Search

Open Access Publication

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...

Open Access Workshops

Das Helmholtz Open Science Office und das Open-Access-Büro Berlin führen im Rahmen des BMBF-geförderten Projekts open-access.network gemeinsam mit unterschiedlichen Partnern Workshops zu speziellen Fragen rund um das Thema Open Access durch. Die angebotenen Workshops sind inhaltlich auf die Bedarfe und Informationsdefizite der Open-Access-Community ausgerichtet. Sie adressieren urheberrechtliche Fragestellungen, Besonderheiten des Publizierens von Open-Access-Monografien, disziplinspezifische Open-Access-Optionen und -Entwicklungen sowie spezifische Herausforderungen der Open-Access-Transformation. Unsere thematischen Workshops: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 2026 Aug 12 OA-Basics und -Publikationsangebote auf peDOCS und im Fachportal Pädagogik. Einführung in Open Access-Grundlagen und Vorstellung der Angebote für die Erziehungswissenschaft, Bildungsforschung und Fachdidaktik im Fachportal Pädagogik 12. August 2026 OA-Basics und -Publikationsangebote auf peDOCS und im Fachportal Pädagogik. Einführung in Open Access-Grundlagen und Vorstellung der Angebote für die Erziehungswissenschaft, Bildungsforschung und Fachdidaktik im Fachportal Pädagogik 2025 June 12 Open-Access-Workshop für Politikwissenschaftler*innen- Sichtbar, offen, wissenschaftsnah: Die eigene Publikationsstrategie entwickeln 12. June 2025 Open Access ist mittlerweile ein in der Politikwissenschaft bekanntes und verbreitetes Publikationsmodell, das Autor*innen eine bessere Sichtbarkeit [...] 2022 Nov 30 Library Publishing - Austausch und erste Schritte, um den eigenen Universitätsverlag aufzubauen 30. November 2022 2022 Nov 21 Online-Workshop "Im Bilde: Open Access publizieren" 21. November 2022 2022 Nov 02 Open Access and share your knowledge! Publishing in African Studies 2. November 2022 2022 Oct 11 Nur ein Forschungsthema? Open Access in der Buch-, Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft 11. October 2022 1 2 3 4 5 Next Weitere Veranstaltungen rund um Open Access und Open Science gibt es im Veranstaltungskalender Workshopreihe Einführung in Open Access und das Urheberrecht Workshopreihe Budgetentwicklung im Kontext der Open-Access-Transformation...

Open Access and share your knowledge! Publishing in African Studies

...

Open Publishing Fest

...

Open science and the role of rights management

...

