Open Access
Open Access means free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone. The findings of scientific endeavour shall not be bound to financial, technical or legal constraints.
Open Access in 60 seconds
Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), Helene Brinken, Jonas Hauss, Jessika Rücknagel (ORCID 000-0001-8824-8390)
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5446/50832, License: CC BY 3.0 DE
Benefits of Open Access
Authors
Open Access perfectly meets the requirements of scientific authors. For researchers the free publication of their work means: More readers, more potential collaborators, more citations for their work, and ultimately more recognition.
Readers
Unrestricted access to current scientific studies enables people to participate in the growing body of knowledge, irrespective of their location or financial resources.
Society
Publicly funded research is a common goods. Open Access ensures the possibility for everyone to reflect and discuss the theories and findings of the scientific enterprise, thus strengthening overall societal justice and acceptance of science and its methods in the society.
Funding of publications
ASH Berlin offers you a wide range of financial support for Open Access publishing. The only pre-requisite are your status as "corresponding author" and the ASH "affiliation".
If you are considering to publish Open Access in a scientific journal, please contact the library in advance to clarify whether the costs will be covered: openaccess@ ash-berlin.eu
Publication fund
The Open Access Publication of research results in scientific journals is often linked to costs for authors (in form of Article Processing Charges). ASH Berlin offers a publication fund to support researchers in financing their publications. The fund will be made available by the ASH library and by the DFG through the "Open Access Publication Funding" program (2022-2024).
Articles are eligible for funding if:
- they are the result of a research work
- they are accessible free of charge and without technical restrictions on the internet from the moment of their publication
- they are published in a Open-Access-only journal and can demonstrate a recognized scientific quality assurance process
- do not exceed the maximum funding limit of 2000 Euro gross. A combination with other funds is possible
- they are published under a Creative Common License
- refer to funding from the Publication Fund and the DFG in an appropriate place.
Authorized applicants
- are employed at the ASH Berlin and are responsible for the publication fees as "Corresponding authors"
- they have a ORCID to clearly assign a scientific work to its author
- can prove to the library that the use of other fundings was checked. Fundings from project budgets must be given priority
- agree that the aliceOpen version will be made available at the same time as the publication
- refer to the their affiliation with ASH Berlin in their work
Please send your funding application to the following address: openaccess@ ash-berlin.eu
Please provide the name of the scientific journal and the amount of APC. If your publication is the result of a third-party research project, please provide the project title and the funding body.
KOALA
The KOALA project (Building Consortial Open Access Solutions) is establishing consortial solutions for financing open access. The joint financing of open access journals and book series by academic libraries represents an alternative to the dominant APC model, in which articles are financed individually by authors or their institutions.
ASH Berlin participates in the financing of the “Social Sciences” journal package. Authors can publish free of charge in the included journals. At the same time, reading access is also free of charge. The following peer-reviewed journals are included in the package:
Transformative agreements
For members of the ASH Berlin the open access publication costs in hybrid subscription journals and in some cases also in gold open access journals are covered by the transformative agreements of the university.
In gold open access journals (also fully open access journals) all articles are published in Open Access as soon as they appear. Often a publication fee (APC) is charged for each article.
Hybrid journals, on the other hand, are subscription journals in which only individual articles are published in Open Access against payment of an APC, while the other articles remain behind the paywall. This model has the disadvantage that an institution pays the publisher twice: the subscription fee and the APCs. Transformative agreements (also called Publish & read contracts) prevent double payment.
ASH Berlin concluded the following transformative agreements:
- no additional costs for publishing open access in hybrid journals: marked as hybrid in column H of the Titelliste
- 20% off the APC in gold open access journals: marked as Fully Open Access in column H of the Titelliste
- Reading rights in over 2800 journals back to 1997
Here you can find here more information about the agreement.
- no additional costs for publishing open access in hybrid journals: marked as hybrid in column E of the Titelliste
- 20% off the APC in gold open access journals
- Reading rights in 218 journals of the "Health Sciences" package: column F of the Titelliste
Publication server AliceOpen
ASH Berlin provides services and infrastructure to enable the university members to benefit from the numerous advantages of Open Access. The library operates aliceOpen, the institutional repository and participates in the transformative DEAL contract with Springer Nature. We strive to implement further services for scholars and students in the future.
Publish with aliceOpen
aliceOpen is the institutional repository of ASH Berlin. Members of the university are eligible to publish their documents and make it openly available to the scientific community and general public. Besides established formats like monographs and research papers aliceOpen welcomes grey literature with a strong practical approach. Hosted content is found by search engines and catalogues and is stored in a longterm-archive. The library staff supports you with guidance on every step of the publication process. Please don´t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Research funding organisations call for Open Access
A growing number of national and international funders encourage researchers to publish their work Open Access. Some even adopted an Open Access mandate in their regulations to ensure that publications based on funded projects is free to read and share by others. Some funders joined in the coalition S in an attempt to align their Open Access policies. The platform open-access.net outlines the requirements of most of the research funding organisations.
Further information
Collection of different topics adressing the Open Access universe. The webpage offers also specific information concerning certain disciplines like educational science and gender research.
Independent database indexing Open Access journals with high scientific quality standards
Directory of peer reviewed Open Access books
Collection of terms of use of scientific publishers regarding possibilities of legal self-archiving