via indexing services and search engines. Contributions and comprehensive metadata should be exposed via interfaces such as OAI-PMH or SWORD immediately after publication, so that they can be automatically processed at repositories. This is not only in the interests of long-term preservation but also of visibility. Within the framework of the DOI registration of an article (addressed in detail in the Editorial Planning section ), Crossref and DataCite each provide a metadata schema. Metadata may be reused under a CC0 licence. Only with such visibility is there a prospect that the articles in your journals will be frequently cited, which is essential especially for the reputation of early career researchers. This is the only way of sustainably establishing the journal in professional circles. In addition, the following ways of increasing the visibility of your journal exist: News: Publish regular news relating to your journal. Newsletter: Many readers like to keep up to date by newsletter. Social media: Twitter and possibly Facebook are suitable platforms for publicising your content. Post-publication tools: These tools (e.g. the comments function) encourage your readers to interact with each other and to discuss your content. RSS feeds: With the help of RSS feeds, interested users can collect current notifications. This option is directly included in most content management systems, and just has to be configured. Blogs: Blog articles can supplement journal contributions and report on current topics. To facilitate the exchange of views, the inclusion of a comments function is recommended. Moreover, if appropriate, blog articles can be linked to journal contributions. It is important that communication with the scientific community functions well – concerns and interests of readers and authors should be collected and incorporated time and again into the substantive concept of the journal. It is advisable to publish the handling of readers’ concerns and interests on the website. All these measures result in (potential) readers and authors feeling that they are being addressed. These measures should be prepared in good time because potential staff members and funders will make their participation contingent upon your position on these points. In addition, the concept has an impact on all framework conditions and work processes and must therefore be defined so that the editorial process flows smoothly. What will happen to the content in the worst case? You should make a plan as to what will happen to the content should your journal cease to exist. For authors, readers, and the scientific record, it is extremely important that published content should remain available in the long term. This aspect was addressed as early as 2003 in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. When registering DOIs, journals undertake to ensure that metadata and content will remain accessible via these identifers. Should a journal cease to operate, it should therefore be made clear whether the journal infrastructure can continue to make the published content avail­able or whether this is possible via a long-term archive or repository. In any case, a situation where the content disappears overnight must be avoided. Editorial Planning Before work can begin on the texts, several editorial framework conditions should be defined (Blechl et al., 2016; van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021; K, 2021) : Editorial Roles and Responsibilities Responsibilities and decision-making competences should be defined: What roles and levels exist in my/our journal (e.g. editorial board; editorial staff; copy editors and proofreaders; typesetters; main contact persons for the authors; if applicable, review board)? Besides the linguistic quality of the articles, attention should be paid to their visual appearance so that the journal will be perceived as reputable. Standard layouts should be specified for all file formats – various typesetting systems, for example LaTeX , provide support with this. Moreover, you should keep an eye on current developments, so that the layout of the journal remains contemporary. In principle, it is possible to outsource the typesetting, but that costs money. And finally, guidelines must be established for peer reviews, conflicts of interest, and scientific misconduct. The Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) Guidelines can serve as a guide in this regard. Planning the Number of Contributions The number of contributions that will be published per year should be specified. To be recognised as a proper journal, at least five contributions a year are advisable. Even though, in many respects, open access journals without print editions have fewer constraints than their closed-access counterparts, it makes sense in terms of staff capacity to plan the number of contributions. It should be considered whether traditional, discrete, issues should be published, or whether contributions should be published on a rolling basis – that is, as soon as the editorial process is completed. If you decide against publishing discrete issues, the individual contributions should be consecutively numbered, and at least one contribution should be published per quarter. Manuscript Submission Guidelines The desired manuscript length should be specified for each contribution category. A policy that gives the authors precise manuscript submission guidelines and explains what must be observed (e.g. file format, structure, referencing style) is advisable. Ideally, publications should be provided in the following formats: HTML for good on-screen readability PDF/A for printing (by users themselves) XML for machine processing ePUB for ebook readers Furthermore, you have to decide whether multimedia presentations, tables, graphs, images, or audio materials will be possible. It must also be decided whether it will be possible to enrich texts with data or link them to data on other servers. Technical Implementation and Design of the Website It is advisable to choose a domain name that is easy to remember (possibly in consultation with the IT department of your institution). In order to be perceived as a reputable journal, a professional web design should be used (if necessary with the support of external partners). If you are publishing your journal with a publisher or at your institution, talk to them about this. When designing the website, it is essential to ensure that is barrier free, so that it can be used easily by people with hearing, visual, or motor disabilities. It is advisable to use the technical standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA . At least one of the formats used (HTML, PDF, etc.) should comply with this standard. Workflows of the Publication Process The editorial team should define internal workflows, including a timeline for editorial work (calls for submissions, peer reviews, copy editing, etc). Core elements should be clearly communicated to the authors. In addition, the authors should be kept informed of the current status of their submissions. Journal management software, such as OJS, provides support with this. Indexing and Integration into Value-Added Services To ensure the findability of content, your journal should be successfully integrated into value-added services such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) , the Web of Science , Scopus and Sherpa Romeo . To this end, you should submit an application to these services. If evaluation is successful, your journal will be indexed. For successful evaluation by these services, the respective criteria for acceptance must be observed. Bear in mind that it can take a long time for the evaluation process to be completed. It is important to provide transparent information on the journal, the publishers and editors, the website, and – in the case of non-English-language journals – metadata. Information on DOAJ compliance can be found her e. Information on other services can be found on their respective websites and in Chapter F of Blechl et al.’s German-language guide ( 2016 ). Some indexing services require that non-English-language contributions should also include an English-language title and abstract. You should apply for an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) for your journal via ISSN.org . If the title of your journal changes, you will have to request a new ISSN. As a rule, an ISSN is not assigned until the first issue has been published. It is advisable to enquire in advance whether the ISSN will be listed in the ISSN International Portal. If a regular print edition is not planned, you should apply only for an ISSN (Online). The ISSN assigned to the online version can also be used for print-on-demand issues. It is important that all contributions are assigned metadata, DOIs, and keywords. Further details can be found on page 7 and seq. of Blechl et al.’s German-language guide ( 2016 ). In order to achieve a maximum reach, all metadata should be OAI-PMH compliant , thereby enabling them to be harvested by disciplinary databases and search engines. Journal management systems, such as OJS, provide plugins for the automatic generation of OAI-PMH-compliant metadata. ORCiD IDs enable authors to be uniquely identified. Besides unique identification in the research context, this unique identification is also important for internal processes at the institutions where the authors work. You should therefore give authors the possibility of linking their articles to their ORCiD ID. ORCiD IDs can be registered free of charge. Via the Research Organization Registry ( ROR ), institutional affiliations can be uniquely identified by means of a persistent identifier. ROR IDs can be applied for free of charge. Metrics and Statistical Data In the interests of transparency, readers should be given access to journal-level citation metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), and the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR). Moreover, it is advisable to also make article-level metrics (ALMs) available to enable readers to find out how many accesses or downloads an article receives. In addition, via so-called altmetrics, mentions of the contributions in social media and scholarly networks can be statistically analysed. Provided you use DOIs, OJS has a plugin for this. And finally, it is advisable to communicate the number of submitted, accepted, and rejected manuscripts, as well as the average time from submission to publication, so that authors know what processing time to expect. Notifications to Collecting Societies Authors of articles in digital journals can also receive royalties from collecting societies. In Germany and Austria, contributions must be assigned a counter from the collecting society VG Wort and must achieve a high number of accesses (e.g. VG Wort ). If you are interested, you can contact Literar Mechana in Austria or VG Wort in Germany. Practical tip Here you can find the slides of the Open Access Talk Founding journals - what do I need to think about? (in German) Practical tip Supporting Open Access – Practical Tips for Publishers and Journals (in German) gives concrete advice on how publishers can support open access. Practical tip The Wellcome Trust's Society Publishers Accelerating Open Access and Plan S toolkit provides tips on implementing Open Access and Plan S compliance. For OJS journals, the Public Knowledge Project provides the very useful Guide to Plan S compliance in OJS . Practical Tip The Open Access Journals Toolkit produced by DOAJ and OASPA is a good support for publishers of open access journals. It "covers topics across the entire journal development lifecycle and everyday operation, such as journal creation, costs, staffing, policy development, through to indexing and other technical aspects". Affiliation of the Journal Open access journals can be run within the framework of an existing offering or (largely) independently ( scholar-led publishing) . Affiliation with a publisher is one possibility; other options are to run the journal with the help of a university or a library or to publish it independently. Journals can also be published as so-called overlay journals (see below). When choosing a provider, the following aspects should be taken into account: Technical aspects Is there an editorial system? Are there possibilities to preserve content in the long term? Can the desired manuscript formats be processed? Financial aspects What does usage cost? What direct and indirect costs will arise (e.g. server operation, DOI assignment, personnel costs, external service providers)? Are the desired forms of financing supported? Service-related aspects What services are provided? What is the nature of the infrastructural integration with regard to metadata and the traceability of the content? Organisational and legal aspects Who will control the journal? Who will hold the rights in the journal title? If a publisher is involved: Will the publisher limit the open access orientation of the journal? Is separation from the publisher possible (e.g. regulation of the transfer of metadata and full texts)? When choosing a provider, you should critically assess your own resources – both in financial terms and with regard to the amount of work to be done ( van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021 ). You should not only ask yourself what and how much you can do yourself, but also how much freedom you wish to retain. If you want to publish your journal via a publisher, you should bear in mind that many things will be prescribed by the publisher – for example, the software, the fun­ding model, and minimum standards that the quality assurance procedure must fulfil. If the publisher’s requirements are in line with your ideas, cooperation may be beneficial. In other cases, cooperation with a publisher can severely restrict the freedom of the editors. Scholar-led publishing is an alternative to cooperation with a publisher. If you wish to publish your journal at an institution, it is advisable to find out whether the journal can be hosted on the institution’s web server, whether the institution can make journal management software available to you, or whether a professional hosting service would be an option ( Blechl et al., 2016 ). Some institutions offer a specialised advisory service for these questions (e.g. CeDiS , Freie Universität Berlin). Hosting services are also provided by some specialised information services, for example the Specialised Information Service Linguistics , the Specialised Information Service Germanistik im Netz , the Specialised Information Service Comparative Literature , and the Specialised Information Service Classics, Propylaeum ( van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021 ). Practice Tip: Scholar-Led Publishing Scholar-led publishing can be implemented cost-effectively by means of open source software such as Open Journal Systems (OJS) . OJS under­goes continual further development; the source code is freely available; and the software, which is also available in German, can be used free of charge. The application supports the entire process of online publishing (submission, review, copy editing and proofreading, publication, com­menting on published articles). Numerous templates, for example for communication with reviewers and authors, support the editorial work. Moreover, the software contains interfaces, so that metadata can easily be delivered to services such as the Directory of Open Access Journals ( Mruck et al., 2018 ). The German-language OJS Information Platform is the first contact point for German-speaking users when they have questions; it is also a place where OJS users interact. Further information can be found in the User Guide , which also includes an FAQ page. Accor­ding to Martin Paul Eve ( 2012 ), inexperienced OJS users with average technical competence should “budget in a fair few hours” to install and configure the software. You should also bear in mind that the amount of time needed to actually publish a journal should not be underestimated. In particular the preparation of the content is a challenge for scholar-led journals. Scholar-led projects that operate the technical infrastructure themselves should engage with formal standards (see Section 3.3 in Bosman et al., 2021 ). Alternatives to OJS are Janeway and PubSweet ( van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021 ). The focus group scholar-led.network also deals with the topic; members jointly search for suitable models, and share experiences. Editorial process at Open Journal Systems (OJS) Source: OJS-net.de Focus group: Scholar-led.network Feel free to discuss developments in Scholar-led.network with experts. Overlay Journals A further option is to publish the journal as an overlay journal. Overlay journals use the infrastructure of preprint servers , such as arXiv , that are already well established in some disciplines, for example mathematics and physics ( Schmeja, 2016 ). Authors deposit their papers (in the usual way) on arXiv or another preprint server and submit them from there to the overlay journal, which takes care of peer review. If the paper passes peer review, it is included in the journal – that is, the journal posts a link from its website to the preprint server, assigns a DOI, and, if applicable, attaches an editor’s comment to the article ( Schmeja, 2016 ). One of the first overlay journals was the mathematics journal Discrete Analysis , which was founded in 2015 ( Gowers, 2015 ). open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) In any case, when establishing an open access journal, it is very advisable to seek the advice of your institution’s open access officer. The Fair Open Access Alliance (FOAA) is a further suitable point of contact. FOAA is a group of scho­lars and librarians that propagates and promotes the principles of Fair Open Access. It provides support – financially and otherwise – for the establishment of new journals. The FOAA can be contacted here . Moreover, the TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library , for example, provides the open access platform TIB Open Publishing , on which open access journals and conference proceedings can be published. And finally, it is advisable to engage with other publishers. The Free Journal Network (FJN) promotes scholarly journals run according to the principles of Fair Open Access , for example by sharing best practices and obtaining funding for its journals. By updating its acceptance criteria, it further aims to ensure that journals in the network continuously improve in quality. Open Access Helpdesk Ask your specific questions about Open Access here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here. Open Access and funding organisations Find an introduction here. Covering Costs The production of open access journals in general, and overlay journals in particular ( Ball, 2015 ), is in part cheaper than print journals or toll-access electronic journals (Swan, 2016) . Besides savings from not having to print the journal, open access publishers also have savings, for example, from not having to handle subscriptions or identify (non-)authorised users. Because open source software, such as OJS, is often used to run the journal, or, in the case of overlay journals, the infrastructure of preprint servers is used, the software costs are usually low. Options for Covering the Costs of an Open Access Journal The options for covering the costs of an open access journal are as follows (Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002; Blechl et al., 2016, van Edig & Rücknagel, 2021) : Funding from private, state, or disciplinary research funding organisations Funding from the institutions (e.g. universities) at which the authors are employed Cross-financing, for example by conferences Consortial funding (see Knowledge Unlatched or projects such as KOALA) Donations (e.g. from institutions, individuals, crowdfunding) Advertising revenue (to this end, draw up an advertising policy) Article processing charges (APCs) payable by authors or their institutions. As these charges create barriers for authors, other funding options should be chosen where possible. It is important to provide exact details of how the costs arise and of the APC per contribution. Moreover, the time point of invoicing should be clearly communicated. Discounts, for example for authors from low-wage countries, should be considered. Especially when you want to avoid costs for authors, it is very advisable to seek support from research funding organisations or consortial funding. Details of the funding model used by the journal should also be provided on the website. References Ball, P. (2015). The journal that publishes no papers. Mathematics journal ‘overlays’ arXiv preprint server . Nature. 