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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 arguments and reservations here. Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving Find out about how to publish and self-archive Open Access. 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 in Gender Studies Gender studies is a field of knowledge that is strongly characterised by inter- or transdisciplinary work methods and in which a variety of disciplinary approaches can be found. In many cases, the publishing practices and venues of gender researchers depend on the specialist disciplines involved and are correspondingly heterogeneous. However, there are also several publications with a decidedly inter- or transdisciplinary focus. For the most part, gender researchers publish their works in journals, edited volumes, and monographs. In addition, handbooks, science blogs, and various other transfer formats are widespread. Preprints , by contrast, play hardly any role at all. Opportunities for Gender Studies Open access publishing offers enormous opportunities, especially for gender studies. Because of political reservations with regard to gender studies, and the ambiguous location of the field between the disciplines, its results are subjected to reception barriers. The potentially greater visibility and the direct access to full texts enables open access publications to overcome these barriers and thus demonstrate their quality. The opportunities offered by electronic publishing, and especially by open access , are now widely acknowledged in gender studies. There are now several open access publications In German-language gender studies, in particular journals and science blogs. There has also been a gradual increase in the number of publications in the area of open access books . Internationally, two developments can be distinguished: On the one hand, relevant, mainly English-language publications on gender studies are being published with large commercial publishers, which, to date, unfortunately offer only hybrid open access options against payment of publication charges . On the other hand, there are a growing number of open access publications in the non-English-speaking world that use no-fee and scholar-led open access models, thereby making an important contribution to bibliodiversity . Activities of the German Gender Studies Association The German Gender Studies Association (Fachgesellschaft Geschlechterstu­dien) actively supports open access publishing. As one of the four editors of the Open Gender Journal , and as the provider of the Open Gender Platform , the association has anchored open access as an important field of activity in its task spectrum. In addition, within the association, the working group Open Digital Gender connects existing initiatives and engages with current developments in the areas of open access and open science. Open Access Journals As of August 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 159 entries under the keyword gender . Only 34 of the journals listed in the DOAJ levy article processing charges ( APCs ). In Germany, the following open access journals and working paper series are published in the area of gender studies: Open Gender Journal DOAJ querelles-net (since 2020 a section of the Open Gender Journal) GENDER FORUM – An Internet Journal for Gender Studies DOAJ IZGOnZeit gender[ed]thoughts FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur Since 2020, the review journal querelles-net , one of the pioneers of the open access movement in German-speaking gender studies, has been integrated as a section in the Open Gender Journal . The aforementioned journals are not only accessible free of charge, they also fulfil the requirements for open access publications by using open licences . What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Handbooks The handbook “Politik und Geschlecht” [Politics and Gender] (edited by Christine M. Klapeer, Johanna Leinius, Franziska Martinsen, Heike Mauer, and Inga Nüthen), the first edition of which was published in 2017, is an open access introductory work to gender studies that is continuously supplemented and updated. This “living encyclopaedia” was created within the framework of the BMBF-funded project OAPEnz as a collaboration between ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences and the publisher Barbara Budrich . Open Access Science Blogs In addition to classical scholarly journals, there are also several open access gender studies science blogs. The posts in the blog interdisziplinäre geschlechterforschung , an interdisciplinary gender studies blog published by the Koordinations- und Forschungsstelle Netzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung NRW ( Coordination and Research Office of the Women’s and Gender Research Network of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia ), are preserved long-term in the repository of the Library of the University of Duisburg-Essen . The Genderblog of the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin focuses on the publication of findings, projects, and debates from gender studies research and teaching at the university. Open Educational Resources In the area of Open Educational Resources (OER), the OER “ Was ist Gender? ” [What is gender?] provides an introduction to the topic. The portal Gendering MINT digital makes reusable teaching modules from the area of research and teaching “Gender & STEM” available as OER. The Toolbox Gender und Diversity in der Lehre offers materials for designing discrimination-critical university teaching. All offerings are available under an open licence. 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 ) Disciplinary Repositories With GenderOpen , which was established in 2018, gender studies has a disciplinary open access repository that ensures the long-term availability of publications under open access conditions. The repository also informs authors about their rights in the areas of self-archiving and the secondary publication right ( Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht ), thereby creating an awareness of the possibilities granted to them under German copyright law. In many cases, targeted collaborations with relevant scholarly publishers enable the self-archiving of the original publisher’s version and the corresponding metadata after expiry of an embargo period . Furthermore, there are collaborations between the GenderOpen repository and the publishers Barbara Budrich and De Gruyter , on the basis of which the original publisher’s version of electronic full texts of articles from certain journals and the corresponding metadata may be made freely available after the expiry of an embargo period. Authors have the possibility of deciding at the time of publication that their contributions are to be made available under a Creative Commons (CC) licence after this embargo period. GenderOpen then releases the contributions automatically. This applies to the following journals: FZG – Freiburger Zeitschrift für GeschlechterStudien (embargo: 24 months) FEMINA POLITICA – Zeitschrift für feministische Politikwissenschaft (embargo: 36 months) Feministische Studien (embargo: 24 months) The GenderOpen keyword index, Schlagwortindex GenderOpen , is a controlled vocabulary for the substantive description of gender studies publications. Developed within the framework of GenderOpen, it is also used by several journals, the Digital German Women’s Archive ( Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv , DDF), and the Gutachter*innen-Datenbank , a reviewers database. In 2019, GenderOpen received the DINI Certificate for Open Access Publication Services. An overview of relevant repositories is also provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to gender studies. Other Offerings Open access in German-language gender studies has been decisively advanced by individual projects. A groundbreaking role in this regard was played by the project Geschlechterforschung und Open Access. Ein Publikationsmodell für ein inter-/transdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld (Gender Studies and Open Access. A Publication Model for an Inter-/Transdisciplinary Research Field), which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and conducted at the Freie Universität Berlin (2011–2012). The project analysed the opportunities and challenges for open access publications in gender studies and showed that all the necessary technical and legal possibilities for implementing quality-assured open access publications exist. However, open access publications and electro­nic publication processes entail additional challenges, for example, clear divisi­ons of roles, clarification of rights, and adaptation to transdisciplinary and cross-national standards. Another open access offering is the Open Gender Platform , which was deve­loped and built at the Freie Universität Berlin‘s Margherita von Brentano Center within the framework of a project (June 2018–September 2020) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project developed sustainable approaches for editorial workflows, business models, and quality assurance procedures and made them available to the entire field of gender studies for reuse. Deliverables included a reviewers database ( Gutachter*­innen-Datenbank ) – that is, a directory of experts who have declared their willingness to act as reviewers for open access journals and books in Germany. Furthermore, there are collaborations between the GenderOpen repository and the publishers Barbara Budrich and De Gruyter , on the basis of which the origi­nal publisher’s version of electronic full texts of articles from certain journals and the corresponding metadata may be made freely available after the expiry of an embargo period. Authors have the possibility of deciding at the time of publication that their contributions are to be made available under a Creative Commons (CC) licence after this embargo period. GenderOpen then releases the contributions automatically. This applies to the following journals: GENDER – Journal for Gender, Culture and Society (24-month embargo) FZG – Freiburger Zeitschrift für GeschlchterStudien (24-month embargo) FEMINA POLITICA – Zeitschrift für feministische Politikwissenschaft (36-month embargo) Feministische Studien (24-month embargo) The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to gender studies. Practical Tip Open-Access-Literatur finden 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. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Science in Gender Studies The topic of open research data is being taken up only hesitantly in gender stu­dies. According to a needs analysis on research data infrastructure in gender studies , only a few researchers have experience of the reuse of research data. The difficulties in disciplinarily classifying gender studies repeat themselves also in relation to open research data. To date, there are no explicitly designated re­search repositories for gender studies. Even when metadata have been properly recorded, a search always requires the use of various search strategies with different storage locations, keywords, and disciplines. However, whether an independent storage location for open research data is called for in an inter- and transdisciplinary field such as gender studies, in which researchers work with diverse types of data, has not yet been conclusively settled. Content editor of this page: Kathrin Ganz , Special Information Service Gender Studies (FID Gender) (Last updated: August 2024)....