Publishing Agreements

Legal Basis for Publishing Agreements A publishing agreement is a special contract with no requirements as to form that is usually concluded between an author and a publisher when publishing a contribution in a scholarly journal, an edited collection, or a monograph. It regulates the extent of the rights of use in the work that are granted to the publisher. Germany In Germany, publishing agreements are governed by Sections 31–44 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) and by the German Publishing Act (VerlG) . Pursuant to Section 8 of the Publishing Act, an exclusive right of use is granted to the publisher unless otherwise specified. This right is known as the Verlagsrecht (publisher’s right). Irrespective of the rights granted to the publisher in the publishing agreement, Section 38 of the German Copyright Act gives authors of scientific contributions that result from research at least half of which was publicly funded and that appear in a collection that is published periodically at least twice a year the right to make the accepted manuscript version of the works available to the public in a repository 12 months after first publication. The right to self-archive the works applies even if the publishers were granted exclusive rights of use ( Brehm & Rücknagel, 2021 ). Austria In Austria , publishing agreements are considered to be a separate con­tract type and are regulated in Sections 1172 and seq. of the Austrian Civil Code (ABGB ). However, the most important provisions applicable to publishing agreements are laid down in the Austrian Copyright Act (UrhG ). Sections 23 and 24 and Sections 26–37 UrhG are particularly relevant. Under Section 1172 of the Austrian Civil Code, the author, or their legal successor, undertakes to entrust the work to a publisher for reproduction and distribution on its own account. In return, the publisher undertakes to reproduce and distribute the work. Unless otherwise agreed, it can be assumed that a right of use in the work pursuant to Section 26 UrhG has been granted to the publisher, and that this right is therefore exclusive (see Walter, 2008, p. 820 and seq. ). Further information about the legal situation in Austria in this regard can be found on the website of the Open Science Network Austria (OANA) . Switzerland In Switzerland , the conclusion of a publishing agreement is not subject to a certain form ( Art. 380 and seq. of the Swiss Code of Obligations, OR ). An email exchange or the sending of the manuscript by the author to the publisher with the request to publish it are deemed legally to be a publishing contract if the publisher publishes, or at least promises to publish, the work. Under the Swiss Copyright Act (CopA), exceptions to copyright apply even if the rights in question have been granted to a third party. One example is the exception to copyright in favour of use in enterprises ( Art. 19(1) point c CopA ). However, this exception is subject to various preconditions. The concept of prohibiting the granting of rights in respect of unknown rights of use is unknown in Swiss law. If "all copyrights" were granted before 1995, the now customary online rights are also affected. Further information on publishing agreements and legal questions in Switzerland can be found on the website of the Main Library of the University of Zurich . Agreements with Publishers Outside Germany In the case of agreements with publishers outside Germany, the same applies as in the case of German publishers. Should the agreements be available only in English, care must be taken not to grant the publisher exclusive rights . Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen Quelle: Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Practical Tip Here you can find a German handout of the Communication, Information, Media Center (KIM) of the University of Konstanz on the topic of self-archiving as well as a German information page of the BMBF on the topic of self-archiving rights. Practical Tip Find further legal information regarding Austria here: Open Science Network Austria (OANA) (German). Depending on the publisher and the journal, the remaining rights may be more or less extensive or limited, although many publishers now expressly allow their authors to self-archive their contributions in a repository. An overview of publishers’ open access archiving policies can be found in the Open Policy Finder database. A fee may be agreed in the publishing agreement, and it is tacitly deemed to have been agreed if the delivery of a manuscript can usually be expected only on payment of a fee. However, a fee is not one of the essential contractual ob­ligations – the so-called cardinal obligations – under the publishing agreement. Although publishing law does not contain any provisions about rights other than reproduction and distribution, the publisher is, as a rule, also granted other exclusive rights of use (e.g. the right to make the work available to the public, which applies to publications on the Internet). The wording in the publishing agreement is decisive – and here contractual freedom applies. The various rights of use can be granted individually. Contractual provisions take precedence over dispositive statutory provisions. The following cases must be distinguished: The transfer of copyright In Germany ( Section 29 UrhG ) and Austria ( Section 23 UrhG ) copyright is not transferrable. In Switzerland, copyright is transferrable ( Art. 16 CopA ). Authors may transfer their rights to a publisher. Example: In the publishing agreement, "the author assigns copyright [the publisher] without limitation of space, time, or content". Licensing/rights of use Authors retain copyright but grant rights of use to third parties. Granting of an exclusive licence /exclusive rights of use: Authors undertake not to grant any other licences for the work in question. Example: "The author grants the publisher the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the work (the publisher’s right) without limitation of space and content for the duration of the statutory copyright." Granting of a non-exclusive licence/non-exclusive rights of use : Authors may grant other persons or organisations further non-exclusive licences/non-exclusive rights of use. Example: "For an online publication of the work, the publisher is granted a non-exclusive right of use without an obligation of use." Possibilities of Contractually Securing the Right to Self-Archive Works in Open Access Repositories In the case of publishing agreements concluded in the past, the question arises as to what provisions the agreement contains with regard to the author’s right to make the work available to the public online in parallel with publication . By contrast, when concluding new publishing agreements, there are various ways of contractually securing this right. Some authors who publish their articles in fee-based journals but who nonetheless want to retain