526 , 146. https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/1.18444!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/526146a.pdf Blechl, G., Ferus, A., Gorraiz, J., Haas, I., Haslinger, D., Holzner, B., Schiller, R., Schmidt, N., & Stöger, H. (2016). Checkliste zur Herausgabe von Open Access Zeitschriften an Forschungseinrichtungen (Version 2) . Open Access Netzwerk Austria (OANA). https://www.akbild.ac.at/de/forschung/open-access/die-ag-open-access/OANAChecklisteOAJournals_Version2.pdf Bosman, J., Frantsvåg, J. E., Kramer, B., Langlais, P.-C., & Proudman, V. (2021). The OA Diamond Journals Study. Exploring collaborative community-driven publishing models. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558704 Budapest Open Access Initiative . (2002). https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/translations/german-translation Eve, M. P. (2012, July 11). Starting an Open Access Journal: a step-by-step guide part 2. Eve.Gd . https://eve.gd/2012/07/11/starting-an-open-access-journal-a-step-by-step-guide-part-2/ Gowers, T. (2015, September 10). Discrete Analysis - an arXiv overlay journal. Gowers’s Weblog . https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an-arxiv-overlay-journal/ Hrynaszkiewicz, I., Simons, N., Hussain, A., Grant, R., & Goudie, S. (2020). Developing a research data policy framework for all journals and publishers. Data Science Journal , 19 (1), 5. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-005 K, S. (2021, July 7). How to Start an Open-Access Journal. Typeset.io . https://typeset.io/resources/how-to-start-an-open-access-journal/ Kaier, C., & van Edig, X. (2020). Publizieren in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften. In K. Lackner, L. Schilhan, & C. Kaier (Eds.), Publikationsberatung an Universitäten (pp. 53–78). transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839450727-004 Lange, J. (2021, July 28). Scholarly Journal Publishing Guide. Resources for McGill journal editors . https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/journalpublishing/typesofreview Mruck, K., Mey, G., & Muhle, F. (2018). Wissenschaft als Publikationspraxis. In Eigenregie verlegte Zeitschriften: das Beispiel Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS). Erziehungswissenschaft , 57 (29), 43–51. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3224/ezw.v29i2.06 Pilaar Birch, S. (2014, September 18). Essential Guide: How to start an Open Access journal in five steps. LSE Impact Blog . https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/09/18/how-to-start-an-open-access-journal/ Ross-Hellauer, T. (2017). What is open peer review? A systematic review. F1000 Research . https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11369.2 Schmeja, S. (2016). arXiv-Overlay-Journals: Das Beste aus zwei Welten. TIB Blog . https://blogs.tib.eu/wp/tib/2016/08/17/arxiv-overlay-journals-das-beste-aus-zwei-welten/ Swan, A. (2016). The costs and benefits to the research community of Open Access: A briefing paper . PASTEUR4OA. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.51867 van Edig, X., & Rücknagel, J. (2021, May 27). Open-Access-Zeitschriften gründen – woran muss ich denken? Open Access Talk. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4836220 Further Reading Bakker, C. (2012). Developing open access journals: a practical guide by David J. Solomon. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 1(1). https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1028 Birch, S.P. (2014, September 18). Essential guide: how to start an Open Access journal in five steps. Impact of Social Sciences. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/09/18/how-to-start-an-open-access-journal/ Hansen, C. R., Thestrup, J. B., Riise, R. R., Iversen, R. K. M., & Johnsen, S. S. (2023). An offer the journal couldn’t refuse. How a Danish collaborative project paves the way for DOAJ inclusion. Nordic Perspectives on Open Science , 8 . https://doi.org/10.7557/11.7001 Henkes, L. M., & Holscher Blackman, K. (2025). Wissenschaftliches Publizieren neu denken. Blaupause für gemeinschaftliches und faires Diamond Open Access . ELADOAH. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17240865 Jamali, H. R., Wakeling, S., & Abbasi, A. (2022). Why do journals discontinue? A study of Australian ceased journals. Learned Publishing , 35 (2), 219–228. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1448 Mruck, K., Mey, G., & Muhle, F. (2018). Wissenschaft als Publikationspraxis. In Eigenregie verlegte Zeitschriften: das Beispiel Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS). Erziehungswissenschaft, 29(2), 13-14. https://doi.org/10.3224/ezw.v29i2.06 Open Access Directory (2019). OA journal business models. http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/OA_journal_business_models Shieber, S. (2013, November 21). Thoughts on founding open-access journals. The Occasional Pamphlet. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/11/21/thoughts-on-founding-open-access-journals/ Wenaas, L. (2021). Attracting new users or business as usual? A case study of converting academic subscription-based journals to open access. Quantitative Science Studies , 2 (2), 474–495. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00126...

Intro Open Access in 60 Sekunden Quelle: Brinken, H., Hauss, J. & Rücknagel, J. (2021). Open Access in 60 Sekunden, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/50831 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 The introduction of open access should be strategically and jointly implemented by the management and the library. 2 Institutions that implement open access should clearly demonstrate their commitment to open access with an open access policy. 3 Infrastructure offerings to scholars and scientists for the practical implementation of open access are essential. Implementing Open Access Open access improves access to scholarly information and enhances the visi­bility of scholarly institutions. Although the principles of open access are fully accepted and valued by researchers ( Dallmeier-Tiessen et al., 2011; Ross-Hellauer et al., 2017 ), concrete measures are needed to implement open access in practice. What Political Standpoints are There on Open Access? Find an introduction here. Open Access Policies Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Practical Tip In the practical tip Open Access unterstützen - Praxistipps für Hochschulen (German only) you will find tips on how Open Access can be supported by universities. Role of University Management Support by management is an important prerequisite for the successful intro­duction and implementation of open access at an institution. The adoption of a clear position, for example in the form of an open access policy , underscores the fact that providing open access to research results is valued and supported by the institution. In this way, the sustainable use of available resources, and if necessary their redeployment, can be centrally promoted. In the practical implementation of open access at an institution, it is crucial that management cooperate with the library and the data centre, because, as a rule, it is there that the measures are implemented and the services provided. Role of Libraries Libraries are important players in the area of open access. They are reliable intermediaries in the supply of literature and information, and they handle the acquisition and provision of both print and electronic media. At many institu­tions, together with the data centre, they take on a large part of the practical implementation of open access offerings, for example as operators of theses servers and repositories , by supporting the establishment of open access journals , or by establishing university presses themselves. In most cases, they are also responsible for administering open access publication funds . As a rule, libraries are also the ones that create an awareness about and drive the transition to open access. They are in close contact with the departments and know their interest in and needs for open access offerings. In addition, they are familiar with the range of discipline-specific offerings and requirements in the area of open access. In what follows, we outline concrete measures for the introduction and implementation of open access. Here, intensive cooperation between the institution’s library, researchers, data centre, and management is expedient. The implementation of open access involves not only the provision of a technical infrastructure but also comprehensive, target-group-specific marketing activities relating to open access. Practical Tip In the practical tip Open Access unterstützen - Praxistipps für Hochschulbibliotheken (in German) you will find tips on how Open Access can be supported by universities. The following measures have proved effective in implementing open access: Signing the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities can be signed by research performing and research funding organisations , as well as cultural institutions (e.g., libraries or museums). If interested, institution managers should contact the President of the Max Planck Society . By signing the Declaration, an institution commits to promoting scientific discourse through the consistent use of electronic channels of communication and to making scholarly knowledge accessible to the widest possible public. Adopting an Open Access Policy An institutional commitment, for example in the form of an official policy on open access or open science, is the most sustainable way of imple­menting the open access idea at an institution. In addition to expressing the institution’s commitment to open access/open science, this policy usually calls on the members of the institution to make their publications available in open access. This can be done either by publishing the works open access ( gold open access ) or by self-archiving the publications in an institutional repository. An exemplary structure and core content of a policy document are summarised on our webpage Open Access Policies . ROARMAP lists the open access mandates and policies of universities, research institutions, and research funders throughout the world. Institutions can also create their own systems of incentives for open access. For example, open access can also be included as a criterion for the performance-oriented allocation of funds. Appointing an Open Access Officer Besides drafting an institutional open access policy, the appointment of an open access officer as a central contact person for open access topics is recommended. Open access officers act as intermediaries between the library and the interests of the researchers; they play an advisory role, and are comprehensively informed about trends in scholarly publishing behaviour across disciplinary boundaries. The National Open Access Contact Point, OA2020-DE, has compiled a list of the open access officers at German universities and research institutions . The Train-the-Trainer Workshops offered by the project open-access.network provide information materials and training courses for open access officers. Conducting Information Events An institutional commitment to open access alone is not enough. It is also important to make it clear to all members what this commitment means for them in concrete terms. The topic of open access should therefore also be discussed at the level of departments, institutes, and working groups. When marketing open access, it is thus important that information transfer be broad and take place at all levels. International Open Access Week takes place every year in the third week of October. During Open Access Week, the topic of open access is addressed at many different locations worldwide in order to promote open access to knowledge and information resulting from publicly funded research and to provide information on site. Open Access Week provides institutions with a good opportunity to inform their members about open access. A range of reusable information materials can be found on our Materials page and in the Zenodo Community of the project open-access.network . Information videos about open access can be found in the open-access.network series on the TIB AV Portal . Building and Integrating a Repository When implementing open access, besides strategic and communicative measures, concrete infrastructure services that enable open access docu­ments to be appropriately archived and showcased are also necessary. Theses and document servers, operated as a rule by the institution’s library, are now the norm at most institutions. Institutional repositories offer university members professionally comprehensive publication services. These services range from the publication of dissertations and series, through the self-archiving of articles and monographs, to the archiving of video recordings, posters, and presentation slides. Detailed information on building and operating repositories can be found on our Repositories page. In the focus group Zweitveröffentlichung [Self-Archiving] , providers of self-archiving services have the opportunity to exchange information and experiences on practical and legal issues. Examples of institutional publication services include KOPS , the institu­tional repository at the University of Konstanz; GRO.publications / GRO.­data for text and data publications of the research institutions in Göttingen; and the TIB AV-Portal for scientific videos at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB). Supporting the Establishment of Scholarly Presses and Journals at the Institution University presses are primarily devoted to the publications of their own institutions. When distributing traditional books, they aim to offer high quality at fair prices. Besides print publications, university presses also publish online editions, thereby supporting the principle of open access. As a rule, responsibility for operating these scholarly presses lies with the university libraries, which thus not only acquire scholarly content but also offer publication opportunities themselves. The majority of German-language university presses have joined together in the Arbeitsgemein­schaft der Universitätsverlage (working group of the German-language university presses), which has produced, among other things, useful information materials and guidelines on various aspects of open access publishing . In addition, institutions can support their researchers in establishing their own open access journals . Many libraries offer advisory services on or provide assistance with matters relating to the concrete implementation of open access journals. Detailed information on establishing and operating open access journals can be found on our Publishing Open Access Journals page. The focus group scholar-led.network offers a forum for independently published journals and editors collectives whose free-of-charge publica­tions are produced independently of major publishers. Setting Up an Open Access Publication Fund Dealing with open access publication charges is crucial for the further strategic and organisational development of the scholarly information supply. A dedicated budget for publication charges, as well as funda­mental decisions concerning the handling of open access publication charges, are expedient and can be an effective instrument for reorgani­sing economic relationships between the scholarly institution and publishers. Many institutions provide an institutional open access publication fund for this purpose; it is often administered by the institution’s library. From this fund, the institution pays the open access article processing charges (APCs) or book processing charges (BPCs) incurred by its researchers. Libraries lend themselves to the role of publication fund administrator because they have years of experience in working with publishers, and thus have the necessary contacts. The specific challenges involved in setting up and operating open access monograph funds are addressed by the focus group Open-Access-Monographiefonds [Open Access Monograph Funds] . Anchoring Open Access in the Entire Institution To implement open access in a sustainable and comprehensive way, it is important to raise open access awareness beyond the levels of the management and the library. Researchers, doctoral candidates, students, and research support staff should therefore be included in PR and marketing measures. This applies especially to those areas of the administration that deal with the requirements of research funding agencies and the measurement of scholarly output. In addition, the open access idea can be spread sustainably if it is suggested to young scholars and scientists at an early stage, for example at study seminars or in graduate programmes. References Dallmeier-Tiessen, S., Darby, R., Goerner, B., Hyppoelae, J., Igo-Kemenes, P., Kahn, D., Lambert, S., Lengenfelder, A., Leonard, C., Mele, S., Nowicka, M., Polydoratou, P., Ross, D., Ruiz-Perez, S., Schimmer, R., Swaisland, M., & van der Stelt, W. (2011). Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think about Open Access Publishing . ArXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5260 Ross-Hellauer, T., Deppe, A., & Schmidt, B. (2017). Survey on open peer review: Attitudes and experience amongst editors, authors and reviewers. PLOS ONE, 12 (12). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189311 Further Reading Canadian Association of Research Libraries. (2020). CARL Institutional Open Access Policy Template and Toolkit . Version 1.0. https://www.carl-abrc.ca/oa-policy-template-and-toolkit/ European Commission. (2012). Online survey on scientific information in the digital age . http://dx.doi.org/10.2777/36123 Fournier, J., Klages, T., & Pampel, H. (2012). Open-Access-Strategien für wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen: Bausteine und Beispiele . Arbeitsgruppe Open Access der Schwerpunktinitiative Digitale Information der Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen. https://doi.org/10.2312/allianzoa.005 Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP). (2021). Good practices for university open-access policies . Cyber.Harvard.edu. https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies Jacobs, N. (2019). Implementing open access. Practical steps your institution can take to make progress on the open access journey . Jisc. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/implementing-open-access Jisc. (2019, October 21). Managing your open access costs . Jisc. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/managing-your-open-access-costs Pieper, D. (2020). Kostenmonitoring von Open-Access-Publikationen: Chancen und Herausforderung für Bibliotheken . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4118210 Rösch, H., Geschuhn, K., Barbers, I., Bove, K., Pohlmann, T., & Satzinger, L. (2022). Open Access ermöglichen: Open Access-Transformation und Erwerbung in wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken – ein praktischer Leitfaden . https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6090208 Wissenschaftsrat (2022). Empfehlungen zur Transformation des Wissenschaftlichen Publizierens zu Open Access; Köln. https://doi.org/10.57674/fyrc-vb61 ....

