Open Access finanzieren - Ihre Fragen und Probleme
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Open Access in Mathematics
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)....
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Open Access in Media Studies
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)....
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Open Access in Romance studies
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 Linguistics Find an introduction here. Open Access in Romance Studies Although access to digital publications is highly valued in Romance studies, open access is rather underrepresented there compared with other disciplines. Romance studies has a heterogeneous publication culture in which established models of publication and dissemination of research results play a central role. Printed journals continue to occupy a special place, and, besides journals, edited collections are an important form of publication. Publishers and independent journals as well as researchers and associations are increasingly breaking new ground in the form of open access publications and initiatives – to date, mainly in the journals area, but increasingly also in the area of monographs and edited collections. The topic of open access is becoming increasingly important in the publication culture in Romance studies, not least because of the positions and requirements of research funders. Small publishers are responsible for a substantial part of the publication output in Romance studies, and many of them now offer open access options. The information offerings and networking activities of the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) are also worthy of mention. Impetus has been forthcoming from the community through journal startups and a position paper on open access and research data ( Schöch et al., 2017 ) produced by the Digital Romance Studies Working Group ( AG Digitale Romanistik ) of the German Association of Romance Philologists ( Deutscher Romanistikverband) . The topic is also gaining traction, especially among mid-level academics, through workshops organised by the German Association of Romance Philologists and through inter-disciplinary discussions and further education programmes at graduate schools. Best-practice examples and reports of concrete experiences were presented at a workshop in 2017 in which publishers, editors, and researchers participated ( Hornung & Trapp, 2018 ). A survey of German-speaking Romance philologists ( Hornung et al., 2017 ) conducted in 2016 by the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) provided insights into the question of how open access is perceived in the discipline and what factors influence researchers when it comes to deciding whether to publish open or closed access . The survey found that the reputation of the publisher, the series, the journal, and the editors were decisive factors. Although respondents valued the high degree of dissemination and the findability of open access publications, these factors were not decisive. The survey results suggest that Impact Factors, which are of central importance in other disciplines, play hardly any role in Romance studies. A more recent survey conducted by the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (Schepers, 2024) suggests that awareness of open access has increased. Respondents formulated specific concerns and problems, such as the funding of open access monographs or possibilities of self-archiving works published with a publisher, while also pointing to a need for information about – and to barriers to – open access publishing. Open Access Journals As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals listed 66 entries under Romanic languages and 176 entries under French literature - Italian literature - Spanish literature - Portuguese literature . Important open access journals include: apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] Estudios Culturales Hispánicos (University of Regensburg) HeLix – Dossiers zur romanischen Literaturwissenschaft Horizonte – Neue Serie • Nuova Serie Romanische Studien Versants – Revista suiza de literaturas románicas (University of Bern) Zeitschrift für Katalanistik – Revista d’Estudis Catalans (German Association of Catalan Philologists) Other journals from neighbouring and superordinate fields, such as general linguistics , comparative literary studies, and the digital humanities, that are also of relevance to Romance studies include: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics HiN – Alexander von Humboldt im Netz Iberoamericana. América Latina - España - Portugal iMex. México Interdisciplinario/Interdisciplinary Mexico Miradas – Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte der Amérikas und der iberischen Halbinsel PhiN – Philologie im Netz Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics Textpraxis. Digitales Journal für Philologie Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht ZfdG - Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften Also worthy of mention are review journals such as fabula.org for Franco-Romance studies. Bibliodiversity is also apparent among open access publications that are more firmly anchored in the field of Romance studies outside Germany, especially among Latin American offerings provided by the platforms sciELO , Redalyc , AmeliCA , and Latindex ( Müller, 2020 ). Among the German-language offerings there are also early pioneer projects, in particular PhiN – Philologie im Netz , which was launched as a purely open access journal in 1997. The number of open access journals is increasing due, especially, to new periodicals such as apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] . By contrast, transformations of existing periodicals in Romance studies in the German-speaking area are still rare. However, the Zeitschrift für Katalanistik has a certain exemplary character because all issues are hybrid in the sense that they are made available in print for a fee and online in open access, and all older volumes dating back