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. 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 in Comparative Literature Scholars in the field of comparative literature conduct research on literature from all language areas, epochs, and cultures in a transnational, intercultural and interdisciplinary way. They conduct basic research in the areas of literary theory, aesthetics and poetics, and literary semiotics. Besides comparing different literatures, they engage with the relationship between literature and other forms of media and knowledge. The field of comparative literature has long been characterised by a strong fixation on print media, and open access publishing is not yet established practice across locations. Although a few comparative literature scholars in other countries, for example Jean-Claude Guédon in Canada, actively support open access (see Eve, 2014, p. 24 ), there have been no official statements to date from representatives of this field in Germany. One reason for this may be the heterogeneous publication cultures in the humanities, with which comparative literature has traditional ties. Its main forms of publication are monographs and edited collections. Because the reputation of the publisher is an important criterion in the field of comparative literature, it has a direct influence on how much scholarly literature is published open access . By contrast, bibliometric indicators, such as the Journal Impact Factor , citation rates, etc., play hardly any role at all in this discipline. However, open access has increased in importance in the field of comparative literature in recent years. Prestigious publishers now enable and promote gold open access , and are also (more) open towards green open access . At the same time, there are an increasing number of institutional offerings to promote open access monographs and collections ( open access publication funds ; payment of publication costs from third-party funds; the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Publication Grants Programme) . These developments have resulted in an increase in open access publications. In addition, more and more resear­chers are availing of the possibility of self-archiving their publications in institu­tional repositories such as CompaRe . A number of non-university research institutions, for example the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur und Kulturforschung (ZfL) or the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, have taken active steps. The ZfL is a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities ; it makes numerous publications available in CompaRe ; and it is pursuing further open access projects . The ICI Berlin not only archives publications of the ICI Berlin Press in CompaRe , but also operates an in-house archive, the ICI Berlin Repository . The German Comparative Literature Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, DGAVL) has decided to make its yearbooks available in open access after an embargo period . This trend is expected to continue. Open Access Journals As of March 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 271 entries under the keyword Literature (General) . Important open access journals in this field include: DIEGESIS DOAJ Komparatistik Online LiTheS DOAJ interlitteraria DOAJ Acta Iassyensia Comparationis DOAJ International diamond open access literature journals can also be found in 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 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 1738 titles under the keyword Literature & Literary Studies and 1538 titles under Literature: History & Criticism . OAPEN listed 875 titles under the subject Literature & Literary Studies and 1074 titles under Literature: History & Criticism (as of March 2024). International literature-related books published under a diamond open access model – that is, published open access without charging book processing charges (BPCs) – can also be found on the Open Book Publishers website. The publishing house transcript is of particular relevance for open access publishing in the field of comparative literature. Disciplinary Repositories The central repository for comparative literature is the Compa rative Literature Re pository – CompaRe . It is the main open access service offering of avldigital.de, the online portal of the Specialised Information Service for Compa­rative Literature (FID AVL). In the disciplinary repository CompaRe, which can also be used to publish works for the first time, scholars of comparative literature, research institutions and projects in this field, as well as scholarly publishers can make new publications or publications already published elsewhere freely available online. The following repositories of neighbouring philologies, disciplines, and institutions are also of importance for scholars of comparative literature: GiNDok (the disciplinary repository of the Specialised Information Service German Studies ) GenderOpen (a repository for gender research , whose literature content is especially relevant for comparative literature) The Stacks (a disciplinary repository for American studies, Anglophone literatures and cultures, Australian and New Zealand studies, British and Irish studies, Canadian studies, and English, including all sub-fields) ICI Berlin Repository (a multi-disciplinary repository of the ICI Berlin) 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. Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk if 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 Besides the disciplinary repository CompaRe, the Specialised Information Service for Comparative Literature (FID AVL) also provides an e-journal hosting service for open access journals and other periodical digital publications, such as working papers or series. Calls for papers for open access collections and other types of publications related to comparative literature can be publicised via the communication platform Vernetzen , which can be found on the subject portal avldigital.de. Die Open-Access-Publikation von Büchern (Monografien und Sammelbände) aus der AVL wird vom FID durch einen fachspezifischen Publikationsfonds gefördert, der aus Eigenmitteln der Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg finanziert wird. The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content of relevance to comparative literature. References Eve, M. P. (2014). Open Access and the Humanities. Contexts, Controversies and the Future . Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316161012 Further Reading 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 Messerschmidt, N. (2011). Open Access in den Literaturwissenschaften. Ergebnisse qualitativer Interviews mit Wissenschaftlern der Deutschen Literatur. https://doi.org/10.18452/14147 Projekt AuROA (2022). Publizieren und Open Access in den Geisteswissenschaften. Erkenntnisse aus dem Projekt AuROA zu den Stakeholdern im Publikationsprozess . Link: https://projekt-auroa.de/stakeholder/#perspektiven . Söllner, K. (2017). Geisteswissenschaften. In K. Söllner & B. Mittermaier (Eds.), Praxishandbuch Open Access (1st edition, pp. 247–253). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494068 Content editor of this page: Arne Mrotzek, Specialised Information Service for Comparative Literature (FID AVL) (Last updated: August 2024)....

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. 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 in the Geosciences The geosciences study the scientific aspects of the Earth system in an interdisciplinary way. The major geoscience disciplines – geology, palaeontology, geodesy, mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry – have close links, for example, to soil science and atmospheric, marine, and climate research. The interdisciplinary spectrum of the geosciences is supplemented by other research fields, such as geomicrobiology and geoinformatics. The geosciences are among the disciplines in which open access is comparatively widespread ( Severin et al., 2020 ). In the geosciences, the typical publication cultures of the natural sciences predominate. As a rule, articles are published in international peer-reviewed journals. Currently, reputational ascriptions are still based primarily on the journal impact factor . Overall, books play a minor role in the geosciences, serving mainly as digests and collections of essays. There are however exceptions in some subdisciplines, for example in palaeontology, where books certainly play a greater role. Although regional non-English-language publication venues, which were very common in the past, are decreasing in number, they are still of importance for regional topics ( Bertelmann, 2017 ). More detailed studies on open access publishing behaviour in geoscience sub-disciplines are available for geochemistry ( Pourret et al., 2020a ; Pourret et al., 2020b ). Many professional geoscience societies in Germany publish or co-publish journals. Most of these journals are published in cooperation with a publisher and are financed via the subscription model . The leading international professional societies with the largest memberships are the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Besides subscription-based journals, the AGU also publishes a number of open access journals . By contrast, all of the EGU’s journals are open access. The Specialised Information Service for Geosciences (FID GEO) supports the German geoscience societies in implementing open access. Open Access Journals As of March 2026, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 265 entries under the subjects Geology, Geodesy, Geophysics. Cosmic physics, and Geomagnetism . Of these journals, 136 do not levy publication charges . Important open access journals and publishers in the geosciences include, for example: European Journal of Mineralogy DOAJ Limnology and Oceanography Letters DOAJ Living Reviews in Solar Physics DOAJ 12 AGU journals (all in cooperation with Wiley) 19 EGU journals, (all in cooperation with Copernicus Publications), e.g. Solid Earth DOAJ and Climate of the Past DOAJ A further 28 Copernicus Publications journals, incl. Earth System Science Data (ESSD) DOAJ ), a journal for the publication of articles on research data(sets) 6 Springer Nature journals Over 80 MDPI journals (in the area of Environmental & Earth Sciences ). 