What is open access?

The goal of open access is to ensure that scientific publications are freely available online without access fees and legal and technical barriers. This differentiates them from classical closed access publications, which require users and / or institutions to pay a fee in order to access a publication. Another difference is the idea of more open reuse of the publications, meaning that the content can be copied and publicly reproduced, provided that the authors are correctly cited. This usually works via open licenses, such as a Creative Commons license.

Why is this topic important for students and researchers?

Open access has several advantages. These publications are easier to find and more visible, which in turn can increase the citation rates and the reputation of the scientists. Another benefit is the accelerated scientific communication, since the publication process takes less time and research results are thereby available more quickly. Findings for personal research can be obtained more quickly, which is advantageous as well. Open access is deemed to contribute to establishing democracy in scientific publishing practices, as the interested public and media can also access research results more easily. Open access enables a worldwide exchange among scientists, free of barriers. Researchers from countries in the Global South in particular can benefit enormously from open access via the internet, as they often do not have the same level of library infrastructure available to them as their colleagues in Europe.

What do Green Open Access and Gold Open Access mean in this context?

There are different forms of open access: Gold Open Access refers to the first publication by publishers, which is available as open access from the beginning. Green Open Access refers to a secondary publication, i.e. when a publishing house first published an article using the classic subscription method and this is made available later or simultaneously as open access. This is often referred to as self-archiving, where publications are archived on a document server and made accessible, whether this be in an institutional or subject-specific manner.

The University of Bremen and SuUB support researchers in both Gold and Green Open Access. Can you briefly describe how?

In the case of Gold Open Access, our focus is on funding the publication – providing financial support for the publication fees, which are often charged by the publisher – and related advisory services. With Green Open Access, we advise on formal and legal questions, for example, which document version can be used for a secondary publication (preprint, postprint, or the publisher’s version), which licenses may be granted at the time of publication, and also assist in discussions with the publishers. We provide the infrastructure for secondary publication with the MEDIA document server.

What does the secondary publication full service include?

The Green Open Access project unit was created to provide researchers at the University of Bremen the best possible support for Green Open Access. In order to facilitate this process and relieve the researchers of as much work as possible, we offer academics the secondary publication full service. They provide us with their publication lists, and we then check these to find out which publications are not yet available in open access and whether and under what conditions (document version, license, possible embargo periods) an open access secondary publication can take place. For example, we research publishing specifications and request permission from the publishers for secondary publication or a transfer of the rights of use to the authors. When the legal situation has been clarified, we will obtain the full texts and SuUB employees will then publish these in open access via our MEDIA repository.

In order to ensure that the secondary publications can be found permanently, they each receive their own permanent digital identifier (DOI). Authors can use these to reference the publications on their website or their ORCID profile. This also ensures that the publications appear prominently in well-known search engines.

What do I need to do if I am interested in and want to use the secondary publication full service?

You can contact me by email (publizieren@suub.uni-bremen.de) or call me at +49 421 218-59405. Individual advice can then be provided, if so wished. We usually need your publication list to initiate the search process. The entire process always runs in close coordination with each researcher and always in accordance with their individual requirements. To complete the process, we create the complete deposit license, which the authors only need to sign. This is necessary so that we can create open access to all the discussed publications on the document server on your behalf.

What are the current challenges in implementing open access?

One challenge is that there are differing conventions among the different subjects of research. In the life sciences, medicine, and the natural sciences, open access is already much more widespread, while in the humanities, there is still a somewhat stronger connection to printed media and classic publishing models. However, there are increasingly more options for open access here and Green Open Access is a way to combine traditional publications and open access.

What lies ahead?

A major topic is Diamond Open Access, in which authors have no publication fees at all and control over the publication infrastructure lies to a greater extent the hands of academia. One example is consortium models where libraries and institutions pay membership fees to secure funding, as is the case with the Open Library of Humanities. The German Research Foundation is developing an advisory center to support the development of such infrastructures. The aim is to move more in this direction. The University of Bremen is very supportive of open access and clearly positions itself for open science, for example in its Open Access Policy published in 2022. The Open Science User Advisory Board advises on open access topics and strategies and the university management is invested in this topic and wants to see it through.

Further Information

Green OA explanatory video on YouTube

Green OA website

Contact Secondary Publication Service:

Fabio Saenz publizieren@suub.uni-bremen.de
telephone: +49 421 218-59405