Intro Open Access in 60 Sekunden Quelle: Brinken, H., Hauss, J. & Rücknagel, J. (2021). Open Access in 60 Sekunden, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/50831 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 Open access has developed into a highly dynamic field in the area of book publications in recent years. 2 As the publication landscape in the area of scholarly books is very heterogeneous, the established open access models for journals cannot simply be transferred. 3 An efficient infrastructure with various publication and funding options has now also developed in the area of open access books. A Dynamic Field Open access for books – this long-neglected topic has gained enormously in importance in recent years. Until well into the 2010s, the open access activities of research funders , libraries and authors focused mainly on the area of scholarly journals. However, the stakeholders in the scholarly publishing system have now also recognised the enormous potential of open access for books, and have initiated transformation measures ( Bargheer et al., 2017; Ferwerda et al., 2017; Stone & Marques, 2018 ). This is impressively demonstrated by the numerous studies and projects conducted at national and international level; by improved funding structures and new funding models ; and by dynamic initiatives, working groups, and discussion forums. open-access.network (2021) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Scholarly Books open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Monographs, Collections and Co. You can find a map of terms on open access and books here (in German). Book publications still play an important role, especially in the humanities and social sciences . The text-oriented disciplines favour the more extensive book format in the interests of long argument , where the theoretical approach must be comprehensively set out. Furthermore, the results of inter- and transdiscipli­nary research can be published only to a limited extent in the research report format possible in journal articles. Common types of scholarly books are monographs, edited collections, and conference proceedings. As a rule, scholarly books appear in different editions: as a digital publication, or e-book, and, in addition, as a print volume. They are published either in a series or as a single publication. Substantively and technologically, a large proportion of open access books are digital counterparts of print books. In addition to their content, they also usually contain navigation elements such as tables of contents and figures. However, providing the work in digital form enables in-depth content analysis through multiple apparatuses (footnotes, endnotes, critical editions), as well as enrichment through links to further stocks of knowledge, such as Wikipedia, specialised databases, or primary sources and digitisations. In addition, the e-book format allows the incorporation of research data, virtual research environments, and dynamic objects such as scripts, visualisations or software. What Are Open Access Books? A book is open access when access to the e-book is not restricted by licence or payment barriers, but rather it is available free of charge and re-usable in the long term immediately upon publication. Publishers of open access books can earn revenue through publication fees ( book processing charges, BPCs ) and the sale of the print edition ( dual publishing ), which is often produced using digital print-on-demand technology. Other publishers finance the basic costs of their open access segment via crowdfunding (e.g., Knowledge Unlatched, trans­formative agreements negotiated by consortia) or institutional memberships (e.g., Open Book Publishers [OBP], the Open Library of Humanities [OLH], Language Science Press). As in the case of open access journals , authors and editors of edited collections should not have to grant exclusive rights of use to the publishers or publication platforms. For licensing purposes, it is recommended to use an open Creative Commons licence , such as CC BY or CC BY-SA. Studies suggest that books published in open access gain a larger and more diverse readership ( Lucraft, 2021 ). Besides being made available in open access immediately upon publication ( gold open access ), books, too, can be self-archived in an open access repository ( green open access ; see Green and Gold ). Open Access Books in Specific Subjects Find out here how common open access books are in individual disciplines. Common Myths There are still some common myths about open access publishing. The Open Access Books Toolkit helps dispelling them. Open Access Helpdesk Our Open Access Helpdesk is happy to help with all questions open access. Serials Crisis and Monograph Crisis You Would Like to Know More About the History of Open Access? We have gathered the most important milestones for you here. The reasons why open access for books was neglected for many years date back to the beginnings of the open access movement . Sparked by the serials crisis in the 1990s, the movement emerged in the natural sciences, where book publications traditionally play at most a marginal role. It was only in the mid-2000s that the advent of a monograph crisis ( see Herb, 2015 ) precipitated by the serials crisis became the subject of increasing discussion. Rising book prices, gaps in the supply of scholarly literature in the libraries, and authors who during the publication process performed more and more tasks themselves yet still had to pay some­times high publication cost subsidies: the problems of closed access now became evident in the area of scholarly books. Open Access Books Versus Open Access Journals Against the backdrop of the monograph crisis and the increasing establishment of open access in the area of scholarly journals, calls for open access in the humanities and social sciences also became louder. However, compared with scholarly journals, the publication landscape in the area of books has a number of particularities, the most important of which will be mentioned here (see also Snijder, 2019; Open Access Books Toolkit, 2020 ): In the humanities and in parts of the social sciences, an important role is played by small and medium-sized book publishers that are highly regarded in their specialist areas. Close relationships between authors and publishers are not uncommon. Both groups have in part adopted attitudes to open access that range from wait-and-see to critical, also because the partici­pants in this setting find it harder to maintain the necessary competencies in the rapidly changing publishing landscape. For example, knowledge of the self-archiving rights of authors is sometimes lacking, and authors often have to negotiate with publishers to secure their rights to self-archive their works in a repository . In contrast to scholarly journals, print editions of books are of continuing importance despite generally declining sales figures, and are desired not least by the authors themselves. The dissemination channels and reception processes continue to be geared towards the processing of physical and fee-based objects. Not all books are alike: they range from unostentatious edited collections and conference proceedings, through elaborately designed several-hundred-page monographs, to experimental, multimedia-enriched publication projects. Submission, peer-review, and editorial processes are less standardised than in the area of journals. Especially in the German-speaking area, responsibility for quality assurance lies with editors or publishing house staff (editorial review). The costs of publishing open access books vary greatly. However, because of the larger size of the works, publishing costs are, as a rule, higher than those for articles in open access journals. Furthermore, certain book types, such as handbooks, lexica, or editions, require elaborate editorial processes that are factored in by the publishers. This does not mean, however, that open access books are less cost-efficient than open access journals. In the case of the high-priced open access journals of commercial publishers, the price per page is even several times higher than that of the overwhelming majority of book projects. All these factors make it clear that in order to develop their full potential, the models and tools developed for journals must be adapted to the specific requirements of open access books. This is true not least with a view to developing sustainable business models for small and medium-sized publishers (see also the international project Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs, COPIM ), building suitable publication infrastructures, and developing adequate funding instruments. Both the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) have recently drawn up programmes to address these challenges (BMBF: Richtlinie zur Förderung von Projekten zur Beschleunigung der Transformation zu Open Access [Directive on the Promotion of Projects to Accelerate the Transformation to Open Access] , 2020; DFG: Funding Programme: Open Access Publication Funding , from 2021 onwards). open-access.network (2021) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Journals Find an introduction here. Open Access and Research Funders Find an introduction here. Why is Open Access so Complicated with Books? The Open Access Books Toolkit explains how open access books and journals differ. Zukunftsmusik oder State of the Art – Experimentelle Formate für Bücher?" Bericht zur Erhebung" [Pipe Dream or State of the Art – Experimental Formats for Books?] The report summarises key results of a survey conducted within the framework of the project open-access.network. Services for Books Video zum Publizieren von Open-Access-Büchern Quelle: Stern, N. (2020). Publishing your book in Open Access?, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/52108 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Working Group Universitätsverlage Learn more about the members and principles of the working group on university publishers. ScholarLed Learn more about the members and principles of the ScholarLed initiative. Practical Tip Valuable information about community-led publication infrastructures for monographs – for example a report on resources, technical workflows, tools, and platforms – can be found on the website of the COPIM project. Although numerous challenges in transforming books to open access have yet to be mastered, authors already have a wide range of options when it comes to publishing an open access book. Many established publishers have incorpora­ted open access models into their portfolios, and offer gold open access publi­cations using CC licences. Publishers are often also willing to discuss the possi­bility of self-archiving a work in an open access repository after an embargo period (green open access). The fear frequently voiced by publishers that open access leads to serious shortfalls in the sales of print editions has been refuted in various studies ( Graf et al., 2020; Snijder, 2019; Collins & Milloy, 2016 ). Academic presses operated by universities or their libraries are an affordable and high-quality alternative to commercial publishers. The majority of the German-language university presses have joined together in the Arbeits­gemeinschaft der Universitätsverlage (working group of the German-language university presses). They have collaboratively produced a variety of materials on publishing books in open access, including a paper on quality standards ( AG Universitätsverlage, 2018 ) that is also helpful when examining an open access offering and choosing a publisher. And finally, as in the case of journals, there are now a number of publishing initiatives founded by scholars and scientists (e.g., the consortium ScholarLed ). These initiatives are committed to fair open access and stand out because they demonstrate a high degree of transparency with regard to their business models ( see Nordhoff, 2018; Barnes & Gatti, 2020 ). Scholarly books are now increasingly published via institutional publishing platforms ( Open Monograph Press [OMP] , PubPub , Janeway ). These platforms do not use publishing house business models, but rather are funded as a common good, which entails specific challenges. Funding Possibilities In order to relieve the financial burden on authors and editors, many institu­tions now make specific funds available for open access books. Publication funds are also being established at federal state level in Germany. The DFG funding programme Open Access Publication Funding , which was established in 2021, grants institutions an allowance of up to 5,000 euros towards the costs of the open access publication of books resulting from DFG-funded projects. The same amount can be drawn down annually for book publications via project-related publication expenses within the framework of DFG project funding. In addition, DFG publication grants can be awarded for editions of primary texts and manuscript material as well as for works of exceptional scientific importance. For some time now, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) have had dedicated programmes in place for funding open access books. Via the Open Access Monograph Bursary for early career researchers in digital humanities launched by the EU Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU) in 2021, up to 7,000 euros per book can be made available. Video zur Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien Quelle: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49535 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Finding Open Access Books Practical Tip Numerous search engines specialise in open access publications and provide free access to full texts There are also special search services for finding open access books. You can find an overview in our Practical Tip for finding open access literature (in German). Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) DOAB is the central data base for open access books, searchable by subject. Open access books are indexed at many locations and are often searchable in the usual databases and search engines. The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) , which also enables a targeted search for books or book chapters, specialises in open access content. In addition, open access books can also be easily found via the popular search engines, for example, Google Scholar. An important role in relation to findability and visibility is played by the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) , the central database for open access books, which can be searched by subject, language, and publisher. The metadata of books indexed in DOAB are harvested for inclusion in diverse library catalogues. The combined online library and publication platform OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) as well as disciplinary repositories for the humanities and social sciences, such as media/rep/ and SSOAR , are suitable for searching for open access books. In addition, the discipline-specific pages on open-access.network offer an introduction. Conclusion and Outlook For decades, open access for books was systematically implemented only by a very small number of protagonists, and thus remained a peripheral phenome­non. Although these pioneers recognised the scientific potential of open access for book-friendly disciplines at an early stage, comprehensive practices, approaches, and providers were lacking. However, although there is still a need to catch up, the area of open access books is now highly dynamic: Extensive studies (e.g., in projects such as COPIM and OPERAS-P ) are being conducted, publication funds are being established or expanded, new business models are being developed, and new publishing projects are being initiated. Moreover, networks like the Open Access Books Network , ENABLE! , or the Focus Group Open Access Books are being founded; manuals are being produced and recommendations are being formulated ( see Adema, 2019; Godel et al., 2020 ); and information platforms, such as the Open Access Books Toolkit initiated by OAPEN, are being created. Further impulses for the transformation of scholarly books to open access are to be expected from the 20 projects to promote the acceleration of the transformation to open access that are being funded by the BMBF from 2021 onwards. Select Projects and Initiatives for Networking COPIM OPERAS-P Open Access Books Network ENABLE! Fokus Group "Open Access Books" Feel free to discuss developments in Open Access Books with experts. Focus Group "Open Access Monograph Funds" Feel free to discuss development in Open Access Monograph Funds with experts. References Adema, J. (2019). Towards a roadmap for open access monographs . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3238545 Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitätsverlage. (2018). Qualitätsstandards für Open-Access-Monografien und -Sammelbände (Version 1). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3562239 Bargheer, M., Dogan, Z. M., Horstmann, W., Mertens, M., & Rapp, A. (2017). Unlocking the digital potential of scholarly monographs in 21st century research. LIBER Quarterly , 27 (1), 194–211. http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10174 Barnes, L. & Gatti, R. (2020, May 28). The cost of open access books: A publisher writes. Open Book Publishers. https://blogs.openbookpublishers.com/the-cost-of-open-access-books-a-publisher-writes/ Collins, E., & Milloy, C. (2016). OAPEN-UK final report: A five-year study into open access monograph publishing in the humanities and social sciences (p. 94). https://oapen.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com/7a65d73f1087444d80807833a320fa36.pdf Ferwerda, E., Pinter, F., & Stern, N. (2017). A landscape study on open access and monographs: Policies, funding and publishing in eight European countries . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.815932 Godel, R., Herb, U., Hillenkötter, K., Holzer, Angela, Nordhoff, S., Schäffler, H., Siegert, O., & Arbeitsgruppe “Wissenschaftliches Publikationssystem” der Schwerpunktinitiative „Digitale Information“ der Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen. (2020). Förderung wissenschaftlicher Buchpublikationen im Open Access (Open-Access-Bücher): Standards und Richtlinien für die Gestaltung infrastruktureller Rahmenbedingungen und die Vergabe von Fördermitteln durch wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen: Handreichung der AG Wissenschaftliches Publikationssystem im Rahmen der Schwerpunktinitiative „Digitale Information“ der Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen . 13 p. https://doi.org/10.3249/ALLIANZOA.014 Graf, D., Fadeeva, Y., & Falkenstein-Feldhoff, K., (Eds.) (2020). Bücher im Open Access. Ein Zukunftsmodell für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften? Verlag Barbara Budrich. https://www.doi.org/10.17185/duepublico/72237 Herb, U. (2015). Open Science in der Soziologie: Eine interdisziplinäre Bestandsaufnahme zur offenen Wissenschaft und eine Untersuchung ihrer Verbreitung in der Soziologie. Schriften zur Informationswissenschaft 67. Verlag Werner Hülsbusch. https://doi.org/10.22028/D291-23737 Lucraft, M. (2021, March 3). Open Access to academic books creates larger, more diverse and more equitable readerships. LSE Impact Blog . https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/03/03/open-access-to-academic-books-creates-larger-more-diverse-and-more-equitable-readerships/ Nordhoff, S. (2018). Cookbook for open access books . Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1286925 Open Access Books Toolkit (2020, October 29). The difference between an open access book and an open access journal . https://oabooks-toolkit.org/the-oabooks-landscape/1323435-oa-books-vs-oa-journals;jsessionid=08F1DF2737084E6DAD2E12BE59C55FD0 Snijder, R. (2019). The deliverance of open access books. Examining usage and dissemination . Amsterdam University Press. https://www.doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_1004809 Stone, G., & Marques, M. (2018). Knowledge Exchange survey on open access monographs . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1475446 Further Reading Neylon, C., Ozaygen, A., Montgomery, L., Huang, C.-K. (Karl), Pyne, R., Lucraft, M., & Emery, C. (2021). More readers in more places: The benefits of open access for scholarly books. Insights , 34 (1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.558 Snijder, R. (2023). Measured in a context: making sense of open access book data. Insights the UKSG Journal , 36 , 20. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.627 Taylor, M. (2020). An Altmetric Attention Advantage for Open Access Books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Scientometrics , 125 (3), 2523–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03735-8 ....