60 Elsevier journals Examples of open access journals that do not levy publication charges ( diamond open access ) include: Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry Geochemical Perspectives Letters DOAJ Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin DOAJ Mineralogia DOAJ Scientific Drilling DOAJ Sedimentologika DOAJ Seismica DOAJ The Sedimentary Record DOAJ Volcanica DOAJ What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality 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 2026, the DOAB listed 210 titles under “Earth Sciences, Geography, Environment, Planning”. The OAPEN Library can be browsed by subject . Suitable search terms for geoscience titles are geo or earth . Disciplinary Repositories The most important repositories in the geosciences include: Agris : an offering of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), mainly for agricultural sciences AquaDocs : the joint open access repository of the UNESCO/IOC International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) and the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) with support from the FAO Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts. AquaDocs was developed in 2021 by merging content from two former repositories, OceanDocs and Aquatic Commons. GEO-LEOe-docs : the disciplinary repository of the Specialised Information Service for Geosciences (FID GEO) NASA STI Repository : contains a collection of NASA’s aerospace-related research results. The following repositories of relevant research institutions are particularly suitable for direct searches: Earth-prints , Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia EPIC , Alfred Wegener Institute – Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research GFZpublic , GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences Oceanrep , GEOMAR – Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel Preprint servers: PaleorXiv , ESSOA r , and EarthArXiv are preprint servers for the geosciences. An overview of relevant repositories is also 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 if 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 Using BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) , over 3,000,000 documents can be found, for example, via the menu item Browsing and the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) main class Science and division Earth sciences & geology. For article-level searches, the library search engine ALBERT provides access to the relevant open access journals and a number of relevant repositories in the geosciences. It also provides access to published research data . GEO-LEO is a metasearch engine for searching for sources of information on the Earth system and space. FID GEO offers to digitise geoscience works free of charge. All works digitised by FID GEO are made freely available in GEO-LEOe-docs , the disciplinary repository of FID GEO. FID GEO documents map sheets of the geological map 1:25,000 (GK25) of Germany and adjacent territories that are already freely available online. The articles published in open access journals can also be searched via the popular disciplinary databases and in transdisciplinary offerings (e.g., GeoRef, Science Citation Index, Scopus). Open Science in the Geosciences The handling of research data has been a key issue in the geosciences ever since the International Geophysical Year (1957/58). It is no coincidence that the first journals devoted exclusively to articles on research data ( Earth System Science Data (ESSD) and Geoscience Data Journal ) were published in the field of geosciences. Regarding research data, the German geoscience community is organised within the consortium NFDI4Earth in order to: establish a set of common and internationally compatible principles, rules, and standards for research data management in Earth system science (ESS); create experimental prototype platforms; and provide tools and mechanisms for data integration and analysis. In this pursuit, NFDI4Earth follows the principles of FAIR and open data. Information on the subject of research data in the geosciences (e.g., on repositories, initiatives, and literature) is compiled in the German-language information portal forschungsdaten.info . At international level, the Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences (COPDESS) connects Earth and space science publishers, data centres, and other actors to translate the aspirations of open, available, and useful data into practice. Other contributions to open science include the International Generic Sample Number (IGSN) for referenceable samples (e.g., rock samples), and the open peer review processes conducted, for example, for over 10 years now at the journals of the publisher Copernicus Publications . Because the geosciences are software-intensive sciences, attention is being increasingly focused on the handling of software – that is, its publication and referenceability (see, e.g., Stall et al., 2020 ). open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Bertelmann, R. (2017). 5c. Geowissenschaften. In K. Söllner & B. Mittermaier (Eds.), Praxishandbuch Open Access (pp. 261–266). De Gruyter Saur. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494068 Pourret, O., Hursthouse, A., Irawan, D. E., Johannesson, K., Liu, H., Poujol, M., Tartèse, R., Hullebusch, E. D. van, & Wiche, O. (2020). Open Access publishing practice in geochemistry: Overview of current state and look to the future. Heliyon , 6 (3), e03551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03551 Pourret, O., Irawan, D. E., Tennant, J. P., Hursthouse, A., & Hullebusch, E. D. van (2020). The growth of open access publishing in geochemistry. Results in Geochemistry , 1 , 100001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ringeo.2020.100001 Severin, A., Egger, M., Eve, M. P., & Hürlimann, D. (2020). Discipline-specific open access publishing practices and barriers to change: An evidence-based review. F1000Research , 7 , 1925. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.17328.2 Stall, S., Townsend, R., & Robinson, E. (2020, April). The paper and the data: Authors, reviewers, and editors webinar on updated journal practices for data (and software) . Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3744660 Content editor of this page: Specialised Information Service for Geosciences (FID GEO) (Last updated: March 2026)....

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. 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 in German Studies A trend towards greater openness and acceptance of open access can be observed in German studies. In this respect, the discipline resembles other philologies, for example comparative literature , where similar developments are taking place. Nonetheless, the fixation on print is still dominant in German studies, and the publisher–academic reputation nexus remains close. Besides concerns about scholarly quality, prejudices towards open access relate also to the long-term availability of research contributions published exclusively online. Bibliometric indicators such as the Journal Impact Factor , citation rates etc. generally play only a minor role in publishing practice in German studies. The business models of many publishing houses with a humanities focus are in a state of flux, not least because of the open access policies of the major national research funding organisations . Prestigious publishers now enable and promote gold open access and are also (more) open towards green open access . At the same time, there are an increasing number of institutional offerings to promote open access monographs and edited collections. They include, for example, open access publication funds , the payment of publication charges from third-party funds, and the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Publication Grants Programme . These developments result in more works being published open access. In addition, more and more researchers are availing of the possibility of self-archiving their publications in the repositories of their university libraries or research institutions or in central disciplinary repositories such as GiNDok . This can be expected to continue slowly but surely. The German Association of Germanists (Deutscher Germanistenverband, DGV) has yet to adopt a clear position on open access. However, the association established two working groups (Digitales in Forschung und Lehre [Digitality in Research and Teaching] and Germanistik im digitalen Zeitalter [German Studies in the Digital Age]) to address the topic of digitalisation and the changing work, teaching, and research practices in the discipline. Engagement with open access publishing plays an important role in this regard. The working group Germanistik im digitalen Zeitalter has since been dissolved. The responsible persons at the Institut für Textkritik (Institute for Textual Criticism) frequently express criticism of open access. Open Access in Linguistics Find an introduction here. Open Access Journals As of November 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 14 entries under “ German literature ” and 4 entries under “ Germanic languages ” (not including Scandinavian languages). Important open access journals in German studies include: IASLonline Philologie im Netz (PhiN) Textpraxis. Digitales Journal für Philologie ( DOAJ ) Linguistik online ( DOAJ ) Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik (ZiG) literaturkritik.de Transit. A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World ( DOAJ ) Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaft (ZfdG) Also worthy of mention (although not listed in the DOAJ) are the journals Germanistische Mitteilungen and Zeitschrift für Wortbildung . What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality 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 166 titles under “ German literature ” , 217 titles under “ German language ” , 22 titles under “ German linguistics ” , and 171 titles under “ German studies ” . German-studies-related books published under a diamond open access model – that is, published open access without charging book processing charges (BPCs) – can also be found under German Studies on the Open Book Publishers website. Disciplinary Repositories The most important repositories in the field of German studies include GiNDok, which is operated by the Specialised Information Service (FID) German Studies and is part of the Virtual Library of German Studies – Germanistik im Netz (GiN) , and the Publication Server of the Leibniz Institute for German Language (IDS): GiNDok Publication server of the Leibniz Institute for German Language (IDS) The IDS publication server holds mainly publications from the area of German linguistics. GiNDok is used by individual researchers, publishers, institutions, and projects as a platform for publishing and self-archiving works from all sub-disciplines of German studies and almost all text genres. The Specialised Information Service (FID) German Studies also offers an e-journal hosting service based on the software application Open Journal Systems (OJS) . The following repositories of neighbouring disciplines are also of importance for German studies: CompaRe – the specialised repository for comparative literature AMAD – an interdisciplinary open access repository and scholarly blog for research on the Middle Ages PsyArxiv (especially in German linguistics) PhilPapers An overview of relevant repositories in the area of language and literature is also provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . 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) You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk if 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 (FID) German Studies has published a series of German-language tutorials that provide information on, among other things, the benefits of open access publishing , as well as listing in a compact and understandable way relevant practical information on topics such as long-term archiving and the citation of digital publications. References Further Reading Baillot, A. (2019). Digitales Publizieren und Open Access in der Germanistik. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbands , 66 (3), 237–247. https://doi.org/10.14220/mdge.2019.66.3.237 Eve, M. P. (2014). Open access and the humanities. Contexts, controversies and the future . Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316161012 Messerschmidt, N. (2011). Open Access in den Literaturwissenschaften. Ergebnisse qualitativer Interviews mit Wissenschaftlern der Deutschen Literatur . https://doi.org/10.18452/14147 Söllner, K. (2017). Geisteswissenschaften. In K. Söllner & B. Mittermaier (Eds.), Praxishandbuch Open Access (1st ed., pp. 247–253). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494068 Content editor of this page: Dr Volker Michel, Specialised Information Service (FID) German Studies . Last revision of content: Stefan Hartmann, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (as of November 2024)....

