Processing the results of academic work for publication and making them accessible to both the academic community and the interested public is a central function of a university. In the field of journals in particular, Open Access publishing is increasingly becoming the new standard. This refers to scholarly publications that are freely accessible on the internet without legal, technical, or financial barriers.
Open access has many advantages for scientists. Numerous studies show that publications that are made available in open access are downloaded and cited more often than traditional publications which are behind paywalls. Open access accelerates scientific communication. It makes international and interdisciplinary collaboration more easy. You can find more information about the benefits of Open Access, as well as potential concerns, on the open-access.network platform.
Find out here how we can support you with your Open Access publication:
We recommend to use the OA.finder search tool to find a suitable journal for your publication. Here you can search by publication type and find detailed information, e.g. on publication costs and Open Access agreements you can use as a HCU member.
Enter the journal title or relevant keywords to search the OA.finder. In the “funding”-section you can check if a HCU publisher agreement for an Open Access publication can be used.
The B!SON recommendation service suggests suitable Open Access journals based on title, abstract or references. The tool uses the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and supplements the results with information on funding opportunities at the HCU.
The scientific database Scopus can also be used to search for a suitable journal. The best way to start is through the "Sources" section, where you can search by specific subject areas and filter results by open-access status, citation counts, and journal ranking.
The HCU participates in all three German DEAL agreements with the publishers Springer Nature, Wiley and Elsevier. These so-called „Publish and Read“ agreements provide reading access to the respective journal portfolios as well as extensive Open Access publishing options for researchers. Further information on the DEAL agreements can be found on the DEAL Konsortium’s website.
The supplementary agreement for the Nature journals provides reading access to the entire Nature portfolio as well as the option for Open Access publication in the journal Nature and the Nature Research journals for HCU members. Further information for authors is available on the publisher’s website.
Through the university's participation in the Publish and Read agreement with Taylor & Francis, HCU members can publish Open Access in the publisher's over 2,000 Open Select journals. In addition, the agreement provides reading access to the journal collections Science & Technology and Social Science & Humanities.
The HafenCity University Hamburg participates in a Publish and Read agreement with the academic publisher Sage, which provides reading access to all journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences package, as well as extensive Open Access publishing options in over 900 Sage journals.
The Open Access publisher Cogitatio Press currently publishes five journals, including Urban Planning and Politics and Governance. Almost all of the journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and are published under the CC-BY license. There are no publication costs for HCU members – the payment of the Article Processing Charge (APC) is covered by the university's agreement with Cogitatio Press.
The HCU participates in a consortium for the Open Access publisher MDPI. MDPI is an Open Access publisher based in Switzerland that publishes more than 450 journals. In addition to several titles in the humanities and social sciences, the publisher offers a wide range of natural science journals, including Remote Sensing, Energies und Geomatics. HCU members receive a 15% discount on article fees for all Open Access journals published by MDPI. Invoicing is still done directly to the authors.
In addition, HCU members can use the publication server repOS for the free Open Access publication of their scholarly works. You can find out how to use repOS for your publication on the thesis and dissertation page.
We are also happy to advise you on the topics of finding a publisher for your dissertation, ORCID, Predatory Publishing, Creative Commons licenses, and more. More information about the library's Open Access offers and publication support services for researchers can be found in the library section of HCU intern.
If you have any questions regarding Open Access, feel free to contact us!
Contact
Dr. Ute von Lüpke
Tel.: +49 (0)40 300880-4137
e-mail: digitaledienste(at)hcu-hamburg.de
The library offers advisory service, coffee lectures and workshops on this topic.
Renewing items online?
My library account
New to the library?
Apply for library card
Read e-books from home?
Off campus access
Book not available?
Proposal of purchase