Learn more about Open Access Financing Research Funders and Open Access Business Models for Journals Business Models for Books...

Intro Pathways to Open Access Source: open-access.network (2021), Pathways of Open Access ( CC BY 4.0 International ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 Basically, a distinction can be made between pathways to open access (green and gold) and financing options for open access (with or without publication charges). An additional pathway – diamond open access – is also often mentioned. 2 Green open access (also known as self -archiving) refers to making previously published works (possibly also the preprint or post-print version) freely available to the public in an institutional or disciplinary repository, or sometimes on the author’s personal website. 3 Gold open access refers to the publication of scholarly works in open access journals, as open access monographs, or as contributions to open access collections. As a rule, these works undergo the same quality-assurance process as closed access publications. Diamond open access is a subtype of gold open access that is financed without publication charges. Diamond open access publishing often has a community-driven, non-commercial background Green Open Access Source: Based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/records/4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Green open access – also known as self-archiving – refers to making a work published with a publisher available to the public in an institutional or disciplinary open access repository . It is sometimes understood to refer also to making such a work available on the author’s personal website. Self-archiving can take place at the same time as the publication of the content by the publisher or at a later date, and is possible for preprints and post-prints of scholarly articles, as well as for other document types, for example, monographs, research reports, and conference proceedings. "Zweitveröffentlichungsservices an Hochschulen. Bericht zur Erhebung" [Self-Archiving Services at Higher Education Institutions: A Report on the Survey] The report summarises key results of a survey conducted within the framework of the project open-access.network. Preprint and Post-Print Source: Shafee, T. (2020). Typical publishing workflow for an academic journal article (preprint, postprint, and published) with open access sharing rights per SHERPA/RoMEO. Own work; adapted from diagram by Ginny Barbour Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Preprints Find an introduction here. A preprint is a scholarly publication that has not (yet) undergone peer review, which means that the quality of the work has not yet been conclusively assessed. The manuscript version of a text submitted for publication to a journal or a publisher is sometimes also referred to as a preprint. In contrast to a preprint, a post-print is a text that has already undergone peer review and has been accepted for publication. There are two types of post-prints. On the one hand, a post-print may be completely identical with the publisher's version, or the version of record . On the other hand, the content may be the same, but the formatting, layout, or pagination may be different. In the latter case, the post-print is referred to as the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) version. The willingness of publishers to allow self-archiving of post-prints or preprints varies considerably. The Open Policy Finder database provides an overview of the rights that publishers grant their authors in this regard. Under German copyright law, authors are allowed under certain conditions to make post-prints available to the public, irrespective of whether the publisher agrees to this. This is known as the Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht . Practical tip Looking for a suitable repository? Lists of open access repositories can be found in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (Open DOAR) and the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR). Variants of Green Open Access In discussions on open access, three ways of providing green open access are distinguished. First, the works can be made available in institutional repositories. In this case, authors have the possibility of depositing their scientific texts on a trans-disciplinary document server operated by their institution (e.g., university). Second, the works may be made available in disciplinary repositories – that is, repositories that host output from a particular subject area (e.g., a specialist discipline), irrespective of the institutions to which the authors belong. A third variant is to deposit scholarly documents on one’s own personal website. However, this approach means that the deposited documents are not, as a rule, as visible as they would be if they were archived in an institutional or disciplinary repository. Moreover, their long-term availability is not assured, which is why this type of self-archiving is often not recognised as open access. This is the case, for example, in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities . A list of open access repositories can be found in the Directory of Open Access Repositories ( OpenDOAR ) and in the Registry of Open Access Repositories ( ROAR ). Gold Open Access Open access publishing – also known as gold open access – refers to the first publication of scholarly works as articles in open access journals , as open access monographs , or as contributions to open access edited volumes or conference proceedings. These texts usually undergo the same quality assurance process as closed access works, mostly in the form of peer review or editorial review. As a rule, a publishing agreement is concluded with the publisher. It specifies the rights of use that the author grants to the publisher, and the conditions of use that shall apply to the open access documents. Such agreements are often supplemented with an open access publication licence under which the authors can grant users more extensive and precisely specified rights. Source: Based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/records/4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Financing Both open access and closed access publications have to be financed. The options for financing open access publications are comparable to those used to finance closed access publications: sales of printed copies; unpaid support from the scientific community, scientific institutions, and volunteers; and advertising or sponsoring. Sometimes cross-financing also occurs. In particular, commercial publishers that want to try out the gold open access business model finance new journals with revenue from their subscription business . Although publication fees , or article processing charges (APCs; in the case of monographs, book processing charges, BPCs), are sometimes cited as a typical gold open access financing model, they are also widespread in closed access publishing ( Gutknecht, 2018 ). APCs are payable per accepted and published article and can be combined with institutional memberships. If publishing authors belong to an institution that has an institutional membership with an open access publisher, that institution will cover the publication fees in full or in part. In addition, many institutions provide further possibilities of reimbursement of these costs, for example, via publication funds . Research Funders and Open Access Find an introduction here. Business Models for Open Access Books Find an introduction here. Business Models for Open Access Journals Find an introduction here. Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Video zur Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien Quelle: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Open-Access-Artikel finanzieren – welche Wege gibt es?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73319 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Diamond Open Access If an open access publication does without APCs entirely – in other words, if it is free of charge for readers and does not charge authors a fee to publish – this special type of gold open access is also referred to as diamond open access . In addition, diamond open access publishing often has a community-driven, non-commercial background. More information on the relationship between diamond and gold open access, and a discussion of the various definitions of diamond open access, can be found in Dellmann et al. (2022) . The project CRAFT-OA ( Armengou et al., 2024 ) has proposed a broader definition of diamond open access. The “OA Diamond Journals Study” by Bosman et al. (2021) discussed the potential and challenges of such publishing formats – especially for journals – and showed that diamond open access journals often rely on voluntary work and usually finance their publications via consortial models, institutional funding, crowdfunding, or membership models (see pp. 117–118). Overviews of the German and Swiss diamond open access landscapes can be found in Hahn et al. (2022) and Taubert et al. (2024) , respectively. To promote diamond open access as a fair, scholar-led, non-commercial variant of open access, and to link up initiatives, UNESCO initiated the Global Diamond Open Access Alliance in 2024. At EU level, the Council of the European Union has recommended that diamond open access be promoted ( Council of the European Union, 2023 ). For Germany, the German Research Foundation (DFG) issued a call for proposals in 2024 to establish a national service centre for diamond open access. Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS) Der Diamond Open Access Standard formuliert Qualitätskriterien für Diamond-Zeitschriften. Er wurde vom DIAMAS-Projekt erarbeitet. Source: Based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Akteure der Diamond-Open-Access-Community: Sechs Akteursgruppen und ihre individuellen Beiträge zu einem fairen und gemeinschaftlichen Diamond Open Access. Quelle: Henkes, L. M., & Holscher Blackman, K. (2025). Wissenschaftliches Publizieren neu denken. Blaupause für gemeinschaftliches und faires Diamond Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17240865 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Middle Ways There are also gradual intermediate positions between gold and green open access. For example, the social science repository Social Science Research Network (SSRN) allows authors both to make their already published journal articles available in open access and to post and share the preprint versions of their manuscripts and submit them to SSRN partner journals. The epijournals , or overlay journals ( Gowers, 2015 ), in mathematics are another example. These are open access journals that use the infrastructure of preprint servers or repositories. Authors deposit the preprint versions of their manuscripts in arXiv or Hyper Articles en Ligne (HAL) and then submit them for publication to one of the epijournals. If a submission is accepted after peer review, the original preprint version continues to remain available alongside the publisher’s version. Some Copernicus Publications and F1000 journals operate according to a similar principle, with open peer review. Closed access publishers use arXiv in a similar way by enabling manuscripts deposited there to be automatically ingested into their own submission workflows. Depositing a preprint of an article in an open access repository before publishing it with a publisher also has characteristics of gold and green open access. Publishing documents such as dissertations or publication series for the first time in a repository is also a kind of hybrid form of gold and green open access. Because the works are being published for the first time, the publication can be regarded as gold open access. However, publication takes place in repositories, which are normally used to provide green open access to works. Besides green and gold open access publications, other variants are sometimes assigned colour symbols, too ( Piwowar et al., 2018 ; Schmeja, 2018 ). These publications may not be open access in the strict sense, for example, when a journal article can be read free of charge but is not reusable in the long term. Video zum Open-Access-Regenbogen Quelle: Schmeja, S. (2020). Der Open-Access-Regenbogen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49667 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Open Access Publishing Find an introduction here. Where and How to Publish Open Access? Here is an introduction to open access. Open Access Helpdesk Ask your specific questions about open access here. Forum Do you have a question? Would you like to discuss open access-related aspects with others? Please feel free to use our forum. References Armengou, C., Bargheer, M., Gingold, A., Holsinger, S., Laakso, M., Mitchell, D., Mounier, P., Pölönen, J., Rooryck, J., Ševkušić, M., Souyioultzoglou, I., & Varachkina, H. (2024). Operational Diamond OA criteria for journals . DIAMAS and CRAFT-OA projects. https://zenodo.org/records/12721408 Bosman, J., Frantsvåg, J. E., Kramer, B., Langlais, P.-C., & Proudman, V. (2021). OA Diamond Journals Study. Part 1: Findings. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558704 . Council of the European Union (2023). Council conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing. Dellmann, S., van Edig, X., Rücknagel, J., & Schmeja, S. (2022). Facetten eines Missverständnisses. o-bib 9 (3). https://doi.org/10.5282/o-bib/5849 Gowers, T. (2015, September 10). Discrete Analysis - an arXiv overlay journal. Gowers’s Weblog . https://gowers.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/discrete-analysis-an-arxiv-overlay-journal Gutknecht, C. (2018, January 8). Publikationskosten für Closed-Access: die verschwiegenen APCs. Wisspub.net . https://wisspub.net/2018/01/08/apcs-von-denen-fast-niemand-spricht/ Hahn, D., Hehn, J., Hopp, C., & Pruschak, G. (2022). Mapping the Swiss landscape of diamond open access journals. The PLATO study on scholar-led publishing . https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7461728 Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J., & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ , 6, e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375 Schmeja, S. (2018, October 24). Gold, Grün, Bronze, Blau...: Die Open-Access-Farbenlehre. TIB-Blog . https://blogs.tib.eu/wp/tib/2018/10/24/gold-gruen-bronze-blau-die-open-access-farbenlehre/ Taubert, N., Sterzik, L., & Bruns, A. (2024). Mapping the German Diamond Open Access journal landscape. Minerva , 62 (2), 193–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09519-7...

