Publishing open access articles
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Making academic knowledge and research findings freely available is the core focus of open access and an integral component of open science. There are various options for publishing your work as an open access article:
- You can publish an article in a purely open access journal: gold open access. The articles in these journals are available free of charge and ideally published with an open licence. You can find additional information and tips on researching open access journals further down this page under the individual types of publications. As part of publisher agreements, memberships and HAW Hamburg's participation in the DEAL project, HAW Hamburg members can receive attractive special rates to publish in purely open access journals. You can find more information on the Publisher offers page.
- Some publishers offer the option of publishing individual open access articles in subscription-based closed access journals. This is generally termed 'hybrid open access'. As a result of HAW Hamburg's participation in the DEAL project, HAW Hamburg members can publish open access articles at no cost in almost all subscription-based journals from Springer Nature and Wiley.Additional information about the DEAL project
- Increasingly, repositories and pre-print servers are becoming established publication outlets for open access publications. The Covid-19 pandemic in particular has highlighted the importance of these platforms. A selection of relevant repositories is listed below. Generally, it is recommended that such platforms be used for the secondary or 'parallel' publication of your articles (green open access). This is also possible using REPOSIT, HAW Hamburg's institutional repository. In many cases the publisher policies permit this type of self-archiving. Through this practice you make your article available to a broad readership and increase the visibility and citability of your research. Additional information about 'secondary publications'
Before submitting a publication, you should be sure to read the notes on fake journals/predatory publishing in order to ensure that your article is published by a reputable publisher or publishing outlet.
Outlets for open access publications
Publishers
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Numerous publishers have now specialised in open access publishing and only publish open access journals. The following are among the largest publishers, which in some cases publish more than two hundred journals across a range of disciplines:
The classical, mostly subscription-based publishers such as Elsevier, Springer Nature or Wiley also have numerous open access journals in their portfolios:
- Elsevier - www.elsevier.com/open-access/open-access-journals
- Springer Nature - https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/journals-books/journals
- Wiley - https://authorservices.wiley.com/open-research/open-access/browse-journals.html
As part of publisher agreements, memberships and HAW Hamburg's participation in the DEAL project, HAW Hamburg members can receive attractive special rates to publish in purely open access journals from Hogrefe, SAGE, Springer Nature and Wiley.Overview of special rates
Open access journals and monographs
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If you would like to research suitable open access journals or monographs for your publication, various websites provide information on the respective peer-review processes, publication fees and publisher policies. These include the following:
- The most well-known and comprehensive tool for identifying suitable specialist journals is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
- Quality Open Access Market (QOAM) also provides important information as well as reports and ratings for individual journals from authors around the world (e.g. regarding the review and production processes).
- Have you prepared a manuscript that you want to publish as an open access article in a specialist journal but don't know exactly which journal or how much it will cost?
The oa.finder can help you! The tool is currently under development and will also be expanded to include a search for publishers offering open access books. - The Directory of Open Access Books DOAB functions similarly to the DOAJ. It is possible to search for open access monographs using DOAB.
Mega-journals
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Mega-journals are a specific development that has come about against the backdrop of the changing conditions for publication as part of the digitalisation process. They are conceptualised as interdisciplinary, open access in principle, and online only. They fulfil classical standards such as peer review. However, they generally have a higher acceptance rate for articles than established discipline-specific journals because they leave the decision regarding the importance of articles more strongly in the hands of readers and select contributions based on their fundamental academic credibility only. Such mega-journals are now increasingly being initiated by specialist associations and large academic publishers. The following are among the most well-known:
Repositories and pre-print servers
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Alongside classical publication outlets such as specialist journals, repositories and pre-print servers have now become established in various disciplines as platforms for the rapid distribution of academic findings and the accompanying data. What is important is that only a limited, mostly formal quality-control process is required for initial publication on these document servers. A classical peer-review process is generally replaced with in-depth discussion of the article among peers.
Repositories also serve as outlets for the secondary publication (green open access) of closed access articles, which is made possible as part of publisher agreements and secondary publication rights. This makes it possible to provide worldwide access in manuscript form to articles that would otherwise only be accessible via a publisher's paywall.
Well-known discipline-specific repositories:
- Publisso (Life Sciences)
- Data Archive for the Social Sciences
- Social Science Open Access Repository
- EconStor (Economics and Business Studies)
- peDocs (Educational Sciences)
Pre-print servers:
- arXiv (Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science)
- bioRxiv (Biology)
- engrXiv (Engineering)
- medRxiv (Health Sciences)
- SocArXiv (Humanities, Social Sciences and Law)
- PsyArXiv (Psychology)
Large, interdisciplinary repositories suitable for publications or, in particular, data:
Article processing charges for open access publications
Open access publications are always free of charge for readers. However, these publications still have production costs similar to those of traditional publications – e.g. for layout, peer-review organisation, maintenance of the technical infrastructure, etc. These costs are generally covered via a publication fee (so-called 'article processing charge') charged by the publisher, which must usually be paid by the author or their institution.
Publishers provide general information about the article processing charges on the websites of the individual journals. These fees range from a few hundred euros to large four-digit amounts and vary significantly between the various publishers and journals. Publication fees are generally also charged for hybrid open access articles, which are individual open access articles in subscription-based journals.
As a result of its participation in the DEAL project and special rate agreements with publishers such as MDPI and SAGE, HAW Hamburg is able to provide its members with significant discounts for open access publications, and in some cases complete coverage of the fees for hybrid open access articles.
