Open Access & Publication Funding

In general, a distinction is made between the gold and green paths of open access ("Gold"/"Green"). Under the Gold route, a text is primarily published in an Open Access medium. The Green route, on the other hand, refers to the parallel or secondary publication of a text conventionally published by a publisher in an Open Access repository (e.g. in PubliDo(Opens in a new tab) , our university repository).

The hybrid model is very common. Here, individual articles from subscription journals are also published Open Access against payment of a fee.

There are also other, less common variants. You can find an overview(Opens in a new tab)  in the blog of the TIB - Leibniz Information Center for Science and Technology and University Library.

The abbreviation APC stands for Article Processing Charge. This refers to the publication fees charged by publishers for the publication of an Open Access article. They are due once the article has been accepted for publication. Publishers justify these fees by citing the loss of their income from subscriptions to conventional journals.

Depending on the publisher and journal, APCs are in the three- to four-digit range, with an average of around 1,000 to 3,000 euros per article. Information on funding support can be found below in the FAQ.

Research projects at state institutions are often (co-)financed with public funds. If the results of this research are then published by conventional means, institutions such as universities have to spend additional funds in order to make these publications available to their members. Open Access, on the other hand, enables free access to these results. Access is independent of time and place and is also possible without affiliation or membership of an institution; all that is required is Internet access. This removes barriers and "ivory towers".

In addition, open access publications are easier to reuse and can be disseminated more quickly. This means that researchers can gain more attention for their work and are less dependent on commercial publishers, particularly through institutional and specialist repositories.

Open access publications are just as legally protected as traditional publications; the authors regulate the possibilities for subsequent use via licenses (e.g. Creative Commons licenses). Reputable open access journals use the same peer review procedures for quality assurance as conventional journals. However, there are also dubious offers, so-called predatory journals, which are usually easy to recognize as such. We will be happy to help you if required.

DEAL contracts exist with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier. They currently run until 2028 and Fachhochschule Dortmund participates in all three contracts.

Essentially, the agreements stipulate that authors from the participating institutions can publish open access in a total of more than 5,800 journals from the three publishers. In addition, the institutions and thus all their members receive read access to almost all of the publishers' e-journals. The pricing models for the publication fees differ from publisher to publisher. All contracts can be viewed in full on the official website(Opens in a new tab)  of the DEAL consortium.

Fachhochschule Dortmund also participates in similarly structured transformation agreements with the publishers Hogrefe (PsyJournals portfolio), SAGE, ACM and Taylor & Francis. Information on the respective framework conditions can be found on the publishers' websites (see below).

Fachhochschule Dortmund accepts open access publication fees for publications with publishers with whom transformation agreements exist under two conditions:

1. The person who acts as the corresponding author for the respective article must be a member of the UAS and indicate this as the primary affiliation. The primary affiliation is the institution where the majority of the research work on which the article is based took place. This will be checked for each individual case.
2. The article must appear in a journal to which the respective transformation agreement applies. The list of eligible journals can be found on the publishers' websites or on the website of the DEAL consortium. All links can be found in the list in the answer to the question "Where can I find more information on the agreements with the individual publishers?".

Please note that you will still be charged if you opt out of the Open Access option during the publication process! Opting out of Open Access does not save the university any costs and is therefore not recommended.

Some interesting links on the subject:

Some interesting links on the subject:

Your contact person for Open Access and publication funding is Eva Schameitat, M. A.(Opens in a new tab) 

E-mail: publizierenfh-dortmundde

Please feel free to contact me! If required, we can arrange a consultation appointment. An introductory lecture on the topics of Open Access (including publication financing) and/or Predatory Journals at your faculty is also possible. I can also support you in publishing your work via PubliDo, our university publication server, and in recording your research publications in the university's research information system (FIS).

Open Access and related topics are also regularly the subject of online lectures in the"Fachwissen zum Mittag(Opens in a new tab) " series, which the library organizes together with the Graduate Center of the UAS. You are welcome to register without obligation!