Intro The Path a Publication Takes Source: based on Rücknagel, J. & Schmeja, S. (2021). Open Access Basics - How to publish and What to Consider? (S.4). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4530414 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 Authors can make their publications freely available by publishing them open access or by self-archiving them in an open access repository. 2 When choosing a publication venue, criteria such as thematic focus, quality, and costs should be considered. 3 When self-archiving, authors should grant third parties rights of use in the works. Scientific Publishing Only when authors publish their research results do their findings achieve visibility and can thus be adequately recognised and cited. For a long time, publishing works in print media – for example, as journal articles, monographs, or contributions to collections – was the most common way of permanently recording and disseminating scholarly and scientific information. Through the possibility of electronic publication, and especially through open access , a large number of alternative publication options have arisen. This significantly increases the citation frequency, and thus also the visibility, of research results ( Swan, 2010; Li et al., 2018 ). The aspects that should be considered when publishing open access or when self-archiving in an open access repository are outlined in what follows. Scientists can actively support the change to open science through their own publishing behavior. This practical tip "Supporting Open Access" explains how. Practical Tip What variants of open access publishing are there? Which ones are suitable for me? Where can I publish in accordance with the principles of open access? How do I find a suitable journal? What do research funders expect? You can find the answers in the presentation " Open Access Basics – How to Publish and What to Consider? " Practical Tip The AuROA catalogue of services ( Leistungskatalog ) offers a compilation of possible individual tasks and services in the open access publishing process. AuROA (Authors and Legal Certainty for Open Access) is a project that between 2021 and 2023 addressed the heterogeneous and complex needs, perspectives and demands of open access publishing in book-oriented disciplines. Publication Routes Source: based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) The road to publication usually starts with the decision as to how the research results should be published. There are many reasons in favour of open access publishing; they are summarised on the Reasons and Reservations page. Basically, two different open access strategies can be distinguished: gold open access and green open access . Gold open access refers to the publication of scholarly works as articles in open access journals , as open access monographs , or as contributions to open access collections or conference proceedings. This literature is freely available and reusable immediately, without an embargo period . Green open access means making research results freely available by self-archiving them in an institutional or disciplinary repository . This can also be done in parallel with or after publication in a journal or with a publisher. Choosing a Publication Venue Several parameters play a role when choosing a publication venue. These parameters are largely the same for closed access and open access publications. They include the thematic focus of the venue; the type of quality assurance it employs; its reputation in the field; and, if applicable, the licensing conditions under which the publications are made available and the level of any publication fees that may be charged. In the context of open access, research funders’ requirements increasingly play a role. Among funders, one finds not only regulations whereby grant holders should provide open access to the scholarly publications arising from funded research, but sometimes also specific requirements with regard to publication venues ( Dreher, 2020; Rücknagel, 2021 ). Further information on research funders’ policies and a list of funding organisations can be found on the Financing page . Die Vorteile einer Open-Access-Dissertation Quelle: Becklas, C., Hauss, J. (2024): Die Vorteile einer Open Access Dissertation. open-access.network, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) et al. https://doi.org/10.5446/68305#t=00:00,01:15 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Source: Translation of a flowchart by Brinken, H. & Rücknagel, J. (2021). Open Access – Das sind Ihre Möglichkeiten für die Publikation von Artikeln. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5045255 ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ). Practical Tip The following tools can be helpful in finding suitable OA publication venues for your own manuscript: oa.finder (a tool for searching for scholarly publication venues; developed as a project by open-access.network ) B!SON (Open Access journal recommender, developed by TIB and SLUB Dresden ) Gold Open Access Finding Suitable Journals/Publishers If the intention is to publish a work open access (gold OA), for example, as a journal article, a monograph, or a contribution to a collection, it is advisable to first search for thematically suitable journals or publishers with open access offerings. On our web page Subject-Specific Open Access , we provide discipline-specific information that can offer helpful introductory pointers. Open access journals can be searched via the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) or the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) . For open access books, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the online library and publication platform OAPEN are first ports of call. Suitable publication venues can also be found in conversation with colleagues. If a publisher does not offer a gold open access option, it is often worthwhile enquiring specifically whether it would allow the article to be self-archived in a repository. Quality Criteria Open access publications undergo the same quality assurance proce­dures as traditional publications. The review procedures do not differ either: from classical peer review and editorial review to open review procedures – everything can be found here. The German-language publication Qualitätsstandards für Open-Access-Monografien und -Sammelbände ( AG Universitätsverlage, 2018 ) offers guidance when choosing a suitable publisher for open access books. When choosing a journal, the German-language checklist on the quality of open access journals provided by Brinken et al. (2021) can help when assessing its quality. Further information in this regard can be found on the Open Access Journals and Open Access for Monographs pages. The impact and visibility of scholarly publications play an important role for the reputational gains and thus for the career prospects of individual scholars and scientists. Studies show that the citation frequency of open access publications is usually much higher than that of their closed access counterparts. Overviews in this regard are provided by the Open Access Citation Advantage Service and by Piwowar and colleagues’ Large-Scale Analysis of the Prevalence and Impact of Open Access Articles ( Piwowar et al., 2018 ). Journal Impact Factors , a metric of the citation frequency of articles in scholarly journals, are published in the annual publication Journal Citation Reports , which also covers open access journals. So-called altmetrics have emerged as an alternative to the traditional bibliometric indicators. They capture the diverse reactions to a scholarly publication on the Web. Financing In contrast to closed access, where libraries and users pay for access, open access publications are financed in a different way. The so-called author-pays model, whereby authors pay article processing charges (APCs) or book processing charges (BPCs) to have their works published, is very common in the open access context. To find out whether, or what level of, author fees are charged, it is usually helpful to check the website of the journal or publisher. If a journal indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) charges APCs, details are deposited in the journal record. However, a large percentage of open access journals indexed in DOAJ are free of charge both for readers and authors ( Morrison, 2018 ). These journals are financed, for example, by professional societies, academic institutions, library consortia, or – in kind – by voluntary work. For open access books, university presses run by universities or their libraries, and publishing initiatives established by scholars and scientists (e.g. the consortium ScholarLed ) are an affordable and high quality alternative to commercial publishers. Detailed information on financing open access articles and books can be found on the Financing page. Many research institutions have a publication fund from which open access publication fees can be paid. The management of the funds is usually located at the institutions’ libraries. In addition, some open access publishers offer institutional membership, which is similar to a discount model. Institutions pay an annual membership fee, thereby enabling their members to publish their works in the journal in question free of charge or for a reduced fee. Moreover, via transformative agreements with commercial publishers, such as those negotiated by the German initiative Projekt Deal , contractually agreed fees for individual hybrid open access articles in subscription journals are increasingly borne by library consortia. Information on this is provided by the open access officers at the respective institutions . The funding of genuine open access models by consortia is increasingly moving into focus: the costs are borne by a consortium, and no publication fees are payable by authors, irrespective of whether their institutions participate in the financing. In addition to funding research, some funding organisations also bear publication costs for articles in scholarly journals and other publications. When submitting a funding proposal to the German Research Foundation (DFG) , application can also be made for a publication grant. The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) have established dedicated funding programmes to finance open access articles and books. The Volkswagen Foundation also bears the publication costs incurred by the projects it funds and expects grant recipients to publish open access. International funding organisations, such as the Wellcome Trust , as well as the EU framework programme Horizon 2020 , reimburse publication charges for open access articles within the framework of their funding. In addition, the Open Access Books Toolkit provides a l ist of funding sources for open access books . Practical Tip An overview of the requirements that open access journals must fulfil and concrete criteria that authors can use as a guide when choosing a suitable publication venue, can be found in the presentation " Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality ". Research Funders and Open Access Find an introduction here. Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien Quelle: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49535 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Self-Archiving (Green Open Access) It is not always possible to publish open access, for example, when no suitable open access journal is available. A publication can nonetheless be made freely available by self-archiving it in an open access repository. In this way, the author can comply with the open access mandate of a funding organisation or their own institution, and the publication can be made freely accessible to everyone worldwide. Finding a Suitable Repository The self-archiving of publications can take place in institutional or disciplinary repositories. The Information for Different Disciplines page lists the repositories available in the respective disciplines. The Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) also provide overviews. Authors do not have to pay any charges to make their publications available in an institutional or disciplinary repository, nor do readers have to pay to access these publications. What specifically needs to be considered when (self-)archiving can be read by country in our legal section . Self-Archiving Rights Most publishers allow their authors to make their works available in repositories in parallel with publication. The Sherpa Romeo database provides an overview of the open access policies of many journal publishers. Publishers often allow the author’s final version after peer-review (author’s accepted manuscript, AAM) or the published version to be self-archived. Publishing agreements should be drafted in such a way that the authors reserve the right to self-archive their works online in a freely accessible way. Ideally, authors should grant the publisher only non-exclusive rather than exclusive rights of use for the intended types of use. If this is not possible, and no alternative publishing option is available, authors can consider attaching an addendum to the publishing agreement in order to reserve a non-exclusive right to use the work online in a repository. Various possible solutions to this problem are available on the Publishing Agreements page. Under Section 38 of the German Act on Copyright and Related Rights (UrhG) , authors of scientific contributions that result from research activities at least half of which were financed by public funds, and that were published in a collection that appears periodically at least twice a year, have the right to self-archive them in an open access repository upon expiry of 12 months after publication. According to this statutory provision on self-archiving , it is therefore possible in these cases to make these works available in a repository even if the publishers have been granted exclusive rights of use ( Brehm, 2021 ). A German-language guide issued by the Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) at the University of Konstanz provides an overview of the topic of self-archiving. Self-archiving is easier when a work is published in an open access journal or with an open access publisher. As a rule, they allow the work to also be made available in a repository provided the place of publication is credited. Find Repositories on OpenDOAR Click here. Legal Questions Find an introduction here. Legal Parameters Wie genau funktionieren Creative-Commons-Lizenzen? Quelle: Brinken, H., Hauss, J. & Rücknagel, J. (2021). Wie genau funktionieren Creative-Commons-Lizenzen? open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/52952 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Source: Foter (2015). How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) Authors who wish to make their works available in open access should observe several legal parameters. Of central importance is that the authors themselves have the right to exploit their works online. However, this is not necessarily a given in standard publishing agreements. An overview of the legal situation in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can be found on the Legal Issues page, which provides information on copyright, making documents available in repositories, publishing agreements, licences, liability law, and data protection. Open Access Licences One important aspect of open access is the reuse of publications. In order to make it clear what rights third parties have when (re-)using research results, user licences are granted. It is up to the authors themselves to decide what degree of freedom of use of their works they wish to allow. It is recommended that they allow a free worldwide right of access to and reuse of the publication. The granting of open licences by authors should take place in consultation with the respective publishers or, if applicable, in compliance with the repositories’ licensing requirements. In the area of science and research, the open Creative Commons (CC) are the most common. An overview of various open content licensing models can be found on our Licences page . The use of licences to grant specific rights of use facilitates law enforcement in the case of misuse and gives users explicit indications as to how the document in question may be reused. At the same time, the author reserves the right to permit in separate agreements further uses that go beyond those specified in the licence. Predatory Journals Unfortunately, there are also journals that exploit publication charges. These predatory journals , which are founded by so-called predatory publishers, try – sometimes massively – to attract researchers to publish in their journals. However, they do not observe the usual standards of good scientific practice. Hence, there is no quality assurance, for example, in the form of peer review, nor is there adequate editing. Thus, predatory journals damage science and scholarship because they also publish poor-quality contributions whose compliance with academic or ethical standards has not been checked. As publications in these dubious journals can cause substantial damage to the reputations of scholars and scientists, they are urgently advised against submitting manuscripts to them. Source: Monash Health Library. Predatory Publishing A-Z Elements ( CC BY-NC 4.0 ) Online course Find the online course Predatory Journals: Identify, Avoid, and Publish Safely here Practical Tip Recognising Predatory Journals It is not always easy for authors to recognise whether a journal is predatory or not, because the providers often go to a lot of trouble to make their journals appear trustworthy. On professional-looking websites, sometimes entire editorial boards are given false names or well-known researchers are listed as editors without their knowledge. The German-language checklist on the quality of open access journals provided by Brinken et al. (2021) can help authors to make informed decisions. Other criteria for the assessment of the trustworthiness of a journal are provided by the website Think. Check. Submit. It can also be helpful to ask colleagues whether they have ever heard of the journal in question. In case of suspicion, attention should definitely be drawn to the journal. By keeping their eyes open and being the properly aware, authors can avoid publishing with predatory publishers by mistake. The Monash Health Library has published the useful Predatory publishing A-Z elements . Further German-language information on predatory journals and predatory publishers can be found in an overview provided by Helmholtz Open Science and in a fact sheet published by the Science Media Center Germany . In addition, there is a catalogue of criteria for recognising high-quality journals and so-called fake journals. References AG Universitätsverlage. (2018, September 11). Qualitätsstandards für Open-Access-Monografien und -Sammelbände . https://ag-univerlage.de/?p=1974 Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 Brinken, H., Rücknagel, J., & Wenninger, A. (2021). Checkliste zur Qualität von Open-Access-Zeitschriften . Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643853 Dreher, L. (2020, August 27) . Open-Access-Vorgaben in EU-Projekten . OpenAccessTalk. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4048489 Li, Y., Wu, C., Yan, E., & Li, K. (2018). Will open access increase journal CiteScores? An empirical investigation over multiple disciplines. PLOS ONE , 13 (8), e0201885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201885 Morrison, H. (2018, January 31). DOAJ APC information as of Jan 31, 2018. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Open Access Scholarship / Littérature Savante En Libre Accès . https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/02/06/doaj-apc-information-as-of-jan-31-2018/ Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J., & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ , 6 , e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375 Rücknagel, J. (2021, April 15). Fördererauflagen zu Open Access - was gilt es zu beachten? OpenAccessTalk. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4694320 Rücknagel, J., & Schmeja, S. (2021, January 28). Open access basics – How to publish and what to consider? OpenAccessTalk. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4530414 Swan, A. (2010). The Open Access citation advantage: Studies and results to date . https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/268516/ Further Reading Forschungszentrum Jülich, Zentralbibliothek (2022). Predatory Publishers. "Schwarze Schafe" im Wissenschaftsbetrieb. Checkliste. URL: https://www.fz-juelich.de/de/zb/open-science/predatory-publishers Reimer N., & Halbherr, V. (2021). Kriterienkatalog zur Erkennung von qualitativ hochwertigen Journals und von sogenannten Fake-Journals. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5031928 Schmitz, J., & Schmeja, S. (2019). Bericht zum Workshop "Was tun, wenn es passiert ist? Umgang mit Publikationen, die bei einem Predatory Journal eingereicht wurden." https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3553616 Solomon, D. J., & Björk, B.-C. (2012). A study of open access journals using article processing charges. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 63 (8), 1485–1495. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22673...

