Open Access Publishing

Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences supports the idea of Open Access and has therefore signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. With its Open Access Resolution, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences encourages its members to make publications accessible in the spirit of Open Access.

 

Possible paths to open access publication

The golden road of Open Access publishing is the first publication of a scientific work in a pure Open Access journal, as an Open Access monograph or as a contribution to an Open Access collective work or conference volume. Just like a traditional publication in closed access, such a publication goes through a quality assurance process with peer or editorial review and is thus scientifically recognised. The immediate free availability of a golden OA publication often has a favourable effect on reach, perception, visibility and citation frequency. The costs for such publications, so-called Article Processing Charges (APC), are borne by the authors. Members of the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences can receive support from the university's publication fund.

Recommended procedure
Check which peer-reviewed Open Access journals are suitable for your publication and, if applicable, what the costs are. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) can help here. Check the quality of the journal via the Quality Open Access Marker (QOAM). The library will support you in this step.

Submit your publication to the journal. If you meet the relevant requirements, the publication costs can be reimbursed by the OpenAccess Fund of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

The green road to open access publishing - also known as self-archiving - is the additional publication of an article published by a publisher or journal on a repository. This can be done either simultaneously or subject to an embargo period and is possible for preprints and postprints. A preprint has not yet gone through the review process and is not yet recommended for publication. It is the article in its manuscript version submitted to a journal or publisher. In contrast, a postprint has completed the review process and has been accepted for publication. Postprints come in two forms. On the one hand, a postprint can be completely identical to the version published in the journal or with the publisher; on the other hand, it can be the accepted author's version, which differs in layout, formatting and pagination from the publisher's version. Publishers and journals have very different rules on self-archiving.

Recommended procedure
Find out whether the journal to which you want to submit your publication allows parallel publication or self-archiving on an institutional repository. This is increasingly already the case, but is usually subject to special conditions (e.g. embargo period, copyright notice). The following databases provide information on this step:

OA Policies DFG-funded project with a German language interface to the Sherpa project database.
SherpaRomeo database Overview of OA policies of publishers and the journals they publish
SherpaJuliet database Overview of OA policies of research funders (e.g. DFG)
Submit your publication to the journal.

If your paper has been accepted by the journal, make sure that you are allowed to self-archive when concluding the author contract. 

To select a suitable repository, you can use the Directory of Open Access Repositories (openDOAR).
 

Transformation Agreements

DEAL

The Alliance of German Science Organisations negotiates the nationwide licence agreements with the publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley with the declared aim of offering participating institutions permanent access to the full texts of all articles from the respective publishers' journals as well as the option of open access publishing.

DEAL contracts with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier

The first DEAL agreement was concluded with the publisher Wiley at the beginning of 2019 and the second with Springer Nature at the beginning of 2020. The DEAL contract with Elsevier came into force on 1 January 2024. Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences has signed all contracts. This results in the following benefits for members of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

Read-only access to many of the publishers' journals
Possibility of free open access publishing in most of the publishers' journals
increased visibility
easier reusability due to the protection of authors' rights
less administrative effort for authors, as the library takes over the costs and processing
Further information can be found at www.projekt-deal.de and on the publishers' websites.

Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences has further transformation agreements with the following publishers: 

Please contact the library directly for further information.