to the very first volume in 1988 have been retrodigitised. A similar repositioning can be seen in the case of Versants . The journal Horizonte - Neue Serie • Nuova Serie was newly founded as an independent open access publication after the discontinuation of its subscription-based predecessor, Horizonte . The founding of the open access journal Glossa in 2016 was spectacular in that it emerged from a conflict between the editorial board of the journal Lingua and the publisher Elsevier. Whereas authors in other disciplines often have to pay article processing charges (APCs) to have their works published open access, that funding model is – with a few exceptions – not common in Romance studies, where publishing is usually free of charge for authors ( diamond open access ), because many purely open access journals are run by institutes or by the editors themselves. Exceptions are hybrid journals of the major publishers in which individual articles are published open access against payment of a fee. Also of relevance is the possibility to self-archive the contributions in a repository after an embargo period of 12 months. In the case of promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik , for example, this is implemented by the editors. In Romance studies, it is relatively common for journals to be hosted either in-house or by local libraries, some of which are supra-regionally active. For example, the journal apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] is hosted by Hamburg University Press using the free software Open Journal Systems (OJS) . The French platform OpenEdition Journals hosts numerous other journals of relevance to Romance studies from various countries. Also worthy of mention are the publication service of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin, the hosting offerings of many local university libraries, and the Open Library of Humanities . 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 April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 171 entries under the search term Romance languages and 193 entries under Romance literature ; in addition, there are the titles in the individual Romance disciplines, for example Catalan language (45 entries as of April 2024). The online library and publication platform OAPEN listed 804 titles under Romance languages and 121 titles under Romance literature as of April 2024. Overall, offerings in the area of monographic OA publications in Romance studies tend to be isolated and heterogeneous. However, the presence of the format is increasing. Yet, none of the above-mentioned platforms fully cover the broad spectrum. Examples in the area of freely available monographs and collections, which are usually published open access and in print at the same time ( "dual publishing "), include: the supplements to the journal Romanische Studien ; the series Imágenes de la diversidad funcional. Literatura, artes escénicas, visuales y virtuales , which has been published with Peter Lang since 2018; the series Aula , which has been published by de Gruyter since 2020; the offerings of the hybrid-publishing university presses , which developed open access models at an early stage; the French platform OpenEdition Books the series Open Romance Linguistics published by Language Science Press; the humanities publication series published by Open Humanities Press and Open Book Publishers ; individual titles published by diverse publishers with a Romance programme, including AVM, de Gruyter, Peter Lang, transcript and Vervuert. The panorama of these publications is extremely heterogeneous. It largely comprises new titles. In addition, there are titles that are made freely available after a certain period of time or that appear in open access as a new edition or a translation, as in the case of Joachim Küpper’s classic work Discursive "Renovatio" in Lope de Vega and Calderón . With Knowledge Unlatched , there have also been some – albeit unsuccessful – initial initiatives to "unlatch" commercial publications in partnership with several specialised publishers. As the DFG has declared open access the priority publication mode for the projects it funds, and other research funders have already made the provision of open access mandatory, a strengthening of the open access monograph in Romance studies is to be expected. However, the additional costs for free access to a monograph that arise at most traditional publishers are an obstacle to this. Extensive funding programmes do not exist at present. In individual cases, the costs may be covered by the monograph funds that have been established at many scientific institutions, by the DFG, or by foundations. In the case of third-party-funded projects, the easiest way is to include applications for the reimbursement of open access costs in the project proposal. University presses can play a complementary role, as can the offerings of non-conventional publishers listed in the overview. Disciplinary Repositories Since 2025, the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (FID Romanistik) has been providing a repository for Romance studies in the form of a Romance studies collection. Although technically part of the Repositorium.Hamburg , it is available for use by the Romance studies community as a whole. All articles in this collection are also listed in the search portal of the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies. There are other repositories for sub-disciplines of Romance studies and for neighbouring disciplines – for example, Archivum Medii Aevi Digitale for medieval studies, AfricArXiv for African studies, CompaRe for general and comparative literary studies, and the Linguistik-Repository for general and comparative linguistics. LA Referencia , a network of open access repositories in Latin America, is illustrative of the distinctive repository landscape in that region. Portugal’s scholarly repositories are aggregated by RCAAP . Also of relevance are the HAL Open Science Archive , which is authoritative for the humanities and social sciences in France; the internationally established universal repository zenodo.org ; and the platforms of the local libraries. The content of the aforementioned repositories is, in part, searchable via regional and supra-regional search engines. The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine ( BASE ) can also be expediently used for searches with a specifically open access focus. An overview of relevant repositories is provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . 