Support of Open Access Publishing

[Last updated: 2021-07-19]

Open Access Logo

 The Oberwolfach Library supports and advises participants in the MFO longterm programs on Open Access publishing.

Projekt DEAL

To make it easy for researchers to publish their articles openly in the peer-reviewed journals of their choice, the Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany formed Projekt DEAL to negotiate nationwide agreements with the scholarly publishers in whose journals authors publish most.

The DEAL agreements repurpose library subscription funds to support open access publishing instead, so that authors are not burdened with open access publishing fees. If you are the corresponding author and affiliated with one of the more than 900 DEAL institutions, you are covered—even if your institution has not signed-up yet.

Springer Nature

The most extensive open access agreement to date has been signed between Springer Nature and Projekt DEAL. Researchers affiliated with over 900 DEAL institutions have extensive access to Springer Nature's journal portfolio. Authors affiliated with MFO (participants in longterm programs) can publish not only in Gold Open Access journals, but also in Springer Nature's subscription journals.

Wiley

In January 2019, a Read and Publish agreement for 2019 - 2021 was signed between Wiley and the Projekt DEAL. This means that authors affiliated with MFO (participants in longterm programs) can publish open access in Wiley open access journals without individual invoicing, i.e. without any individual costs (for articles with APCs up to 2.000€ incl. tax). Furthermore, on July 1, 2019 an optional open access publishing in Wiley hybrid journals has started.

Publish and Read Agreements

Publish & Read agreements (or PAR contracts) allow corresponding authors of participating institutions to publish their articles Open Access with no extra cost. This offer is valid for articles in hybrid journals of the relevant publishers. MFO Library pays for this offer through the journal subscription fees.

The following Publish and Read Agreements exist for the MFO:

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

As of January 1, 2019, Corresponding Authors of the MFO will be able to publish unlimited and free of charge in all Cambridge University Press subscription journals with existing Open Access option as part of a DFG-sponsored consortium. The publication in the pure Open Access journals of the publisher is excluded from this agreement.

To do this, the Open Access form provided by Cambridge University Press during the submission process must be completed by the author. Upon acceptance of the publication, the Corresponding Author will receive an email about the article-processing charge (APC) from the service provider Rightslink. On the Rightslink page, the MFO has to be selected as an institution under “Affiliation discount”. This sets the publication fee to zero on the system side. There is thus no need for APC payment for the authors of the publication.

Please refer to the following publisher information for more details.

EDP Sciences

All members of German university and non-university research institutions receive a discount of 20% on the article publication fees in about 40 journals of the publisher EDP Sciences thanks to negotiation successes of the Technical Information Library (TIB) Hannover.

More information can be found on the following pages:

Institute of Physics (IOP)

With effect from 1 January 2019, there is a consortium agreement with IOP Publishing which enables researchers at participating institutions to publish a fixed number of articles Open Access in most subscription journals published by IOP. IOP will automatically identify articles that are potentially eligible (based on the institution of the corresponding author). On acceptance, IOP will validate the author’s affiliation through the MFO Library in order to authorize funding from the article quota. As soon as the article cap is reached, further open access options or their funding would not be possible.

The pages of the Technical Information Library (TIB) and the publishing house IOP provide further assistance:

Open Access Information Platforms

Open Access Directories (Selection)

Predatory Open Access Publishers

The following criteria can be indicators of the legitimacy of open access publishers and journals:

For further indicators to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher, use the Think. Check. Submit checklist.

For a more comprehensive overview see this presentation provided by Forschungszentrum Jülich: Predatory Publishers - Experiences and Recommendations (Wintermeier, M., 2018)