Open Access at the KU

The aim of Open Access is to make scientific publications accessible free of charge via the Internet in order to be able to share knowledge worldwide.

The visibility and thus the perception of Open Access publications is higher than that of print publications due to full-text indexing and common use of search engines. This in turn is reflected in a higher citation frequency and greater number of downloads. Open Access thus promotes scientific communication worldwide.

At the same time, authors' copyrights and exploitation rights are secured.

At both international (Open Access 2020) and national level (Open Access 2020 DE), Open Access contact points have meanwhile been established to support the transformation process towards Open Access publications. The website open-access.net is also an important point of contact for further information on the topic. On this website, you will find information on Open Access journals and repositories, the origins of the Open Access movement, business models and legal issues. Last but not least, users also discuss reservations about Open Access on this platform.

Gold Open Access – First publication in OA

First publication via the Internet in accordance with the Berlin Declaration

The "gold road" of Open Access publishing refers to the first publication of scientific and scholarly work in an original Open Access journal, i.e. in online journals, the entire content of which can be used free of charge on the Internet, as an Open Access monograph or as a contribution to an OA collective work.

The content-related review of an article usually takes the form of a peer review or editorial review.

Green Open Access – Second publication in OA

Accessibility of information on servers of pre- or postprints

The "green road" is also called self-archiving. This is the secondary publication of a work published by a publisher or a journal on institutional or disciplinary repositories, i.e. on a document server of the own institution or on a document server with a common subject reference. This also includes making the publication accessible on the institution's own website or the homepage of the institution.

For such a second or parallel publication, contractual arrangements must be clarified with the publisher. Often, a preprint or postprint version of the publication can be made freely accessible online instead of the publisher's version of a publication. The Sherpa Romeo database also provides an overview of the possibilities for secondary publication.

Hybrid publication

Parallel print and online publication via a publisher

In this publishing option, authors who publish in journals requiring a subscription are offered the option of also making the publication available in Open Access at additional cost. This is combined with a double financing: Through purchase costs for the print subscription and author fees for Open Access publication in the form of Article Processing Charges.

The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) is a persistent, unique and internationally recognized identifier for scientific authors. ORCID allows researchers to be identified and their research results to be uniquely assigned.

As a scientist and researcher, you have an interest in the fact that your publications can be found and clearly assigned to you – despite name variations, name changes and internationally varying spellings. You also want to avoid having to enter your data repeatedly in multiple systems.

The international ORCID Consortium is supported by universities, academies, funding institutions, scientific publishers and libraries worldwide.

More than 4.9 million publishers worldwide already have a unique ID with their articles and research data. Large publication reference systems such as Web of Science, CrossRef or Scopus already work with the ORCID ID. Some publishers and funding organizations already require unique identification via ORCID ID.

In order to promote ORCID in Germany, the project "ORCID DE – Promotion of the Open Researcher and Contributor ID in Germany" was initiated, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since the beginning of 2016. The aim is to support the implementation of ORCID at universities and non-university research institutions in a sustainable way by means of a comprehensive approach.

ORCID in practice

Once you apply for the ORCID ID and your profile stored there, you can use it throughout your life, regardless of your employer or field of research.

Submission of publications

Many publishers and funding agencies allow you to indicate your ORCID ID when submitting publications or applications. This is to ensure that you are clearly identified as an author and that all your publications can be assigned to you.

ORCID profile

With ORCID you have the possibility to present your scientific profile on an independent page, to enter name variants and to point to further author profiles such as the ResearcherID from the Web of Science. A privacy setting allows you to adjust the visibility of each entry.

ORCID in literature and citation databases

If you specify an ORCID ID in your publications and it is transferred to the bibliographic data of literature databases, a literature search will find all publications published by you and actually attribute them to you. Furthermore, you ensure that all publications included in the database are taken into account when calculating bibliometric indicators such as citation numbers or h-index.

Visible and citable

A DOI is a permanent identifier that makes it possible to reliably and permanently find and identify digital objects on the Internet and make them citable. A DOI always forwards to the current web address. An object can also be found via the DOI when the URL changes, since a link is made to the object and not to the storage location.

Agreement

In July 2018, the University Library signed a service agreement for DOI registration with GESIS - Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences and its Registration Agency for Social and Economic Data da|ra. da|ra is a member of the DataCite Network as official DOI registration agency.

DOIs at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

The prerequisite for DOI assignment is that the University Library guarantees the permanent availability of the object and ensures the transmission of current and structured metadata regarding the object.

Structure and resolving

The structure of DOI names at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt is divided into two elements: the prefix (10.17904 and 10.17905) assigned to the University Library and a suffix consisting of the respective data pool of the object (KU.opus, KU.edoc, KU.media) and a unique ID.

DOI names can be resolved directly in the web browser by prefixing them with the character string https://doi.org/. Alternatively, a DOI can also be resolved via the server of the DOI website of the International DOI Foundation (IDF).

Citations

DOIs should be included in the citation standards practiced at the Catholic University.

Contact

Universitätsbibliothek | EDV-Referat, Carola Bauch-Schuster (Phone +49 8421 93 21228, e-mail: ub-edv(at)ku.de)

Under the heading "Sharing knowledge, promoting exchange", the KU’s Open-Access-Policy supports scientific exchange in line with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities .

Various third-party funding bodies such as the German Research Foundation (DFG) or the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) support the Open Access initiative and in some cases pay for publication fees – if you have any questions, please contact the Research Service Center.

In order to make your publications visible worldwide in Open Access, the University Library of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt offers you the following publication infrastructure:
 

KU.opus

You can publish doctoral and post-doctoral theses in KU.opus. The General Doctoral Regulations of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt open up the possibility of also complying with the obligation to publish a dissertation in an online version. KU.opus offers a corresponding workflow with all necessary information.
 