Intro Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien Quelle: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Monographien, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49535 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) The key takeaways from this article are 1 There are numerous business and funding models for open access books. 2 The individual models have specific advantages and disadvantages; some models can be combined with each other. 3 Besides book processing charges (BPCs), which are widely used in the German-speaking area, the parallel sale of print editions, the institutional funding of open access, and consortial models are of particular importance. Multifaceted Change Open access means free access to and reuse of scientific information. Because open access books are available to readers free of charge, the publication costs can no longer be covered by sales of the books, but rather must be financed through alternative business models. In recent years, the importance of open access has increased enormously in the humanities and social sciences. As a result, a variety of business and funding models for open access books have developed. Although there are both commonalities and differences between these models and the common models for open access journals, the models for open access books are by comparison more varied and more experimental. In practice, different approaches are often combined with each other. In what follows, the main funding models for open access books in the German-speaking area are briefly introduced. The overview draws on existing typologies with different degrees of complexity that can be highly recommended as further reading (Collins et al., 2015; Speicher et al., 2018; Penier et al., 2020). Moreover, for the selection presented here, the brief overview provided by the Open Access Books Toolkit (OAPEN, 2020) proved helpful. Open Access Books Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Useful tips for implementation can be found in the guide ‘How to Begin the OA Transition’ ( Estelle et al., 2025 ). Video zum Publizieren von Open-Access-Büchern Quelle: Stern, N. (2020). Publishing your book in Open Access?, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/52108 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Book Processing Charges (BPCs) Advantages BPCs enable the recognition and assumption of the costs associated with the publication of high-quality open access book publications. Because, for many years now, research funding organisations, foundations, and authors in the German speaking area have also funded conventional book publications via so-called printing cost allowances, the hurdle for paying BPCs is lower here than in other countries. Disadvantages The BPC model reinforces injustices in the academic system by giving an advantage to authors who work in secure positions at financially strong institutions or on well-resourced third-party-funded projects. Authors who work at less well-resourced institutions are disadvantaged, as are those who are not affiliated with an institution. At the international level, the model disadvantages authors in the Global South. Moreover, there is also criticism of the fact that commercial publishers do not clearly present their actual costs and services, which is why the reimbursement of BPCs is increasingly contingent upon compliance with standards relating to quality and transparency. Practical Tip Here you can find helpful recommendations and checklists on quality standards for OA books: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Universitätsverlage Nationaler Open-Access-Kontaktpunkt OGeSoMo Focus Group on Open Access Books Discuss current developments in OA books with other experts. Fokus Group on Open Access Monograph Funds Discuss the funding conditions and amounts of existing monograph funds with other experts. Publication fees for books, also known as book processing charges (BPCs), are levied by publishers to cover the costs that arise during the publication process. They are the counterparts of the well-known article processing charges (APCs) used in the journals area. The level of the BPCs varies from publisher to publi­sher; they range from a few hundred to several thousand euros. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the services and licensing options offered by the publishers differ, as do the books that are published. Second, differences in the costs and revenue structures of the publishers also play an important role. And finally, third, there are publishers who, besides their actual costs, also include estimates of lost sale proceeds in the calculation of BPCs. However, it is a matter of debate whether parallel open access publication has any effect at all on the sales figures of the printed edition. Various studies have shown that publishers’ fears of serious sales shortfalls are unfounded (Collins et al., 2015; Ferwerda et al., 2018; Snijder, 2019; Graf et al., 2020). Publication fees are very widespread in the case of open access books (see Penier et al., 2020, pp. 46–52). The model is used both by commercial publishers and by scholar-led publishers and university presses. As a rule, BPCs are paid by research funding organisations or by the authors’ institutions. By now, nume­rous institutions have established publication funds for this purpose – in Ger­many, often with support from the German Research Foundation (DFG). How­ever, particularly authors who are not affiliated with an institution, or who work at financially weaker institutions, have to bear the costs themselves. Because BPCs are author-side fees, the model is also referred to as the author-pays model . Sale of Print Editions The parallel publication of digital and print editions of books, sometimes known as dual publishing, is a hybrid model whereby revenues are generated from sales of the print edition. These revenues do not usually completely replace the BPCs, but rather are intended merely to supplement them. In contrast to the journals area, the sale of books in printed form is still very widespread both in the case of commercial publishers and of scholar-led publishers and university presses. In the past, commercial publishers often relied on embargo periods and restrictive licensing models. However, also due to research funders’ requirements, a clear trend towards gold open access and Creative Commons (CC) licences is apparent. Advantages The sale of print editions (paperbacks, hardcover books) can be an im­portant source of revenue for publishers. Thanks to digital technologies and lean distribution structures, the additional effort required for this has decreased noticeably in recent years. As long as there is still a corresponding demand on the part of libraries and readers, it makes sense for publishers to continue to offer scholarly books in printed form and to also use the existing channels of the book trade for this purpose. Disadvantages Despite the savings achieved by using procedures such as print on demand, the production and sale of print editions is associated with a certain level of costs and administrative effort. Should the demand for scholarly books in printed form (continue to) decline in the future, this model, too, will become less attractive. Research Funders and Open Access Find an introduction here. Institutional Support Advantages For institutions and their libraries, it may be expedient to invest part of the budgetary funds earmarked for financing (open access) publications in the establishment of their own publication services. In this way, they can grant their own (and possibly also other) researchers attractive conditions, use existing infrastructures and know-how, and enhance the reputation of their own institutions. Disadvantages In order to be able to offer authors and editors an attractive publishing environment, a considerable level of commitment is required. The institutional-support model can develop its full potential only if activities are long term and sustainable Association of European University Presses Click here to find out more about the AEUP. Within the framework of their promotion of open access, universities and non-university research organisations provide their own publication services for open access books. These can range from the creation of a repository or a publication platform to the operation of a university press. Institutional support can be provided on a financial, personnel, or infrastructural level. Libraries often play a key role in this regard. institutional support enables university presses either to keep BPCs low or to dispense with them completely. The fact that university presses operate on a non-profit basis also has a positive effect on pricing. The use of the services may be restricted to members of the university or be open also to researchers at other institutions. In particular, institutions in which the humanities and social sciences are strongly represented, now provide book publishing services of their own. The majority of German-language university presses have come together in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitätsverlage (Consortium of University Presses). The most well known of these are Göttingen University Press , Heidelberg University Publishing , and KIT Scientific Publishing . Library Consortia Within the framework of library consortia, libraries pledge a fee towards making collections of books open access. These bundles, or packages, may either be thematically grouped or may relate to titles published by one or more publi­shers. As soon as enough libraries have agreed to participate, and the pledging target has been reached, a pre-agreed fee is paid to the publishers, and the books are then made available in open access. This revenue model is similar to the well-known crowdfunding models in other areas. In the present case, the crowd is made up of libraries. Consortial models are already widespread in the area of journals. For the humanities, the Open Library of Humanities’ (OLH) crowdfunding model is of particular importance. In the area of books, Knowledge Unlatched plays a pioneering role; as of November 2021, over 3,000 books had been unlatched – that is, made available in open access. Within the framework of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Guidelines for Promoting Projects to Accelerate the Transition to Open Access , several projects are currently being funded that are developing consortial models for book series (KOALA, OAdine, TOAA). At the international level, the project COPIM is working on the (further) development of alternative business models. Advantages Consortial models render it possible to dispense with BPCs and all their disadvantages. For this reason, they can be very attractive for authors. Moreover, they offer publishers a low-threshold way of converting their own programmes to open access. And finally, for the libraries, they can considerably reduce the processing efforts associated with the procurement of books. Disadvantages There is no guarantee that a sufficient number of libraries will always be found to raise enough money to unlatch a package of titles. Moreover, there is a danger that, in view of budget shortages, libraries will speculate that the pledging target will be reached without their participation (free rider problem). Moreover, commercially oriented models may cause libraries to be sceptical, and may contribute to their reticence. Other Models The models outlined above are merely a selection. Among the numerous other models, many of which have not been tested on a large scale, two should be mentioned at least briefly: the freemium model and the institutional membership model. Freemium Under the freemium model, a publisher or a service provider publishes one edition of a book open access without charging the authors a publi­cation fee. This open access publication is financed via other revenue sources – for example, from the sale of digital editions with additional functionalities and in other formats (enhanced HTML, EPUB/Mobi, etc.). Although some publishers and platforms, such as OpenEdition und Open Book Publishers, are already successfully using the model, it remains to be seen whether it will prove its worth. Institutional Memberships Institutional memberships are another model that can be used to fund open access books. Often within the framework of consortial agree­ments, libraries and other institutions pay an annual membership fee to a publisher, who in turn assumes part of the costs of publishing books. Moreover, member institutions and their authors can obtain further dis­counts. The model is widespread especially in the area of journals, but it is also used by scholarly book publishers, such as Open Book Publishers and Punctum Books, and it can make an important contribution to the simplification and debureaucratisation of open access publishing. References Collins, E., Milloy, C., & Stone, G. (2015). Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers. Helping researchers to understand the opportunities and challenges of publishing a scholarly monograph in open access. AHRC/Jisc Collections. eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/25391/ http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/25391/1/Guide-to-open-access-monograph-publishing-for-researchers-final.pdf Estelle, L., Jago, D., Jones, R., Laakso, M., Snijder, R., & Wise, A. (2025). How to begin the OA transition: a guide for smaller and specialist publishers. Commissioned by UKRI, in partnership with the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the British Academy, and Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14679094 Ferwerda, E., Snijder, R., Arpagaus, B., Graf, R., Krämer, D., & Moser, E. (2018). OAPEN-CH - Auswirkungen von Open Access auf wissenschaftliche Monographien in der Schweiz. Ein Projekt des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1219172 Graf, D., Fadeeva, Y., & Falkenstein-Feldhoff, K. (Eds.). (2020). Bücher im Open Access: Ein Zukunftsmodell für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften? Verlag Barbara Budrich. https://doi.org/10.17185/DUEPUBLICO/72237 OAPEN. (2020). Open Access Books Toolkit: Business models for open access book publishing . https://oabooks-toolkit.org/lifecycle/10944589-planning-funding/article/10432084-business-models-for-open-access-book-publishing Penier, I., Eve, M. P., & Grady, T. (2020). COPIM – Revenue Models for Open Access Monographs 2020 . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4011836 Snijder, R. (2019). The deliverance of open access books : Examining usage and dissemination . Amsterdam University Press. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25287 Speicher, L., Armando, L., Bargheer, M., Eve, P. M., Fund, S., Leão, D., Mosterd, M., Pinter, F., & Souyioultzoglou, I. (2018). OPERAS Open Access Business Models [White Paper] . Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1323708 Further Reading Arning, U., Bargheer, M., Meinecke, I., Schobert, D., & Tobias, R. (2022). Open-Access-Transformation für Bücher: Die Rolle von institutionellen Verlagen und Publikationsdiensten . Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6346234 Barnes, L., & Gatti, R. (2018, May 22). The cost of Open Access books: a publisher writes. Open Book Publishers . blogs.openbookpublishers.com/the-cost-of-open-access-books-a-publisher-writes/ Böhm, D., Grossmann, A., Reiche, M. & Schrader, A. (2020). Open-Access-Publikationsworkflow für akademische Bücher. Ein Handbuch für Hochschulen und Universitäten. http://doi.org/10.33968/9783966270175-00 Hanneken et al. (2020). Die transcript OPEN Library Politikwissenschaften. Ein Modell für Open-Access-eBooks in den Geistes- & Sozialwissenschaften . https://doi.org/10.11588/ip.2020.1.66637 Pinter, F. (2018). Why Book Processing Charges (BPCs) Vary So Much. JEP. the Journal of Electronic Publishing , 21 (1). https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0021.101 Springer Open. (2018). Guide to Open Access Books for SpringerOpen Authors . https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-cms-preview/rest/v1/content/16216776/data/v2 van Gerven Oei, V. W. J., Joy, E., & Rudmann, D. (2020, July 7). We Got the Receipts: The Punctum Books Financial and Activity Report 2016–2019 . Punctum Books. https://punctumbooks.pubpub.org/pub/punctum-books-financial-activity-report-2016-2019/release/5...