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. Perception of Open Access Survey on requirements and obstacles in selected humanities and social science disciplines: historical sciences and social work. Open Access in Historical Studies Historians are generally well disposed towards all forms of open access . The number of open access journals and digital collections in historical studies is steadily growing. In the case of monographs and edited collections , however, open access is progressing more slowly. Blogs are another form of publication used to disseminate scholarly information in this field. Besides publications, freely available historical sources, especially in the form of digital reproductions and machine-readable digital editions, are of great importance in historical studies. In addition, in the areas of digital humanities of relevance to historical studies, open access tools (e.g. for text mining) also play a role. Open Access Journals As of December 2025, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 1,582 open access journals under “ History ”. Important open access journals in historical studies include: Historische Zeitschrift ( https://doaj.org/toc/2196-680X ) Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte ( https://doaj.org/toc/2196-6842 ) Zeithistorische Forschungen ( https://doaj.org/toc/1612-6041 ) Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften ( https://doaj.org/toc/2510-1358 ) Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung. Beihefte Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung ( https://doaj.org/toc/2701-0449 ) Reviews also play an important role in historical studies. Many journals that are not open access nonetheless make their review sections freely available. Furthermore, there are a number of open access review platforms: Francia-Recensio (review journal of the German Historical Institute Paris) recensio.net (platform for reviews from journals in historical studies from all over Europe) recensio.regio (platform for reviews from historical journals with a regional focus) RIDE (review journal dedicated to digital editions and resources) sehepunkte (review journal) ​​​​​​​ What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality Video about the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Brinken, H. (2020). Finanzierung von Open-Access-Artikeln, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/49536 ( 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 December 2025, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 2,773 monographs and edited collections under “ History ”. The OAPEN Online Library also provides open access full texts on historical topics . As of December 2025, the publication platform OpenEdition provided 5,203 open access books under “ History” . Overall, there are a great variety of publishing models, whose conditions, costs, and technical implementation vary greatly. The German-language university presses in the consortium AG Universitätsverlage strongly support the open access movement, and many of them publish monographs and edited collections from the humanities. Within the framework of the open access transformation , scholarly publishers, for example Barbara Budrich , de Gruyter , transcript , Wachholtz , and Wallstein , increasingly offer authors – also from historical studies – the option of publishing their works open access. In the meantime, there are a number of open access publishers in the humanities that publish works exclusively in open access and do not levy book processing charges ( BPCs ). They include, for example, Language Science Press and Edition Topoi . The Edition Open Sources , which is hosted by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) , makes academic editions of primary sources available in open access. Stand-alone publications funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), including publications on historical topics, are made available in open access in the FWF-E-Book-Library . In the series Historisches Forum , themed issues with contributions and reports from historical studies are published in collaboration with Clio-online and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin . Disciplinary Repositories As of December 2025, the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) listed 26 repositories under “ History ”, and the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data.org listed 141 research data repositories with historical content. In addition, content and publishing opportunities of relevance to historical studies can be found in repositories, databases, and other reference systems of neighbouring disciplines. An important role in the provision of content is played by the Specialised Information Service (FID) for Historical Studies – historicum.net . The FID offers publishing, archiving, and search services. Other specialised information services also offer historians significant added value. Because of the multi-perspectivity of the field, diverse historical studies content can be found in numerous sub-disciplines. This content can be found in the respective disciplinary repositories by using appropriate search filters (e.g. “history”). Furthermore, many specialised information services offer advice on and services for open access publishing. What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here. Video about self-archiving rights Source: 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 if 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 Blogs In addition to the many stand-alone historical blogs by research institutions, associations, and individual researchers, there is a central platform for humanities and social science blogs, Hypotheses . Run by the open access service provider Open Edition , Hypotheses hosts several thousand blogs, including blogs on topics related to historical, archival, and auxiliary studies. As of December 2025, some 315 blogs from the German-speaking area were listed under “History & Archaeology”. Redaktionsblog , the blog by the editorial team of the German-language Hypotheses portal, de.hypotheses.org, serves to develop and disseminate scholarly information and to create a network. Subject Portals and Platforms Subject portals provide central points of entry for searches for open access publications, historical sources, and other materials. Clio-online is a subject portal for historical studies. It is involved in numerous projects, including Zeitgeschichte online – a subject portal for contemporary historians – and H-Soz-Kult. Clio-online publishes a series of German-language handbooks, Clio Guides , for a diverse range of historical studies specializations (covering digital methods and techniques, epochs, collections, and topics). The Clio Guides provide detailed guidance on relevant information resources, media, and search options. European History Online , which is provided by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) , publishes scholarly contributions on European history between 1450 and 1950. The contributions in German and English are linked to various materials. historicum.net , the Specialised Information Service for Historical Studies, provides a wide range of historical information and in particular the German Historical Bibliography . H-Net - Humanities and Social Sciences online is a network for academic communication in the humanities and social sciences. H-Soz-Kult , a moderated information and communication platform for historians, publishes academic news and alerts users to new releases. Databases Access to digitised resources (archivalia, library and museum collections) is essential for historical research. Key databases for historical studies are often operated by individual institutions that are crucial to the discipline or are merged in inter-institutional databases. Arachne is the central object database of the German Archaeological Institute (DAO) and the Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne at Cologne Digital Archaeology Laboratory (Arbeitsstelle für Digitale Archäologie). Archives Portal Europa provides inter alia 285 million individual documents from over 7,000 cultural institutions, sometimes with links to digital objects. The Deutsche Biographie provides information on over one million persons from the German-speaking area from the early Middle Ages to the present day. The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library) lists and links over 26 million objects from German cultural institutions (archives, libraries, museums). e-codices - Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland has set itself the goal of providing free access to all medieval manuscripts and a selection of modern manuscripts of Switzerland via a virtual library. On the portal e-rara.ch , digitised printed works from the 15th to the 20th centur y from various Swiss libraries are made publicly available free of charge. Europeana aggregates over 60 million objects (images, text materials, sound and video recordings, and 3D objects) from over 2,000 European cultural organisations. The Handschriftenportal (Manuscript Portal) serves as a central reference for the manuscripts in German collections, which it links to indexing data and digital reproductions. perspectivia.net , the publication platform of the Max Weber Foundation – German Humanities Institutes Abroad , provides free access to the full texts of journals, reviews, monographs, and conference proceedings (digital publications and retrodigitised works). The Regesta Imperii (RI) record in the form of German-language regesta (abstracts) all activities of the Roman-German kings and emperors from the Carolingians to Maximilian I (ca. 751–1519) and the popes in the early and high Middle Ages that are evidenced by charters or other historical sources. The RI project provides RI Opac – a freely accessible literature database for medieval research in the entire European language area – a regesta database , and publications. The Wörterbuch-Netz , a project of the Trier Center for Digital Humanities (Kompetenzzentrum für elektronische Erschließungs- und Publikationsverfahren in den Geisteswissenschaften) at the University of Trier, provides inter alia dictionaries of the older historical stages of the German language. Open Science in Historical Studies Across the wide spectrum of historical studies, key elements of open science exist in the form of digital sources, machine-readable editions, the use of open access tools for innovative digital research, and the publication of research results in open access. The Digital Historical Studies Working Group ( Arbeitsgemeinschaft Digitale Geschichtswissenschaft ) within the Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands e. V. (Association of German Historians, VHD) focuses on the potential of the digital humanities – or e-humanities – for historical studies and offers a forum for exchange with neighbouring disciplines working in history. Established in 2023, NFDI4Memory is a consortium within the German National Research Infrastructure, NFDI , for humanities disciplines working in history. It is led by the Leibniz Institute for European History (IEG) and also comprises 10 other co-applicants (including the VHD). The consortium promotes the quality-assured, standardised, and competent use of research data in the historical disciplines. The EU-funded project Social Sciences & Humanities Open Cloud (SSHOC) is an online market place that makes digital tools, services, training materials, and datasets in the social sciences and humanities freely available with the aim of promoting interdisciplinary research and collaboration in these disciplines. The European research infrastructure OPERAS promotes open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities in the European Research Area. OPERAS supports open science inter alia through projects such as TRIPLE (Transforming Research through Innovative Practices for Linked Interdisciplinary Exploration), which is dedicated to developing a multilingual and multicultural discovery service for the social sciences and humanities. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Practical Tip The legal opinion by Klimpel and Rack (2023, new edition of the 2015 version) explains how and under what conditions audiovisual materials may be used in research and teaching. Further Reading Daniel, S., Enderle, W., Hohls, R., Meyer, T., Prellwitz, J., Prinz, C., Schuhmann, A., & Schwandt, S. (Eds.). (2023–2025). Clio Guide. Ein Handbuch zu digitalen Ressourcen für die Geschichtswissenschaften (3rd expanded and updated edition ). Clio-online. https://guides.clio-online.de/ Content editor of this page: Eva Bunge, Deutsches Museum (Last updated: December 2025)....