KU.edoc

First and secondary publications as well as publication series can be provided with the electronic text version via the University bibliography KU.edoc:

• First publications – for example, parallel publication of articles in Gold Open Access, e.g. with DFG funding (see below "Funding of Open Access Publications by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the KU"), unpublished conference papers, parallel publication of pre-prints
• Secondary publications (Green OA) – in compliance with the regulations in the publishing agreement for articles and monographs. The SHERPA/RoMEO database lists the conditions of major journal publishers.
• Publication series – first publications of selected monographs on a specific topic, ideally in a recognizable layout
   

KU.media

Multimedia objects such as image collections (e.g. photos, digital copies, artworks or films) can be made available to the public via KU.media.

Permanent access through DOIs

The University Library is the contact and publication agent for the allocation of Digital Object Identifiers (DOI names) at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. As a service provider, it assigns DOIs for the following digital objects of University members: Theses, publications, essays as well as digitized images, videos, audio files and data collections.

DOI allocation is limited to digital objects in KU.opus, KU.edoc and KU.media.

The assignment of DOI names is free of charge for members of the KU.
 

Unique identification as author with your ORCID

The Open Researcher and Contributor ID, or ORCID for short, is an internationally recognized identifier for scientists and researchers, which clearly links them to their publications, research data and other products of the research process. These objects are linked to the researchers in a visible and technically reliable way – therefore the University Library recommends to have an ORCID ID set up.

The University Library of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt is your contact for Open Access publications.

Please contact the library team with any questions you may have regarding the topic of Open Access:

Dr. Maria Löffler
Phone +49 8421 93-21330
maria.loeffler(at)ku.de

Authors’ rights

Open access documents are also protected by copyright just as traditional publications.

The rights of use generally remain with the authors in the case of publications in Open Access-only journals.

By means of special licenses (e.g. Creative Commons licenses) the usage modalities can be precisely defined.

If you have any questions regarding the Open Access policy or content-related questions or questions regarding legal issues in connection with an Open Access publication, please contact:

Dr. Maria Löffler
Phone +49 8421 93-21330
maria.loeffler(at)ku.de
 

Secondary publication

Articles that have already been published in a licensed journal can be made freely available as secondary publications on the publication server of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU.edoc) or your homepage.

Please clarify with the publisher with whom you have published your article under which conditions a second publication is possible. Your rights are governed by the author contract you have signed.

The Sherpa Romeo database provides an overview of general publisher’s conditions for secondary publication.

An automated secondary publication is currently being tested by the DFG-funded project DeepGreen. The project aims to make scientific publications that may be made freely accessible under licensing law after embargo periods openly accessible and make them available in repositories.

If you want to publish your research results in journals in Open Access, publication fees, so-called Article Processing Charges (APC), are usually charged.

This applies:

• if you publish in a pure Open Access journal (Gold OA)
• if you publish in a conventional subscription journal and the publisher gives you the opportunity to publish your article in this journal OA (Hybrid OA).

For possible support in financing your scientific work, the following options are available.

In order to enable KU researchers to publish open access in relevant journals of their choice, funds from the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) are available again for the years 2023 to 2025.

The Publication Fund exclusively supports Gold OA with a cost coverage up to a maximum of EUR 700 invoice amount including VAT. The previous funding limit of EUR 2,000 APCs per article no longer applies.
 

Prerequisites for funding

• The publication fund financed by the KU and the DFG is available to you as a researcher if you are responsible for financing the Article Processing Charges (APC) in your function as a "submitting author" or "corresponding author".
• The journal must be an Open Access journal, i.e. all articles of the journal are available online and free of charge immediately upon publication. The Directory of Open Access Journals maintains an list of such journals.
• Author's fees for the release of publications in journals requiring subscriptions (= double financing of subscription costs and author's fees) are not financed.
• The journal must have a quality assurance process for submitted publications (peer review).
• Publication fees are paid from the funds provided exclusively up to a maximum of 700 Euros per article. The invoice amount including value-added tax shall be decisive. Any costs beyond this must be covered by the author him/herself.
• A discount is possible due to:
  • license agreements of the University Library,
  • the author's membership in an association (e.g. German Communication Association)
  • the author's activity as an associate editor in an Open Access journal (e.g. Frontiers)

     Please contact the University Library for a review of discount possibilities.

• The essay must contain a reference to DFG funding ("Funding Ackknowledgement") in the following form:
  Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Projektnummer 512640851
  In foreign-language publications translated into the target language, e.g. in English:
  Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Projektnummer 512640851
   

Application – How to proceed?

It is generally advisable to apply for funding from the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt before you submit your article. This allows you to clarify in advance whether funding is possible.

Send your application form for cost coverage to open-access(at)ku.de.

After successful review by the University Library, the requested funds are reserved for you. The amount will be transferred as soon as your article has been officially accepted by the journal. As a confirmation, we need the invoice for the publication fees. Please send this to open-access(at)ku.de.

Important note regarding the invoice: Please have foreign invoices issued without value added tax, as this will be deducted separately. For this purpose, you must provide our VAT-ID to the publisher so that it can be included on the submitted invoice. The VAT ID within the European Union is: VAT-ID DE 811 263 728.

A corresponding entry is created in the publication server of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU.edoc). Please send us the link to the full text or a PDF of the article.

Your contact at the University Library:
Dr. Anne Müller
University Library Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Universitätsallee 1
85072 Eichstätt, Germany

Further information is provided in the FAQs of the DFG on Open Access.