Intro Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS ARTICLE 1 There are various business and funding models for open access journals. 2 Three basic types of funding models can be distinguished: APC-based, institutional, and consortial models. 3 Within the framework of the open access transformation, efficient, transparent, and fair models should preferably be used. Journal Costs Open access means free access to and reuse of scientific information. Because open access journals can be accessed by readers free of charge, the production costs ( Borrego 2023 ) cannot be recovered through subscriptions but rather must be funded through alternative business models. The serials crisis and the associated large profits earned by scholarly publishers from public funds were key reasons for the emergence of the open access movement . When discussing business models, it is therefore meaningful to distinguish between covering costs and making a profit, especially in cases where it is a matter of reallocating costs for the purpose of converting journals to open access . In all cases, the operating and personnel costs required to receive, manage, publish, and distribute works must be financed. In addition, there are infrastructural costs, for example for server capacities and websites. Added to this are new cost demands for the publication of research data or multimedia content. In the area of gold open access , there are a number of different business models ( Keller, 2017 ; Russell, 2019 ; Waidlein et al., 2021 ). Basically, open access journals can be financed through article processing charges ( APCs ), by institutions, or by consortia. Models that manage entirely without APCs are referred to as diamond open access . Practical Tip Here you can find the slides of the open access talk Open-Access-Finanzierung: Fragen und Probleme (Funding Open Access: Issues and Problems). Source: based on Oberländer, A. (2020). Open Access – Es ist nicht alles Gold, was glänzt. In: Open Science. Von Daten zu Publikationen. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018594 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Alternative Business Models for Open Access Publications Source: Strauß, H., Rücknagel, J., & Hauss, J. (2022). Alternative Geschäftsmodelle für Open-Access-Publikationen. https://doi.org/10.5446/60353 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Author-Pays Model Article Processing Charges (APCs) The central feature of the author-pays model is that in the interval between manuscript acceptance and article publication, APCs are payable by the authors or their institutions. The availability of funds for and the acceptance of such payments depends also on the publication culture of the discipline in question. Other factors include access to third-party funding and the authors’ professional status. APCs are therefore often viewed critically . It is feared that they create access barriers, especially for authors from countries in the Global South or for early career researchers. On the other hand, many commercial open access journals offer fee waivers in individual cases (e.g. for authors from low- and medium-income countries; Lawson, 2015) and pass on these costs to APC-paying authors. Many research funding organisations require that publications resulting from the projects they fund be published open access; in return, they cover the cost of APCs. However, the spread of APC models may lead to a burden on research budgets. Publication Funds Publication funds are one instrument for the institutional support of authors in paying APCs. Many universities and non-university research organisations have such publication funds, from which they pay APCs on their authors’ behalf ( Bruch et al., 2014 ; see the overview in the Open Access Directory). In many cases, funds earmarked for the procurement of literature, and especially for journal subscriptions, also flow into the publication funds. In this way, although the research organisations still pay for the publications, they are now freely accessible worldwide. In Germany, the establishment of publication funds has long been associated with institutional funding programmes of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft , DFG) . Since 2020, higher education institutions and non-university research organisations can apply for a fixed allowance for the open access publication of research results from the realigned DFG funding programme Open Access Publication Funding . With this partial funding of individual publications, the operation of publication funds continues to be supported. Subsidies for open access publication fees are possible inter alia for journal articles, including articles published under transformative agreements such as those negotiated by Projekt Deal . Some German federal states, for example Schleswig-Holstein (until 2024), provide state support for open access by making funding available for publication funds. Furthermore, agreements concluded between open access publishers and research organisations can regulate the payment of APCs and possible discounts. Hybrid Journals: Open Access as an Exception Fee-based open access options for individual articles in subscription journals (which are then often known as hybrid journals ) are a very controversial business model,as the journal not only earns revenue from subscriptions but also from articles that are made open access against payment of APCs. The costs per article are generally much higher than in the case of gold open access journals, although revenue is obtained from two sources. Often referred to as double dipping , this double financing is practised mainly by commercial journals and applied to existing journals that are not earmarked for conversion to open access . Other reservations against hybrid models relate to the fact that they do not contribute to the transformation of the scholarly publishing market to open access, that costing is not transparent, and that individual open access articles in closed access journals do not achieve adequate visibility.In negotiations with publishers (e.g. in the case of individual subscriptions, but also in the case of national licences and consortial models), public institutions usually urge publishers to take measures to counter double dipping, for example by offsetting APCs for open access articles against subscription fees. In Germany, the DEAL Konsortium has concluded transformative agreements with the scholarly publishers Springer Nature, Wiley, and Elsevier to effectively address this problem. The author-pays model is now widespread and is often erroneously used as a synonym for open access business models. However, even before the emergence of the open access movement, journals required their authors to contribute to the financing. Conversely, very many open access journals do not charge their authors any fees. Of the 20,949 journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as of August 2025, 13,824 did not levy any article processing charges ( APCs ). Institutional Funding Business models that rely on direct payments by authors create a large administrative burden. Moreover, it is feared that APCs give rise to unequal prerequisites for access to publishing opportunities. Hence the interest in models that rely directly on funding by institutions. Institutions can, for example, provide publishing services or fund open access journals completely, so that other authors also benefit. One traditional variant is the (partial) funding of publications via professional associations or other institutions of a discipline. Some professional associations traditionally fund their publishing activities from membership fees. Thus, their members are usually both users and authors of the articles published, so that the costs of publishing open access are shared by both groups. One example of a community-funded journal is Documenta Mathematica , which was founded by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society). The digital edition is open access; a print edition is available for a small fee. According to the society, the costs of producing the journal are low and are covered mainly by the society. Ultimately, many open access journals rely on the commitment of those involved, who either work on the journal as part of their employment or on a voluntary basis. Support by staff, and possibly the assumption of material costs, can be regarded as an important form of institutional support. Furthermore, nowadays, many academic institutions invest in their own publishing services, for example platforms and services for the production of journals with the help of the open source software Open Journal Systems (OJS) . In this case, the institution subsidises the costs of making the content available and may be responsible for parts of the publishing process. Practical Tips The OA Journals Toolkit provides practice-oriented tips for setting up new open access journals. In addition, the guides published [MG1] [PSM2] by the project Scholar-led Plus offer valuable support in further developing and professionalising scholar-led publishing activities at your institution and making them sustainable in the long term. Since May 2025, these offerings have been supplemented by the Servicestelle Diamond Open Access (SeDOA) . As a DFG-funded project, SeDOA is taking a coordinating role with the aim of sustainably increasing the efficiency of diamond open access (DOA) publishing in Germany through the optimisation of hitherto decentralised services, the centralised provision of relevant information, and the targeted promotion of structural and technical innovations Publishing Open Access Journals Find an introduction here. Editorial process at Open Journal Systems (OJS) Quelle: OJS-net.de Community Funding: Consortial Funding, Membership Models, and Crowdfunding Source: Wrzesinski, M. (2023). Nachhaltige Finanzierung und Organisation von Zeitschriften. https://doi.org/ 10.5446/62588 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) KOALA – Establishing, Expanding and Anchoring Consortial Open Access Solutions The KOALA consortial model enables sustainable funding for diamond open access publications. KOALA creates bundles of thematically focused journals, which are then offered to academic institutions – especially libraries and research institutions – for community funding. The level of the contributions depends on the size and type of the institution, the number of academic staff members, and the number of students. As soon as the pledging target for a journal bundle has been reached, the titles it contains are securely funded and made freely accessible for a period of 3 years. Regular Operations at the TIB Hanover The Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library ( TIB ) acts as a central service provider and coordinator for the KOALA model and operates the service for journals in its subject range (natural sciences and engineering) as part of its regular operations. It is responsible for hosting, consortial management, and communication with the publishers and partner institutions. This organisational framework guarantees stable, transparent, and fair funding of open access journals in the STEM fields. KOALA at the SLUB Dresden Since 2024, the KOALA model is also being piloted at the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB). Under the name KOALA-SLUB , several subject-specific journal bundles have been established. The SLUB Dresden is responsible for organising the KOALA funding solution – a role equivalent to that of the TIB Hanover. OLEcon Open Library Economics (OLEcon ) supports diamond open access journals of economics by organising consortial co-funding for journals that are either already open access, that are just getting started , or that want to flip (i.e. convert from a subscription model to open access) The OLEcon journal bundle is growing steadily. Journals can apply for funding within the framework of regular calls for applications. Already funded journals are evaluated after 3 years. In addition to the desired institutional participation, OLEcon is establishing a success monitoring system to ensure that the consortium can operate in the most stable and sustainable way possible. edu_consort_oa The project network edu_consort_oa aims to sustainably fund open access publications in educational science, educational research, and subject didactics through crowdfunding and consortial funding. In edu_consort_oa, libraries can participate in annual funding rounds for the financing of open access monographs and diamond open access journals. At present, a package of around 20 e-books, and – for the first time – up to five diamond open access journals (individually, not as part of a package) per year are currently funded for a period of 2 years. An overview of the funded e-books can be found on the Education Research Portal (Fachportal Pädagogik) website. All funded titles can be accessed via peDOCS and the German Education Index (FIS Bildung Literaturdatenbank ). OACIP The Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP) aims to support non-commercial diamond open access journals in the long term through a consortial funding model. Academic institutions can provided targeted support for quality assured publications, which are evaluated based on standardised transparency and sustainability criteria. The funding period is 3 years. Institutions can either co-fund all the journals or individual journals in the OACIP bundle. A further option is to contribute to the OACIP General Fund, which is used to fill any funding gaps at the OACIP journals. In 2024, OACIP funded eight journals from the STEM fields and the humanities and social sciences. SCOAP³ (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) SCOAP³ is an international consortium dedicated to funding open access in high-energy physics. It aims to make high-energy physics articles freely accessible worldwide – without article processing charges for authors. The funding is provided by over 3,000 libraries, research performing organisations, and research funding organisations from over 40 countries. SCOAP³ is coordinated by CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in collaboration with scholarly publishers. The partners’ contributions are based on their publication output and are centrally administered. SCOAP³ transforms existing subscription models into a community-funded open access model. In the current funding phase (2025–2027), 11 high-energy physics journals are freely accessible worldwide. Community funding models for open access publications eliminate both article processing charges ( APCs ) and subscription fees ( diamond open access ). To enable researchers to publish their works free of charge, academic institutions join forces and share the costs. Various approaches exist for this. They include consortial funding, membership models, and crowdfunding. These models cannot always be clearly distinguished from one another. However, each model has certain basic characteristics. Consortial funding is a collaborative model in which several academic institutions – typically libraries, higher education institutions, or research funding organisations – jointly fund open access journals, books, or infrastructures ( Reinsfelder & Pike, 2018 ). Examples include KOALA , OLEcon , and Scoap3 . Membership models, for example the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) , enable academic institutions to fund the infrastructure, editorial work, quality assurance, and long-term archiving of diamond open access journals through a fixed annual membership fee. In the case of crowdfunding, a specific project – for example certain journal or book packages – is usually put out to tender. One well-known platform for the crowdfunding of open access publications is Knowledge Unlatched . Crowdfunding campaigns usually have a time limit. If the funding target is reached, the project can be realized. Although crowdfunding is often project related, many initiatives aim to create longer-term structures. Successful crowdfunding can, for example, lay the foundations for a membership funding model or consortial funding. Another model is Subscribe to Open (S2O) , in which open access journals are funded through existing subscriptions. Each year, libraries and other institutions are invited to renew their subscriptions on the same conditions as before, with the aim of making the content of the journal freely accessible for everyone. If the funding target is achieved, the entire volume is published in open access. If the target is not reached, access remains restricted as before. S2O thus offers a gentle transition to open access without structural changes for libraries or additional costs for researchers. Praxistipp Der Diamond Funding Navigator von der TIB bündelt Angebote für die kollektive Finanzierung von Diamond-Open-Access-Publikationen weltweit - laufende und zurückliegende. Dies soll insbesondere Personen, die in der Literaturerwerbung und Lizenzierung tätig sind, sowie Fachreferent:innen dabei unterstützen, passende Finanzierungsangebote zu finden. Further Funding Options Another way of funding open access publications is the parallel sale of content in separate (print) editions. In the area of digital publishing, there have been various attempts to implement the so-called freemium model, where the fee-based variant provides more benefits than the cost-free variant. For example, this may involve making the HTML version of an article freely available to all Internet users but making the premium version in PDF format accessible only to subscribers. One example is the OpenEdition Freemium programme for the development of open access publishing in the humanities and social sciences. OpenEdition OpenEdition is a digital publishing platform that specialises in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in France and is supported by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). OpenEdition offers researchers and institutions infrastructure and services for publishing scientific content open access and making it visible. The platform comprises four key offerings: OpenEdition Journals (scholarly journals) OpenEdition Books (monographs) Hypothèses (scholarly blogs) Calenda (scholarly event calendar) OpenEdition aims to promote free access to high-quality scientific information and to provide a sustainable, non-commercial publishing environment for the academic community. Transformation und Transparency In the area of business models, the transformation of a scholarly journals landscape shaped by subscriptions to a landscape oriented mainly towards open access is very challenging. In Germany, the DEAL Konsortium is trying to contribute to the transformation of journals by negotiating transformative agreements with an open access component ( publish and read ). Whereas it appears to be possible to convert journals completely to open access while covering operational costs, the high fees charged under the author-pays model may lead to an increase in research organisations’ overall costs (Mittermaier, 2025). With ESAC (Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges) , an international initiative has been established that aims to ensure that the processing of publication costs within the framework of transformative agreements is efficient and transparent. References Borrego, A. (2023). Article processing charges for open access journal publishing: A review. Learned Publishing: Volume 36 (3), 359-378. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1558 Bruch, C., Fournier, J., & Pampel, H. (2014). Open-Access-Publikationsfonds: Eine Handreichung (Arbeitsgruppe Open Access der Schwerpunktinitiative Digitale Information der Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen, Ed.). https://doi.org/10.2312/allianzoa.006 Keller, A. (2017). Finanzierungsmodelle für Open-Access-Zeitschriften. Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis, 41(1), 22–35. https://doi.org/10.1515/bfp-2017-0012 Lawson, S. (2015). Fee waivers for open access journals. Publications, 3(3), 155–167. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications3030155 Mittermaier, B. (2025). Transformationsverträge sind eine Sackgasse. O-Bib. Das Offene Bibliotheksjournal, 12(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.5282/o-bib/6117 Reinsfelder, T. L., & Pike, C. A. (2018). Using library funds to support open access publishing through crowdfunding: Going beyond article processing charges. Collection Management, 48(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2017.1415826 (Author’s accepted manuscript: https://hdl.handle.net/1805/15059 ) Russell, B. (2019, October 23). Guest post — The future of open access business models: APCs are not the only way. The Scholarly Kitchen Blog. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/10/23/guest-post-the-future-of-open-access-business-models-apcs-are-not-the-only-way/ Waidlein, N., Wrzesinski, M., Dubois, F., & Katzenbach, C. (2021). Working with budget and funding options to make open access journals sustainable (HIIG Discussion Paper No. 2021–1). HIIG. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558790 Links for Further Reading Bickel, L., Clasen, N., & Flohr, R. (2019, November 13). Open-Access-Tage 2019: Geschäftsmodelle und ihre finanziellen Folgen für die Open-Access-Transformation. ZBW MediaTalk. https://www.zbw-mediatalk.eu/de/2019/11/open-access-tage-2019-geschaeftsmodelle-und-ihre-finanziellen-folgen-fuer-die-open-access-transformation/ Björk, B.-C., & Korkeamäki, T. (2020). Adoption of the open access business model in scientific journal publishing: A cross-disciplinary study. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1080 Bosman, J. & Kramer, B. (2018, Mai 16). Linking impact factor to ‘open access’ charges creates more inequality in academic publishing. Times Higher Education Blog. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/linking-impact-factor-open-access-charges-creates-more-inequality-academic-publishing Budzinski, O., Grebel, T., Wolling, J., & Zhang, X. (2020). Drivers of article processing charges in open access. Scientometrics, 124(3), 2185–2206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03578-3 Demeter, M., & Istratii, R. (2020). Scrutinising what open access journals mean for global inequalities. Publishing Research Quarterly, 36(4), 505–522. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-020-09771-9 . Frick, C., & Kaier, C. (2020). Publikationskosten für Zeitschriftenartikel abseits von Open-Access-Publikationsfonds – Lost in Transformation? o-bib – das offene Bibliotheksjournal, 7(2), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.5282/o-bib/5586 Ginsparg , P. (2021). Lessons from arXiv’s 30 years of information sharing. Nature Review Physics, 3, 602–603. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00360-z Grossmann, A., & Brembs, B. (2021). Current market rates for scholarly publishing services. F1000Research, 10. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.27468.2 Jahn, N., & Tullney, M. (2016). A study of institutional spending on open access publication fees in Germany. PeerJ 4. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2323 Kändler, U., & Tullney, M. (2019, October 15). Jenseits von APC: Kriterien für Geschäftsmodelle. Open-Access-Tage 2019, Hannover. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3490914 Michael, A. (2020, August 27). Sustainable open access – what’s next? The Scholarly Kitchen Blog. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/08/27/sustainable-open-access-whats-next/ Oberländer, A., & Dreher, L. (2019, September 30). Jenseits von APC: Überblick über alternative Open-Access-Modelle. Open-Access-Tage 2019, Hannover. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3490737 Schönfelder, N. (2018). APCs—Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model? Bielefeld University. https://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/2931061 Shamash, K. (2016). Article processing charges (APCs) and subscriptions: Monitoring open access costs. Jisc. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/apc-and-subscriptions-report.pdf Tautz, D., Holzer, A., Schmidt, K. M., Buchner, J., Grötschel, M. & Jurburg, S. (2025). Ein neues Verfahren zur direkten Finanzierung und Evaluation wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften. Diskussion Nr. 38, Halle (Saale): Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina. https://doi.org/10.26164/leopoldina_03_01261 Tobschall, E. (2021, October 27). ArXiv ist 30! TIB-Blog. https://blogs.tib.eu/wp/tib/2021/10/27/arxiv-ist-30/...