the right to make the work available in open access in parallel with publication, cross out certain passages in the publishing agreement before signing it. Another possibility is to supplement the publishing agreement to be signed with addenda or text passa­ges in order to secure one’s rights to make the work available in open access . Many research performing organisations now expressly expect this. For example, the University of Zurich requires its researchers to obtain a legal guarantee from the publisher "to make the complete work accessible in ZORA [the institutional repository], if applicable after an embargo period." Crossing Out Words in the Publishing Agreement Authors can amend publishing agreements that restrict their right to self-ar­chive the work in a repository by clearly crossing out wording such as exclusive transfer of all rights or other restrictive formulations, for example exclusive rights of use or exploitation rights . It should be noted, in particular, that the term exclusive rights grants the publisher a legal position that, as a rule, excludes the authors from exploiting the works themselves. In an accompanying letter, authors should draw attention to the changes they have made to the contract. Should a contract be available only in electronic form, the words can be crossed out in the print copy. If only digital agreement to the terms of the contract is provided for, authors can request the publisher to make the contract available in print form. Addenda As an alternative to crossing out words, authors can attach an addendum to the publishing agreement in order to retain a non-exclusive right to deposit the work in an online repository. To acquire legal validity, this addendum must be countersigned by the publisher. The most well-known addendum is the SPARC Author's Addendum . It was developed by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) , an alliance of libraries in the USA and Canada that works to encourage the development of new models of scholarly communication that increase the dissemination of scholarly literature and reduce the financial pressure on libra­ries. The addendum comprises two parts: the actual addendum and instructi­ons for use. Via the Scholar’s Copyright Addendum Engine provided by Science Commons and SPARC, authors can automatically generate an addendum as required in one of three variants: Access – Reuse , Delayed Access , or Immediate Access . Access – Reuse means that the author retains sufficient rights to make the work available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution Non­Commercial (CC BY-NC) licence in addition to publishing it with a publisher. Under the Delayed Access model, the author has the right to make their final version of the article (author’s accepted manuscript, AAM) available to the public online immediately, but they may not make the publisher’s version available until six months after the date of publication. By contrast, the Immediate Access option gives the author the right to make both the publisher’s version and the author’s accepted manuscript version available to the public online immediately. Examples of addenda "The publisher agrees that the author shall retain the non-exclusive right to deposit a digital copy of the document before/during/after publication by the publisher on an open access academic non-profit server for an unlimited period. The author undertakes to cite the original document on the academic non-profit server ." or "For an online publication of the work, the publisher is granted a non-exclusive right of use without an obligation of use. The author is free to make the work available to the public online in PDF form via their perso­nal website, an institutional server, or a suitable disciplinary repository." or (in jurisdictions where copyright is transferrable) "I hereby declare that I do not wish to transfer full copyright to [name of the publisher] but reserve the right to self-archive the article in full in an open access repository." A further example of an addendum is provided by MIT Libraries: Managing your Copyright . However, authors must be aware of the consequences when they retain only non-exclusive rights of use. This prevents them from making the contribution available under an open access licence, as the decision on licensing remains with the publisher. It is therefore preferable not to grant exclusive rights of use to the publisher in the first place . References Brehm, E., & Rücknagel, J. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen . https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 Walter, M. M. (2008). Österreichisches Urheberrecht: Handbuch. 1. Teil: Materielles Urheberrecht, Leistungsschutzrecht und Urhebervertragsrecht . Verlag Medien & Recht. Further Reading Brettschneider, P. (2020). Rechtsfragen beim Veröffentlichen - Rechtlichen Aspekten des Publizierens von Texten und Daten . https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018749 Brettschneider, P., & Universität Konstanz. (2020). Rechtsfragen beim Veröffentlichen . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrvnMLxGppI&t=1s Hirtle, P. (2006). Author Addenda. An Examination of Five Alternatives. D-Lib Magazine , 12 (11). https://doi.org/10.1045/november2006-hirtle Mantz, R. (2006). Open Access-Lizenzen und Rechtsübertragung bei Open Access-Werken. In G. Spindler (Ed.), Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen von Open Access-Publikationen (pp. 55–104). Universitätsverlag Göttingen. https://www.retosphere.de/files/Mantz,Open_Access-Lizenzen_und_Rechtsuebertragung_bei_Open_Access-Werken.pdf SPARC. (2006). Author Rights. Using the SPARC Author Addendum to secure your rights as the author of a journal article. https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SPARC-Author-Rights-Brochure-2006.pdf Spielkamp, M. & iRights.Lab (2015). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler. Geltende Rechtslage und Handlungsempfehlungen. Online verfügbar unter https://irights.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/zweitveroeffentlichungsrecht-20150425.pdf Steinhauer, E. W. (2007). Rechtsfragen und praktische Umsetzung von Open Access . https://kobra.uni-kassel.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/2007032317433/Kassel%20II.pdf?sequence=1 Thema Creative Commons + Lizenzen . (n.d.). IRights Info. https://irights.info/kategorie/themen/creative-commons-lizenzen Please note that the content presented here is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice....

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz: Online-Workshop Publish or Perish?! Teil 2 Wissenschaftliches Publizieren im Open Access

...

Stiftung Universität Hildesheim Online-Coffee-Lectures: AuROA - Autor*innen und Rechts­sicherheit für Open Access

...

Verbundprojekt AuROA: Wege für Open Access in den Geisteswissenschaften

...

Wissenschaftliche Publikationen sicher nutzen mit Creative Commons Lizenzen

...