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 There are other useful offerings both with a specifically Romance studies orientation and with a transdisciplinary orientation. The local libraries offer their publication and advisory services to researchers at the respective institutions. Graduate schools are also increasingly arranging advisory and training offerings. The Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) offers a discipline-specific information and advisory service . Via the project website, basic information is presented on open access, especially on legal issues. When doing so, concrete application scenarios from publishing practice in Romance studies are discussed – for example, regarding open access publishing and self-archiving, the role of translations, and publishers and repositories in different countries. Personal advice is also offered. The Romanistik-Blog features information on current topics, legal issues, funding conditions, as well as specific offerings and projects. The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to Romance studies. Open Science in Romance Studies The free accessibility and reusability of primary texts, images, and research data; the machine readability of texts; and procedures such as text and data mining are also subjects of increasing discussion. Platforms with a corresponding agenda from the Romance-language countries include, for example Gallica (France), the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (Spain), and the Biblioteca Italiana (Italy). A recent example relating to the reusability of images is a decision by the Biblioteca Nacional de España that resulted in images from its holdings being made available free of charge since March 2020 for use in scholarly publications. Of note in the area of research data is the consortium Text+ from the context of the Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (National Research Data Infrastructure; NFDI), which is developing an infrastructure for language- and text-based data and is initially focusing on digital collections, lexical resources, and editions. Also of relevance to Romance studies are general humanities projects such as CLARIAH-DE and its predecessor projects CLARIN and DARIAH-DE , including the research data repositories DARIAH-DE Repository and the TextGrid Repository . An initiative specific to Romance studies is the directory of research data on the information platform romanistik.de . The Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (FID Romanistik) provides an information and support service . The series of blog posts published since 2020 by the Digital Romance Studies Working Group (AG Digitale Romanistik ) places a special focus on the sustainable handling of research data in accordance with the FAIR principles. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Hornung, C., von Deylen, W., Tannous, I., & Wonke-Stehle, J. (2017, February 9). Auswertung der Umfrage des FID Romanistik zu Open Access in der Romanistik. Romanistik-Blog - Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. https://blog.fid-romanistik.de/2017/02/09/auswertung-der-umfrage-des-fid-romanistik-zu-open-access-in-der-romanistik/ Hornung, C., & Trapp, M. (2018). Open Access-Publizieren in der Romanistik: Standortbestimmung und Perspektiven. Romanistik-Blog - Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. https://blog.fid-romanistik.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/OA-Workshop-Protokoll-SUBHH-11-2017.pdf Müller, C. (2020). Elektronisches Publizieren und Open Access: Die Perspektive Lateinamerikas. B. i. t. Online, 23 (4), 374–380. https://www.b-i-t-online.de/heft/2020-04-fachbeitrag-mueller.pdf Schepers, L. (2024). Umfrageergebnisse: Romanistisches Publizieren in frühen Karrierephasen. Romanistik-Blog – Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. blog.fid-romanistik.de/2024/05/30/umfrageergebnisse-romanistisches-publizieren-in-fruehen-karrierephasen/ Schöch, C., Rißler-Pipka, N., Mühlschlegel, U., Gerstenberg, A., & Ehrlicher, H. (2017). Open Access und Forschungsdaten. Ein Positionspapier der AG Digitale Romanistik. In Mitteilungsheft Frühjahr 2017 (pp. 50–59). Deutscher Romanistenverband. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3834226 Further Reading Agnetta, M. (2019). Wie closed darf open access sein? / Eine Momentaufnahme der Publikationskultur in der deutschen Romanistik. Digitalkulturen/Cultures Numériques. Herausforderungen Und Interdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektiven/Enjeux et Perspectives Interdisciplinaire , 16, 33–50. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839442159-002 [ Open Access Preprint at Romanistik-Blog ] 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 Hornung, C (2022). Open Access in der Romanistik – Coffee Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRLDzIeLLc Nonnenmacher, K. (2015). Die Zeitschrift als Idee. Einladung an Leser und Autoren. Romanische Studien, 1 , 5–24. https://www.romanischestudien.de/index.php/rst/issue/view/1 Schöch, C. (2020). Was heißt und zu welchem Ende publiziert man im Open Access? Open Access Week 2020, Universitätsbibliothek Trier. https://christofs.github.io/publ/#/ | Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RQy4wtYls0 Söllner, K., & Mittermaier, B. (2017). Praxishandbuch Open Access . de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494068 Bearbeitung der Inhalte der Seite: Christoph Hornung (Stand: Juni 2024)....
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Publishing Open Access Journal
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...