What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access in Mathematics In contrast to their peers in many natural science or technical disciplines, mathematicians still draw on older literature when investigating current research questions. Open access in mathematics is therefore not restricted to current research results but also includes older literature. Retrodigitisation and open access to this digital content thus play an important role in this discipline. Another difference between mathematics and most natural science disciplines is the acceptance of literature that has not undergone scientific quality control. For example, in 2006, Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal for a series of three papers proving the Poincaré conjecture, which he had published only on the preprint server arXiv . Because these papers were published open access, Perelman’s proof could be checked by various groups, even without undergoing classical peer review . Mathematicians are highly critical of rising journal prices. Thus, it is not surprising that in this field in particular, researchers often call for, and also participate in, boycotts of scholarly publishers (e.g. The Cost of Knowledge ). Open Access Journals As of November 2025, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 815 entries under Mathematics . Article processing charges (APCs) are often viewed critically. For this reason, open access mathematics journals often use business models without APCs. Many of these journals are published directly by scientific institutions or professional associations. Examples include: Journal de l'École Polytechnique – Mathématiques Documenta Mathematica Because, as mentioned above, older literature is of great importance in mathematics, older journal volumes are often made freely available online even if the current volumes are closed access and thus subject to a fee. In these cases, the moving- wall model is often used: for a certain period of time (e.g. the first five years after publication) access is fee-based; after expiry of this embargo period , access is free. When publishing works in open access journals, care should be taken – also in mathematics – to avoid predatory publishing . What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of November 2025, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 95 titles under “ Mathematics “ and 207 titles under “ Mathematics & science “ , while OAPEN listed around 70 titles under “ Mathematics “ . Most books in mathematics are published with publishers that have traditional business models, and open access books are still a peripheral phenomenon. Disciplinary Repositories The most important repository in mathematics is arXiv , a preprint server for physics, mathematics, and related disciplines (see our Physics page). As arXiv grew in importance, the once-longstanding practice whereby authors published their preprints on their institutions’ websites was abandoned. Many repositories in mathematics no longer publish any new preprints (one exception: the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics’ MPIM Preprint series ). Mathematics research data can be conveniently deposited in Zenodo or in disciplinary repositories, which can be found, for example in the Registry of Research Data Repositories, re3data . In addition, there are a number of open access repositories with retrodigitised mathematics literature, the most important of which are: Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum (GDZ) : contains, among other things, the Collection Mathematica , in which the Göttingen State and University Library’s entire historical mathematics collection up to and including the year 1900 is made accessible. NUMDAM : is located at the Université Grenoble Alpes and contains many French and Italian journals. Although access is free, embargo periods vary from journal to journal. The University of Michigan Historical Mathematics Collection: contains monographs published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Historical Math Monographs (Cornell University Library) Project Euclid (Cornell University): hosts e-journals, many of which are open access. The Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) provides an overview of these and other repositories. What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here, Video über das Zeitveröffentlichungsrecht Quelle: Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk of you have any questions about Open Access. oa.finder The oa.finder shows you from tens of thousands of journals which are Gold Open Access, whether they charge APCs and how high these are. You can also view the funding modalities of your own institution. Other Useful Offerings The information platform zbMATH OPEN (formerly known as Zentralblatt MATH) has been open access since 2021. Open and reusable interfaces ensure the networking and sharing of scientific information. The goal is to establish the platform as a crucial hub in an open global mathematics library. The European Digital Mathematics Library ( EuDML ) is another open access research tool. Furthermore, within the framework of the Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) , efforts are being made to develop a World Digital Mathematics Library (WDML) in which the entire mathematics literature would be indexed, interlinked, and made accessible and reusable in the long term. zbMATH OPEN is a first step in this direction. To ensure the scientific quality of open access articles, the Episciences project provides a free platform on which contributions can undergo peer review. In this way, articles deposited in arXiv can undergo scientific quality control. Open Science in Mathematics Mathematical methods are also increasingly being applied successfully in interdisciplinary research and are therefore widespread. For example, mathematical models, parameters, data, and numerical algorithms are used in machine learning. Mathematical research data have thus become very complex, multifaceted, and unwieldy. The publication of these resources in open access is therefore highly beneficial for interdisciplinary research. However, especially in the area of data sciences, huge computing capacity is sometimes required (see the Mathematical Research Data Initiative, MaRDI, 2021). Traditionally, proving theorems is a central element of the publishing culture in mathematics. These proofs must be completely understandable to readers within the contribution itself. In open access publications, all content is already freely available. For a long time, there was therefore no need to provide supplementary research data. However, as digitalisation advances, automated theorem-proving procedures , visualisations, and other types of mathematical research data are increasingly emerging, and the open accessibility of these resources is becoming more and more important. Mathematical research data are very complex and diverse. The MaRDI Knowledge Graph , which is currently being developed, links many open access sources of mathematical research data. Besides the Knowledge Graph, other research data services tailored to the mathematics community can be found on the MaRDI Portal . Software developed in mathematics is often versioned and made available via Github , which has been part of Microsoft since 2018. Public GitHub repositories can be accessed without prior registration. However, to upload one’s own data, registration is necessary; the basic functions of the service are available free of charge. Many universities and research institutes offer Git instances of their own, based, for example, on the open source platform GitLab. Some journals that cover the computationally intensive areas of mathematics, for example numerics, already check the reproducibility of the code and software components of papers. One example is Computational Science and Engineering , a gold open access journal with its own Code Review Board. Efforts are being made to extend this to other areas of mathematics. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Further Reading Boege, T., Fritze, R., Görgen, C., Hanselman, J., Iglezakis, D., Kastner, L., Koprucki, T., Krause, T., Lehrenfeld, C., Polla, S., Reidelbach, M., Riedel, C., Saak, J., Schembera, B., Tabelow, K., & Weber, M. (2022). Research-data management planning in the German mathematical community [Preprint]. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.12071 Das, P. K. (2017). Anatomy of open access mathematics journals. Journal of Information and Knowledge, 53(6), 447–454. https://doi.org/10.17821/srels/2016/v53i6/98585 Hanselman, J. (2025). Guidelines for writing and reviewing mathematical software. Notices of the AMS. https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202507/noti3210/noti3210.html Taubert, N. (2021). Green open access in astronomy and mathematics: The complementarity of routines among authors and readers. Minerva, 59, 173–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09424-3 Teschke, O. (2018, December). Green, gold, platinum, nickel: On the status of open access in mathematics. EMS Newsletter. https://ems.press/content/serial-article-files/10613?nt=1 Content editor of this page: Dr Gernot Deinzer, Regensburg University Library . Last revision of content: Tabea Bacher, Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI MiS) , with the kind support of Britta Schneemann, MPI MiS (as of November 2025)....

What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access: Pros and Cons Find an introduction here. Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving Find an introduction here. Open Access in Media Studies The field of media studies deals with the theory, history, and aesthetics of media and media systems. In Germany, media studies as a domain of cultural studies developed in the 1970s especially in the fertile soil of German literary studies , but it also borrowed concepts and methods from theatre studies, art history , and philosophy . While film studies is sometimes an integral part of stu­dy programmes in media studies, it is also offered as a degree programme in its own right. Media studies differs from the social-science and empirically oriented domains of journalism and communication studies, although overlaps may occur in some institutes and study programmes. In media studies, as in most disciplines in the humanities and cultural sciences, it is only in recent years that the switch to open access has begun on a broad front. One reason for this lies in the publishing culture in media sciences, where monographs and edited collections still play an important role. The reputation of the publisher is an important criterion for publishing activities in media science. By contrast, bibliometric indicators, such as the Journal Impact Factor , play only a comparatively minor role. In recent years, publishers have signifi­cantly increased their commitment to open access, with the result that nume­rous gold and green open access options are available to authors. The German Society for Media Studies’ (Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft, GfM) journal, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft (ZfM) , has been published open access with the publishing house transcript since 2017. By flipping its jour­nal to open access, the GfM sent an important signal. A further milestone was the es­tablishment in 2018 of the open access repository for media studies media/rep/ , which is located at the University of Marburg. In the same year, the GfM established the scholarly interest group (SIG) Open Media Studies and a blog of the same name. Open Access Journals As of March 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 326 indexed journals under the subject Media . Important open access journals in the field of media studies in the German-speaking and European areas include: Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe DOAJ ffk Journal Journal for Religion, Film and Media DOAJ Kieler Beiträge zur Filmmusikforschung MEDIENwissenschaft | Rezensionen Reviews mediaesthetics – Journal of Poetics of Audiovisual Images Nach dem Film Navigationen – Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften NECSUS – European Journal of Media Studies DOAJ Paidia – Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung Research in Film and History DOAJ Spheres – Journal for Digital Cultures Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft DOAJ The film studies journal montage AV was one of the first journals to make its issues openly available online after an embargo period . Its extensive digital archive can be downloaded free of charge. After an embargo period of 12 months, the issues of the journal Digital Culture & Society are also freely available. What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of March 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 932 titles under Media studies ; in the OAPEN Library, 891 titles were listed in the category of media studies . In addition, there are categories that are of relevance especially for film studies, such as Film theory & criticism, Film, TV & radio, and Films, cinema , in which a total of 612 titles were listed in DOAB and 464 titles were listed in these categories in the OAPEN Library as of March 2024. The most important German publishers that publish media studies titles in open access include De Gruyter , Springer , transcript and Schüren . The publisher meson press , which grew out of a project at the University of Lüneburg, publishes only open access books . The following series make a number of their titles available in open access: Cinepoetics – Poetologien audiovisueller Bilder Medien'Welten – Braunschweiger Schriften zur Medienkultur Medien – Wissen – Bildung Zürcher Filmstudien In 2021, within the framework of a project on the open access transition , which was funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) , the publishing house transcript established the Open Library Medienwissenschaft in collaboration with the specialised information service for media, film and communication studies adlr.link . Disciplinary Repositories The most important repository for German-language media studies is media/rep/ , which was established in 2018. The repository collects media stu­dies publications and makes them available in open access. Its holdings include journal articles, contributions to edited collections, monographs, and series, as well as complete journal archives , for example montage AV , AugenBlick , Naviga­tionen , die Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft , Digital Culture & Society , VIEW , and NECSUS European Journal of Media Studies . Besides publications in text form, media/rep/ archives videos; from the end of 2021 on, it will also archive audio files. Furthermore, many publications in the field of media studies are also self-archived in the Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR) . What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find legal information on Open Access here. Video über das Zeitveröffentlichungsrecht Quelle: Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk of you have any questions about Open Access. oa.finder The oa.finder shows you from tens of thousands of journals which are Gold Open Access, whether they charge APCs and how high these are. You can also view the funding modalities of your own institution. Other Offerings The specialised information service for media, film and communication studies adlr.link at Leipzig University Library operates the central search portal of the discipline; open access resources are specially labelled. The Open-Media-Studies-Blog offers a public forum for topical debates on open science, open access, openness, and access in media studies and beyond. Open Access in Media Studies is a curated website that aims to inform about and promote open access publishing in media studies. MediArXiv is a community-led digital archive for media, film, and communi­cation research. It offers media studies scholars a platform to upload their working papers, preprints , post-prints , and published manuscripts. The blog filmwissenschaft.umsonst collects and comments on German-language open access publications from the areas of media, film, and television studies. Film Studies For Free is a blog that comments on and links to open access resources from the field of film and media studies. The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content of relevance to media studies. Open Science in Media Studies The German Society for Media Studies’ (GfM) scholarly interest group (SIG) Open Media Studies , which was established in 2018, aims to raise media studies scholars’ awareness of all aspects of open science and to make work processes more transparent. From 2022 onwards, the open access repository for media studies media/rep/ , in collaboration with NFDI4Culture , will accept also media studies research data. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Further Reading Kammerer, D. (2020, December 14). Nicht nur suchen und finden, sondern entdecken und erforschen. Dietmar Kammerer über das Open-Access-Repositorium media/rep/ als Werkzeug medienwissenschaftlicher Forschung. Open-Media-Studies-Blog Der Zeitschrift Für Medienwissenschaft . https://zfmedienwissenschaft.de/online/open-media-studies-blog/nicht%20nur%20suchen%20und%20finden Content editors of this page: Dr Dietmar Kammerer, Philipps-Universität Marburg / NFDI4Culture , and Andreas Kirchner , University of Konstanz/open-access.network. Last revision of content: Dr Kai Matuszkiewicz, Philipps-Universität Marburg (as of Juli 2024)....