What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access in Information Science Information science can generally be considered quite a small discipline in the German-speaking area. The Hochschulverband Informationswissenschaft (Higher Education Association for Information Science, HI) lists only 19 higher education institutions (HEIs) at which the subject is taught. Most of these HEIs are universities of applied sciences. The German-language publishing landscape in information science is thus modest in size. Although open access is considered an object of research in information science, it has not dominated publishing practice in the discipline to date. In January 2022, the HI published its Open Science Guideline , which calls for open access to texts, data, software, and methods. This was preceded by the discussion of a first draft of the guideline by members of the HI in autumn 2021. The HI signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities on 15 November 2021. Open Access Journals Journals of information science in the German-speaking area, for example Information – Wissenschaft & Praxis , the journal of the German Society for Information and Knowledge (DGI), are published in closed access . This is also true of journals further afield, for example Aslib Proceedings , the journal of the Association for Information Management (ASLIB), all journals of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (asis&t), and the Journal of Information Science . As of December 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 1,075 indexed journals under “ information science “ and 205 entries under the related search term “ library science “. With the spread of diamond open access journals, the subscribe-to-open model , and transformative agreements , the number of open access articles in information science has been increasing in recent years. Open access journals of relevance to information science include: Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis Big Data & Society College and Research Libraries Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics Information Research: An International Electronic Journal Information Journal of the Medical Library Association Library and Information Research Libreas: Library Ideas o-bib. Das offene Bibliotheksjournal Scientific Data Quantitative Science Studies 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 ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of December 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 79 titles under the subject “ library & information sciences ”, while the online library OAPEN listed 75 titles under “ library & information sciences ”. The proceedings of the International Symposium of Information Science (ISI), which is organised by the HI, are published in open access; the contributions can be found on the HI website . Disciplinary Repositories Important disciplinary repositories include E-LIS ( eprints in library & information science ) and arXiv, in whose category "Digital Libraries" many information science research publications can be found. As in many other disciplines, Zenodo is also increasingly being used in library and information science (LIS). In the German-speaking information science community, publications are often also self-archived and made available in the institutional open access repositories of the institutions at which researchers are working on the topic. What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk if 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 On the left-hand side you can find helpful services and tools to inform yourself about specific questions on Open Access. Literatur Further Reading Asef, E. (2021). Analyse von Open Access Publikationen in der Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft 2003 bis 2016. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. https://doi.org/10.18452/2302 Chen, M., & Du, Y. (2016). The status of open access library and information science journals in SSCI. The Electronic Library , 34 (5), 722–739. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-05-2015-0070 Sahoo, J., Birtia, T., & Mohanty, B. (2017). Open access journals in library and information science: A study on DOAJ. International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology , 7 (2), 116. https://doi.org/10.5958/2249-5576.2017.00008.5 Way, D. (2010). The open access availability of library and information science literature. College & Research Libraries , 71 (4), 302–309. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-38r1 Content editor of this page: Ulrich Herb, Saarland University and State Library (Last updated: January 2022)...

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 arguments and reservations here. Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving Find an introduction here. Perception of Open Access Survey on requirements and obstacles in the legal sciences. Open Access in Legal Scholarship The field of legal scholarship was comparatively late in recognising the relevance of open access for its own scientific practice. Admittedly, since the turn of the century, legal scholars have addressed the legal parameters of open access ( Spindler, 2006 ) and have examined in dissertations the significance of copyright’s exclusionary power for the supply of scientific information ( Krujatz, 2012 ) and in journal articles the backdoor to more open access offered by copyright law ( Radtke, 2022 ). There are even journals, such as RuZ – Recht und Zugang , that are specifically dedicated to legal issues relating to access to cultural heritage. And between 2015 and 2024, open access was the subject of legislation in six German federal states. However, when it comes to their own publishing practices, many legal scholars react to the topic of open access with a questioning look or a shrug of the shoulders. Others even reject it outright, which can lead to years of legal disputes . There are a variety of reasons for this – at least eight theses against open access in legal scholarship , which have since been called into question, are frequently advanced ( Hamann & Hürlimann, 2019 ). Open access is increasingly mandated by funders of legal science research and by universities (“top down”). In recent years, however, jurOA-Netzwerk , an informal network of legal scholars and librarians in the German-speaking area, has been working to promote open access in legal scholarship (“bottom up”). This network operates a mailing list that reports news on open access in legal scholarship. Since 2016, it has organised biennial conferences –the fifth of which took place in 2024 – that are documented on www.jurOA.de . By contrast, the established professional societies in the field of legal scholarship have so far been reluctant to participate in the open access debate. In its Criteria for the Assessment of Scholarly Performance in the Field of Private Law, the German Association of Teachers of Private Law (Zivilrechtslehrervereinigung) defines “successful reception” as a performance criterion and designates the publication venue as an indicator for scientific quality. However, this does not appear to be linked to any statements regarding the accessibility or reusability of publications. In the guidelines for good scientific practice issued by the German Association of Teachers of Private Law (Zivilrechtslehrervereinigung) and the German Association of Teachers of Public Law (Vereinigung der deutschen Staatsrechtsrechtslehrer) , there is no mention of open access. The Swiss Association of Jurists (Schweizerischer Juristenverein) has been pressured by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences guidelines for granting financial contributions to publications to take small steps in the direction of open access. Journals As of October 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 860 entries under “Law “. However, this number is exaggerated, as the disciplinary assignment of journals in DOAJ is often misleading, and, on the other hand, many online law journals – both from the German-speaking area (Hamann, 2016, para 24) and the USA (Severin et al., 2020, p.16) – are not indexed. Specifically, a study conducted in 2019 found that, as of 1 August of that year, three of the 11 law journals from the German-speaking area indexed in DOAJ were assigned to the wrong subject or geographical area, while a further 39 online law journals were not included at all ( Hamann, 2019, p. 87, Footnote 11, pp. 90–92 ). Journals are indexed in DOAJ on application only . The application procedure is very laborious, and even professional publishers – and especially many smaller (scholar-led) journals – are unable to meet all the criteria for inclusion. Of the law journals from the German-speaking area (DE/AT/CH/LI) that are indexed in DOAJ, only one – the International Journal of Language & Law – is also a member of the Free Journal Network of even more critically curated platinum open access journals. In the case of other journals, membership is often precluded because FJN requires that member journals include a title and abstract in English for each published article. The most established law journals from the German-speaking area that are indexed in DOAJ include: German Law Journal (since 2000, now published in the UK) Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History (online since 2002) Ancilla Iuris: Lagen des Rechts (since 2006) Göttingen Journal of International Law (since 2009) International Journal of Language & Law (since 2012) Recht in Afrika / Law in Africa / Droit en Afrique (online since 2014) sui-generis (since 2014) In addition, as of 31.12.2022, there were a further 10 open access law journals from the German-speaking area ( Hamann, 2023 , p. 416). This number increased by two in 2024, when the renowned journals RabelsZ ( The Rabel Journal of Comparative and International Private Law ) and ZGE ( Intellectual Property Journal ) were converted to open access within the framework of a pioneering subscribe-to-open (S2O) project at Mohr Siebeck . The further spread of this funding model, which was established only in 2017, means that further conversions of journals to open access can be expected. Besides genuinely open access journals, whose articles are published under an open licence (such as a Creative Commons CC BY or CC BY-SA licence), there are numerous online law journals that (a) distribute their content primarily on the Internet (i.e. in parallel with the print version) rather than just secondarily (i.e. some time after publication of the primary print version), and (b) make the full-text versions of their articles freely accessible, that is, accessible without special access data (Hamann 2019, p. 88). In Figure 1, each online law journal in the German-speaking area that existed as of 2022 is represented by a coloured square. Three groups can be distinguished: 16 genuinely open access journals, that is, journals whose articles were published under an open licence (top left, in orange, framed in red); 15 journals with more legally restrictive licences (top right, in grey); and 28 journals with traditional rights distribution (“free to read”, bottom half of the figure, in green). Figure 1. Licensing models of the online law journals in the German-speaking area as of 2022. Source (including explanation of the individual abbreviations): Hamann, 2023 : 418; CC BY 4.0 International . In addition to journals explicitly published under a Creative Commons (CC) or Digital Peer Publishing (DPP) licence, some of these journals describe themselves simply as open access (“OA”), whereas others either do not supply any information about the distribution of rights (“…”) or invoke the statutory distribution of rights (“UrhG” [German Copyright Act], in some cases using the © symbol). Figure 2. Year of establishment and country of origin of 47 online law journals from Germany (DE), Switzerland (CH), Austria (AU), and Liechtenstein (LI). Source: Hamann, 2019 : 94; CC BY 4.0 International As of 01.10.2024, the Zenodo collection “Daten zum Open Access in der deutschsprachigen Rechtswissenschaft” [Data on Open Access in German-Language Legal Scholarship], the most current list of online law journals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein, comprised a list of the 71 journals (incl. seven that have ceased publication). The oldest journals have been online since 1996; the years 2013/14 saw a particularly strong wave of start-ups (see Figure 2). Because the start-ups are offset by journals that ceased publication, it is possible to determine how many online journals were in existence each year since 1996. As can be seen in Figure 3, the development curve rose steeply up to 2022. However, it also flattened in the last years of that period, and it is unclear whether this indicates a trend. Figure 3. Number of online law journals in the German-speaking area in the period 1996–2022. Source: Hamann, 2023 : 417; CC BY 4.0 International Outside the German-speaking area, the law reviews published by university presses in the United States, which are usually freely available online, constitute a flourishing eco-system of open access scholarly texts. The origins of these law reviews go back a long way – for example, to the popular repository infrastructure of the Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress). Many of the student-edited journals in this eco-system still do not use any open access licences and can therefore be classified as gratis open access rather than libre open access . 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 ) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk of you have any questions about Open Access. Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) 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. Academic Blogs In addition to scholarly journals, academic blogs increasingly also serve as serious forums for legal scholarship. Apart from the personal blogs of individual pioneers such as Ulrich Noack (“ Unternehmensrechtliche Notizen ” 2003–2022), multi-author blogs in particular have become established, whose content is made available mostly under different variants of CC licenses. Important examples include: Rechtswirklichkeit – the blog of the Berliner Arbeitskreis Rechtswirklichkeit (ISSN 2366-3022), since 2000 Umweltrechtsblog – the blog of the Verein zur Förderung von Information für die breite Öffentlichkeit im Umweltrecht, since 2007 Verfassungsblog – On Matters Constitutional (ISSN 2366-7044), since 2009 HHR – Humanitarianism & Human Rights (ISSN 2199-0859), since 2013 JuWissBlog – the blog of the association Junge Wissenschaft im Öffentlichen Recht (ISSN 2567-2754), since 2013 Völkerrechtsblog – the blog of the Arbeitskreis junger Völkerrechtswissenschaftler (ISSN 2510-2567), since 2014 D’Kart – an antitrust blog of the Institute for Antitrust Law (IKartR) of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, since 2017 Rechts|Empirie – Legal Empirics in Europe, since 2019 These blogs are used not only for science communication but increasingly also as platforms for the primary publication of short contributions with highly topical content and at the same time high academic standards. Open Educational Resources (OER) Open access in the area of legal monographs is currently experiencing its greatest upswing in the context of open educational resources (OER) (see Chiofalo & Milas, 2023). In 2017, Deutsche Straftheorie , a textbook on German criminal theory, was published in open access via Refubium, the repository of Freie Universität Berlin. And in 2018, the first OER textbook on Swiss law, entitled Introduction to Swiss Law , was published by Carl Grossman Verlag. Since then, great progress in the dissemination and acceptance of OER has been made primarily by didactic projects in the area of public law. Particularly noteworthy here are (a) the collaboratively produced textbooks of the association for legal scholarship OpenRewi on numerous topics such as administrative law, constitutional law, state organisation law, fundamental rights, asylum law, international law, and freedom of information law; and (b) Smartbook Grundrechte , a hybrid textbook with 67 instructional videos, which is co-authored by Emanuel V. Towfigh, professor of public law at EBS Law School, and Alexander Gleixner and was published in 2022 by Nomos Verlag. Monographs The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the OAPEN Library list law books in various subject classifications, which cannot be searched collectively. These include (as of April 2024 for DOAB and as of October 2024 for OAPEN): law (2,582 titles in the DOAB , 1,416 titles in OAPEN ) jurisprudence (235 titles in the DOAB , 229 in OAPEN ) legal (263 titles in the DOAB , 218 in OAPEN ) courts (3 titles in the DOAB , 19 in OAPEN ) Thus, across these categories, the two databases together list almost 5,000 legal books (multiple counts and overlooked categories cannot be ruled out). Because of the disparate categorisation, a more exact breakdown by publisher, year of publication, etc. would require a more in-depth empirical study. The pioneers of open access monographs in the field of legal scholarship were not the established scholarly publishers but rather private individuals and societal initiatives. They include, for example, the Mannheim solicitor Thomas Fuchs, whose essays and volumes are published on DeLegibus.com (since 1998); the online portal jurawelt.com with the law series TENEA (115 monographs 2002–2008); and Mark Schweizer, who self-published his dissertation online in 2005 (he later went on to become president of the Swiss Federal Patent Court). The first dedicated open access law publishers – at least in the German-speaking area – were probably Carl Grossmann Verlag in Germany (since 2016) and sui generis Verlag in Switzerland (since 2019). In 2024, Carl Grossmann Verlag published what was likely the first open access commentary in German jurisprudence ( Boehm et al., 2024 ), and between 2018 and October 2024, sui generis Verlag published 55 monographs . The Verein für Recht und Digitalisierung e.V. (VRD) has been promoting open access since 2021, with two dedicated open access series under the brand digital|recht ( Jüngels, 2023 ) – namely the “Schriften zum Immaterialgüter-, IT-, Medien-, Daten- und Wettbewerbsrecht” ( 20 volumes as of October 2024) and “Staat und digitale Gesellschaft” ( 6 volumes as of October 2024). After the open access model was also discovered by established publishing houses, the university press Universitätsverlag Göttingen was one of the earliest and most committed publishers with a legal publishing programme. Another was Nomos-Verlag in Baden-Baden; as of October 2024, the Nomos eLibrary listed 275 open access books. More conservative publishers also have open access monographs in their portfolios. They include, for example, Mohr Siebeck, with 204 titles , and Duncker & Humblot, with 74 titles (as of October 2024). Verlag C. H. Beck, the dominant publisher of German-language law books, has so far limited itself to making a digital version of the renowned print commentary “ Grundgesetz für jeden ” (Basic Law for Everyone) freely available online in 2024 – albeit not under an open licence. What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Disciplin­ary Reposi­tories Disciplinary repositories have played a limited role in the field of legal scholarship to date. The few law repositories in existence include: 2 Dok (pronounced "Inter-Zwei-Dok"): This open access law repository of the Specialised Information Service for International and Interdisciplinary Legal Research (Fachinformationsdienst für internationale und interdisziplinäre Rechtsforschung) at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is open to all legal scholars. Besides scholarly publications and research data , it also archives blog posts . SSOAR (Social Science Open Access Repository) : This full-text server maintained and operated by GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences serves five “communities”, including Jurisprudence and Administrative Sciences with over 3,000 archived documents (as of October 2024). LawArXiv : Established with the intention of creating an open access community for legal scholarship, this preprint repository was closed after accepting 1,390 documents. It no longer accepts new submissions, and the number of archived documents has since shrunk to 160. Fachrepositorium zum Schweizer Recht [Disciplinary repository on Swiss law]: Run by a non-profit association in Switzerland and supported by the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich, Repositorium.ch offers free accessibility, a semantic search functionality, and an open API. However, it does not disclose the number of archived media. Because disciplinary repositories of legal scholarship are few and far between, general repositories such as Zenodo are often used for legal research data and publications. The Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) provides an overview of relevant 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 ) References Boehm, F., Euler, E., Klimpel, P., Rack, F., & Weitzmann, J. (2024). Creative Commons Public License (CCPL) – Kommentar und Handbuch für die Rechtspraxis . Carl Grossmann Verlag. https://openrewi.org/creative-commons-public-license-ccpl Chiofalo, V., Milas M. (2023). Die geschlossene Gesellschaft der Rechtswissenschaft: Chancen und Grenzen von Open Educational Resources, ZDRW – Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Rechtswissenschaft 10 , 168–187. https://doi.org/10.5771/2196-7261-2023-2 Hamann, H. (2016). Freier Zugang zur juristischen Fachliteratur im Spiegel der Open-Science-Bewegung. sui generis – die juristische Open-Access-Zeitschrift , 96–104. https://doi.org/10.21257/sg.28 Hamann, H. (2019). Lizenzmodelle juristischer Internetzeitschriften: Zur vernachlässigten normativen Dimension des "Open Access". Sonderheft der RW – Zeitschrift für rechtswissenschaftliche Forschung , 85–111. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748903659-91 Hamann, H. (2023). Urheberrecht als Ermöglichungsinfrastruktur für Open-Access-Publikationen? ZUM – Zeitschrift für Urheber- und Medienrecht 67 , 410–419. https://hanjo.1hamann.de/research/zum2023-410.pdf Hamann, H., & Hürlimann, D. (2019). Open Access bei der Veröffentlichung rechtswissenschaftlicher Fachliteratur – was soll das? Sonderheft der RW – Zeitschrift für rechtswissenschaftliche Forschung, 3–30. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748903659-9 Krujatz, S. (2012). Open Access. Der offene Zugang zu wissenschaftlichen Informationen und die ökonomische Bedeutung urheberrechtlicher Ausschlussmacht für die wissenschaftliche Informationsversorgung . Mohr Siebeck. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/buch/open-access-9783161519987 Radtke, T. (2022), Die Hintertür zu mehr Open Access? GRUR – Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht 124 , 1562–1568. https://radtke.cc/publikationen/GRUR2022,1562.pdf Severin, A., Egger, M., Eve, M. P., & Hürlimann, D. (2020). Discipline-specific open access publishing practices and barriers to change: An evidence-based review. F1000Research . https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.17328.2 Spindler, G. (Ed.) (2006). Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen von Open Access-Publikationen . Universitätsverlag Göttingen. https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2006-115 Further Reading Contributions by Rux, J., Hamann, H., Lauber-Rönsberg, A., & Hotz, T. (2023). In: IUM (Ed.), Open Access und das Urheberrecht – Eine komplizierte Beziehung? Symposium of the Institut für Urheber- und Medienrecht on 10.2.2023 in Munich. ZUM – Zeitschrift für Urheber- und Medienrecht 67 [Special Issue], 405–427 Fischer, G. (2022). Im Ringen um Erkenntnis und Anerkennung: Wie Rechtswissenschaftler*innen das eigene akademische Publizieren im Zuge von Open Access sehen. RuZ – Recht und Zugang 3 , 19–49. https://doi.org/10.5771/2699-1284-2022-1-19 Euler, E. (2020). Open Access in der Wissenschaft und die Realitäten des Rechts. RuZ – Recht und Zugang 1 , 56–82. https://doi.org/10.5771/2699-1284-2020-1-56 Hamann, H., & Hürlimann, D. (Eds.). (2019). Open Access in der Rechtswissenschaft, Sonderheft der RW – Zeitschrift für rechtswissenschaftliche Forschung 2019 . https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748903659 Sandberger, G. (2017). Die Zukunft wissenschaftlichen Publizierens. Open Access und Wissenschaftsschranke. Anmerkungen zu den Kontroversen über die Weiterentwicklung des Urheberrechts. OdW – Ordnung der Wissenschaft , 2 , 75–96. https://ordnungderwissenschaft.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/11_2017_02_sandberger_die-zukunft-des-wissenschaftlichen-publizierens_odw.pdf Symposium: Open Access Publishing and the Future of Legal Scholarship (2006). Lewis & Clark Law Review , 10(4), 733–924. https://law.lclark.edu/law_reviews/lewis_and_clark_law_review/past_issues/volume_10/number_4.php van Dijck, G. (2016). Legal research when relying on open access: A primer. Law and Method . https://doi.org/10.5553/REM/.00001 Content editor of this page: Prof. Dr Dr Hanjo Hamann, EBS Universität for Business and Law (Last updated: October 2024)....

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 Medicine and Life Sciences In medicine and the life sciences, open access is particularly supported by mandates from research funders such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) , the Wellcome Trust , and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . Calls for free access to the results of research in medicine and the life sciences point to the direct link between open access and public health, especially in the Global South. Consequently, the World Health Organization (WHO) is also committed to promoting open access to the results of medical research; it operates IRIS , a repository for the sharing of health-related information. Some research funders also provide publishing platforms on which the results of the research that they fund can be published. Examples of such platforms include Wellcome Open Research and Gates Open Research . To comply with funding requirements, the published results of NIH-funded research must be made accessible on PubMed Central (PMC) , the disciplinary repository for biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the NIH National Library of Medicine. Many of the open access journals in the life sciences that were founded in the 2010s are now well established. Journals such as PeerJ , BMJ Open , Cell Reports , and eLife focus exclusively on this domain. In addition, since around 2016, preprint servers have increasingly played a role in making the results of research in medicine and the life sciences available in open access at an early stage. They include, for example, bioRxiv and medRxiv , which have a life science focus (further preprint servers can be found in the preprint server directory provided by ASAPbio). During the COVID-19 pandemic, preprints in medicine gained increased importance for the rapid dissemination of research results. However, criticism of the publication of preprints was also voiced, because results were available before undergoing quality control through peer review and the media picked up these unreviewed results and treated them as scientific facts The infiltration of the state of the art in medicine and the life sciences by predatory publishing – especially journal hijacking (Hegedűs et al., 2024), indexjacking (Abalkina, 2024), and paper mills (Abalkina, 2023) – is proving increasingly problematic. According to estimates, around 3% of the articles published in medicine and the life sciences originate from paper mills (Van Noorden, 2023). Due to these phenomena, it is becoming more and more difficult to filter out scientifically valid results for review articles and evidence syntheses. As a result, medical treatments may become ineffective, or even dangerous (Chambers, 2024). Thus, in view of the existence of predatory publishing and hijacked journals, particular prudence is necessary. If you are unsure about the reliability of a journal, it is advisable to consult checklists such as Think . Check . Submit or to check whether the journal may have been hijacked. When it comes to paper mills, editors and publishers in particular must be vigilant to avoid being overrun by mass submissions of inferior quality. At the publisher level, there are now several initiatives such as United2Act and STM Integrity Hub that are dedicated to combatting the problem and filtering out such submissions by technical means even before the peer-review stage. Open Access Journals As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 4,462 indexed journals under the subject category "Medicine" alone, of which over 581 had been awarded the DOAJ Seal . The journal list on the PubMed Central platform also offers search possibilities. Versions of articles from certain journals are available free of charge immediately upon publication or after an embargo period or are available in open access under a Creative Commons licence. The Electronic Journals Library (EZB) provides information on the open access status of journals in medicine and the life sciences. What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality 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 over 11,399 titles under the search string "Life Science" OR Medicine , and the OAPEN Library listed 332 titles under the search term " medical ". As scholarly communication in medicine and the life sciences takes place for the most part via journal publications, open access books are not at the forefront of discussion in this domain. Larger publishers with a medical or life science focus and a portfolio of open access journals usually also offer open access book programmes in which books can be published in open access against payment of a book processing charge (BPC) . While most programmes are still strongly geared towards printed books, a small number of initiatives promote purely electronic implementation, particularly with a view to exploiting the advantages of a digital environment and enhancing publications with multi-media content such as videos or audio files (Bardi & Manghi, 2014; Breure et al., 2011) or with links to further materials. They include, for example, the Living Handbooks programme offered by ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences , which focuses particularly on handbooks. Disciplinary Repositories The leading repositories in medicine and the life sciences include: PubMed Central , full-text archive at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine Europe PMC , a full-text platform funded by an alliance of 27 funders of biomedical research PUBLISSO Disciplinary Repository for Life Sciences provided by ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences PubMed Central is by far the most important repository in medicine and the life sciences. It is a database of choice for literature searches, and thus plays a key role in ensuring the visibility of journals, institutions, and authors in the life science disciplines. As an offering from Germany, the PUBLISSO Disciplinary Repository for Life Sciences provided by ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences offers researchers the possibility of publishing or self-archiving documents, articles, and research data. In addition, it offers institutions in the fields of medicine, healthcare, and food, environmental, and agricultural sciences that do not have their own repositories the possibility of cohesively presenting their publications on their own institute pages. An overview of relevant repositories is provided by the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find legal information on open access here. 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. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Science in Medicine and Life Sciences Because of the immense importance of medical and life science information for society, there are numerous initiatives to promote the opening of the research cycle in this domain, and especially to facilitate access to and the reuse of research data . Information on research data in medicine and the life sciences can also be found under Lebenswissenschaften "on the German-language information portal on research data management Forschungsdaten.info . Many journals in medicine and the life sciences require that, when submitting a manuscript, authors provide a data availability statement indicating where the research data underlying the results can be found – also, and especially, so that these data can be included in the peer review. In addition, to improve the transparency and reproducibility of research, journals are increasingly insisting that these data – as well as code, protocols, and other materials – are adequately described. The journals of the Nature Portfolio are one example of this. In its code of conduct, “ Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice ”, the German Research Foundation (DFG) also advocates that researchers should wherever possible document and make available their research data in accordance with the FAIR Principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016). Within the framework of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) , numerous consortia are being funded that aim to ensure access to and the sharing of data – also, and especially, personal and sensitive data – by developing appropriate infrastructure and standards. At the same time, the accessibility and sharing of studies are also to be improved. One example is the Study Hub of the NFDI4 Health Consortium. In the life sciences, increasing use is being made of electronic lab notebooks, the digital variant of traditional hard-copy lab notebooks. The advantage here is that the data are collected directly in digital form and can thus be integrated more easily into the research data management system, thereby enabling them to be made available at a later date through improved documentation. In addition, the digital environment offers further advantages, such as time stamps, linking, connection to other applications and analysis tools, search and filter functions, functionalities for collaborative work, and reuse of templates, etc. Furthermore, electronic lab notebooks provide some protection against data loss, for example through illegible handwriting or loss. ZB MED – Leibniz Information Centre for Life Sciences has compiled information to assist in the selection of electronic lab notebooks , as well as a guide with best practice examples. Open Access in Biology Find an introduction here. References Abalkina, A. (2023). Publication and collaboration anomalies in academic papers originating from a paper mill: Evidence from a Russia-based paper mill. Learned Publishing , 36 (4), 689–702. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1574 Abalkina, A. (2024). Challenges posed by hijacked journals in Scopus. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 75 (4), 395–422. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24855 Bardi, A., & Manghi, P. (2014). Enhanced publications: Data models and information systems. LIBER Quarterly, 23 (4), 240–273. https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.8445 Breure, L., Voorbij, H., & Hoogerwerf, M. (2011). Rich Internet publications: "Show what you tell." Journal of Digital Information , 12 (1). https://journals.tdl.org/jodi/index.php/jodi/article/view/1606 Chambers, H. (2024). Unmasking the fraud: How paper mills are undermining scientific publishing. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology , 66 (10), 1262–1263. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15997 Hegedűs, M., Dadkhah, M., & Dávid, L. D. (2024). Masquerade of authority: Hijacked journals are gaining more credibility than original ones. Diagnosis , 11 (3), 235–239. https://doi.org/10.1515/dx-2024-0082 Van Noorden, R. (2023). How big is science’s fake-paper problem? Nature , 623 (7987), 466–467. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03464-x Wilkinson, M. D., Dumontier, M., Aalbersberg, I. J., Appleton, G., Axton, M., Baak, A., Blomberg, N., Boiten, J.-W., Santos, L. B. da S., Bourne, P. E., Bouwman, J., Brookes, A. J., Clark, T., Crosas, M., Dillo, I., Dumon, O., Edmunds, S., Evelo, C. T., Finkers, R., … Mons, B. (2016). The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data , 3 (1), 160018. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18 Content editor of this page: Dr Jasmin Schmitz, ZB MED – Leibniz Information Centre for Life Sciences (Last updated: April 2025)....

What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access: Pros and Cons Find an introduction here. Open Access in Linguistics The topic of Open Access has been receiving increasing amounts of attention in linguistics since around 2012. Two particularly significant events that played a role in this were the founding of Language Science Press by German linguists Stefan Müller and Martin Haspelmath in 2014 and the emergence of the journal Glossa , catalysed by a conflict between the editorial board of the journal Lingua and its publisher, Elsevier , in 2016. The eLanguage platform of the Linguistic Society of America, founded in 2006 by Stephen R. Anderson and Dieter Stein, is an important precursor to these two initiatives. Unfortunately, this platform is no longer active, although several journals that used to be part of eLanguage – such as Semantics & Pragmatics , Dialogue & Discourse and Journal of Historical Syntax – continue to enjoy a flourishing existence. All three of these journals are scholar-led initiatives . Established publishers are reacting to these developments, slowly but inexorably. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft – the journal of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) – has been open access since 2017. From 2025, it will be available in diamond open access from PubliKon at the University of Konstanz. Open Access Journals As of November 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed 906 indexed journals under “ linguistics ”, most of which are diamond open access – that is, they do not charge fees to either authors or readers. A further list of open access linguistics journals can be found in the oaling blog . Important open access linguistics journals include: Constructions Glossa DOAJ Glossa Psycholinguistics Semantics & Pragmatics DOAJ Linguistik Online DOAJ Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft DOAJ Biolinguistics DOAJ Open Linguistics DOAJ Dialogue & Discourse DOAJ Journal of Historical Syntax DOAJ Syntactic Theory and Research In addition, there are many journals dedicated to the linguistic investigation of particular languages or language families, such as Studies in African Linguistics , Finno-Ugric Languages and Linguistics , Indo-European Linguistics , and Isogloss . 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 ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of November 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 4,282 titles under “ linguistics ”, and the online library OAPEN listed 16,187 titles under “ linguistics ”. The key player in the landscape of open access books in linguistics is Language Science Press , a publisher whose costs are borne primarily by a consortium of university libraries. This enables them to avoid charging book processing charges (BPCs) entirely. However, in addition, virtually all presses that regularly publish linguistics books now offer the opportunity to publish open access upon payment of a BPC. It is increasingly common for monographs and edited volumes to be published in open access. As regards handbooks, MIT Press publishes a series of Open Handbooks in Linguistics . Open access textbooks , too, are becoming increasingly common . Disciplinary Repositories The most important repositories in linguistics include LingBuzz (for general linguistics) and semanticsarchive.net (for the core areas semantics and pragmatics). Depending on authors’ disciplinary identities, linguistics papers can sometimes also be found at Humanities Commons (CORE) or arXiv.org . The Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) also provides an overview of relevant repositories. What are Repositories? 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 Offerings The oaling blog provides a list of open access journals as well as a roundup of developments in the area of open access in linguistics. LingOA (Linguistics in Open Access) functions as an umbrella organisation for open access journals; its aim is to transform established subscription-based journals to open access. Open access book reviews are regularly published on Linguist List . Open Science in Linguistics Linguistics researchers work with different types of data, from experimental findings to text corpora. Here, the principles of openness and transparency have become increasingly important in recent years. Berez-Kroeker et al. (2022) published an Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management . Linguistic research data and software can be deposited in the Tromsø Repository of Language and Linguistics (TROLLing). Access to text and language corpora plays a significant role in linguistics – especially in corpus and computational linguistics. The dominant way in which corpora are provided is to set up a web-based query option (either freely accessible, usable free of charge after registration, or not freely accessible). This makes optimal use of the structure and annotation of the corpora and requires neither download nor software installation. However, as a rule, the corpora and tools themselves cannot be downloaded and reused for further dissemination or analysis. This is often due to copyright reasons. Examples include the COSMAS corpora of the IDS (Institute for the German Language) in Mannheim, Varitext (French, University of Cologne), and the DWDS (Digital Dictionary of the German Language) , where a core corpus ( Kerncorpus ) can be freely downloaded. By contrast, LAUDATIO (Humboldt Universität Berlin), which focuses on corpora of historical language stages, practises an open access model. The European initiative LRE Map covers a large number of linguistic resources (data, tools, guidelines). In linguistics, the open source idea plays an increasingly important role insofar as some tools are offered under open licences, and the standardisation and interoperability of data are taken into account. Open Text Collections , an initiative funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), aims to make text collections for descriptive linguistics available in a sustainable and open way. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Berez-Kroeker, A. L., McDonnell, B., Koller, E., & Collister, L. B. (2022). The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management . The MIT Press. Further Reading Haspelmath, M. (2013). Why open-access publication should be nonprofit – a view from the field of theoretical language science. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience , 7 (57). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00057 Kleineberg, M., & Kaden, B. (2017). Open Humanities? ExpertInnenmeinungen über Open Access in den Geisteswissenschaften. LIBREAS. Library Ideas , 32 . https://libreas.eu/ausgabe32/kleineberg/ Müller, S. (2012). A personal note on open access in linguistics. Journal of Language Modelling , 0 (1), 9–39. https://doi.org/10.15398/jlm.v0i1.52 Content editors of this page: Prof. Dr. George Walkden , Universität Konstanz, and Prof. Dr. Christof Schöch, Universität Trier (Last updated: November 2024)....

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)....