“At IST Austria we support the self-archiving of scientific work and encourage publishing in Open Access journals, in order to make the results of our research accessible to the broadest possible audience.”
Professor Thomas A. Henzinger, President of IST Austria
Open Access – unrestricted access to scientific publications – is an ongoing trend in the scientific community. Open Access makes scientific publications and other digital material, such as research data, freely accessible via the world-wide-web. IST Austria is committed to provide unrestricted and cost-free online access to scientific publications for all users and researchers as widely as possible. The main goal is to increase the visibility, use, and impact of research output, and thereby generate added value for the scientific community.
To support the idea, IST Austria adopted and published its Open Access Policy February 15, 2014.
IST Austria encourages its researchers to publish in Open Access journals and repositories. For this reason we would like to provide information about Open Access to our researchers, but also to the interested public.
On this page, you can read about further reasons to go Open Access, describing the difference between publishing in an Open Access journal and archiving in an Open Access repository.
Moreover you will find information about what to consider and do if you plan to publish in an Open Access journal. A short introduction will also help you to find the proper repository to archive your papers.
Furthermore, you will find information about the policies of the different funding agencies like the ERC and the FWF concerning Open Access. Relevant questions about how to finance the publication in Open Access journals are discussed.
In this page:
- Open Access Policy
- Why publish Open Access
- How to publish Open Access
- IST Austria OA Fund
- Publisher Agreements
- Funding Agencies on OA
If there is anything you want to know about Open Access, but couldn´t find on this webpage, feel free to contact the IST Austria Library.
Open Access Policy
Open Access – the unrestricted access to scientific publications – is an ongoing trend in the scientific environment worldwide. In this way, scientific publications and other digital material, such as research data, are freely accessible via the world-wide-web.
In agreement with this policy, IST Austria is committed to provide unrestricted and cost-free online access to scientific publications for all users and researchers as widely as possible. The main goal is to increase the visibility, use, and impact of research output, and hereby generate added value for the scientific community.
There are several reasons for the quick implementation of the Institute’s repository for scientific publications, data, and other research outputs:
1. The impact of research will be increased since there is growing evidence that research deposited in Open Access repositories are used and cited more frequently.
2. The Institute’s repository of scientific output will support compliance with requirements of the European Research Council (ERC), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and other funding bodies that mandate research output to be openly available.
3. The open repository approach ensures that each research output has consistent metadata and ensures longevity which, for example, a researcher’s own website does not.
4. Scientists, research groups, or the Institute itself can use the data to provide automatically generated output for their own websites, reports, or their curriculum vitae.
5. Future possible metrics for the assessment of scientific output will require that IST Austria’s research be widely cited and hence must be as visible as possible.
The Open Access Policy at IST Austria was put into practice on February 15, 2014.
Why publish Open Access?
“The basic idea of Open Access is simple: Make research literature available online without price barriers and without most permission barriers.”
Peter Suber, Open Access (the book)
For several decades, the scientific community has been facing more and more disproportionate cost increases from many scholarly journals. The reasons for this so-called “serial crisis” are complex, but an essential factor is the quasi-monopoly of several publishers. Scientists, working in the environment of financially secure research institutes, often do not face the problem directly. However the visibility, re-use and impact of their scientific research suffer from the limitation of access by price-barriers. Through this lens, it is clear that open access to research results should be enforced.
There are various ways to provide online open access to research results. Some scientists already make their publications accessible on their private web pages. This is a good first step. Several additional strategies offer a remedy for restricted access:
Publishing in an Open Access Journal?
For a research publication, the most certain strategy for making work openly accessible is to publish in a peer-reviewed Open Access Journal. An increasing number of initiatives like the Public Library of Science (PLoS) or BioMed Central offer a system of charge-free access to publications and open licenses of content. Emerging costs have to be paid once by the author or, in most cases, by the author´s employer. This so-called “Gold Open Access” in return guarantees unlimited online access from anywhere to the original publication.
For further information on publishing in an Open Access Journal, please visit Open Access Gold or contact the IST Austria-Library.
Archiving in a Repository?
Even if an article first appears in a journal or conference following the classic subscription model, there is – in most cases – still a chance to make a copy of it freely available. For this reason, different repositories for scientific works have been established over the years. Subject repositories, on the one hand, cover certain research areas, e.g. arXiv in the field of physics and mathematics. On the other hand research institutions like IST Austria collect their researchers’ publications in institutional repositories. The use of one does not preclude the use of the other, rather using both increases visibility. Conventional publishers limit the republishing of works: however, preprints, postprints, working papers or technical reports are still often free of these restrictions. Even the original works can often be uploaded to a repository after a period of time, as the last submitted version. This depends on the policy of the publisher and the journal.
For further information on publishing in a repository visit Open Access Green or please contact the IST Austria-Library.
How to publish Open Access?
There are two major strategies on the road to Open Access:
On the one hand, scientists can decide to publish their work in an Open Access journal, which provides unlimited access to publication from anyone and anywhere. This elegant solution is also called the “Golden Way to Open Access”. You can find more details about how to publish in an Open Access Journal in Open Access Gold. To learn more about the quality of Open Access journals also read about Questionable Open Access Journals.
On the other hand, it is also possible to make your work openly accessible, even if you already published it in a conventional journal. For this, subject and institutional repositories have been developed, where you can upload pre-prints, post-prints, working papers etc. of your work. This self-archiving strategy is also called the “Green Way to Open Access”. You can find more information about how and where to archive your publications at Open Access Green.
If you need help in choosing which way to follow, do not hesitate to contact your IST Austria-Library.
Gold Open Access
How to publish in an Open Access Journal?
If you decide to publish in an Open Access Journal, you have to find a suitable journal for your paper. To do so, visit the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) where nearly 10.000 journals for all kinds of subjects are listed and described.
Some criteria will be essential for finding the right journal for your paper.
One of the major issues scientists are facing is the impact factor of journals. Since Open Access Journals usually do not look back on a long tradition, they often struggle to be accepted in the scientific community. However, studies are showing that, for instance, journals indexed in Web of Science or Scopus may approach the same scientific impact and quality as subscription-based journals.
A further question concerns licenses: Some Open Access journals will act more liberally and use a CC-BY license, which means that it is possible to share, remix and commercially use the publication. Some publishers and journals tend to employ more restrictive open licenses. A CC-BY-NC license still allows the public community to share and remix the work, but commercial use is prohibited. A CC-BY-NC-ND license will not let you alter, transform or build upon the work, but it´s still free to share the publication. Furthermore, there are journals offering unlimited open access without open licenses.
An essential criterion for publishing open access is the financing of the publication. Open Access usually does not mean free of charge as publishing still generates costs. Some peer-reviewed journals are subsidized, and some will charge publication fees. But article processing charges (APCs) do not automatically mean that authors have to pay out of their own pocket. Funders often share publication costs; this may also be the case at IST Austria.
At the DOAJ website, you will receive information concerning licenses and publication costs of all open access journals. If you find a suitable journal for your needs, you can submit a manuscript in the same way as you would to a conventional journal.
For further questions on publishing in Open Access Journals, please contact the IST Austria-Library.
Impact factor of Open Access Journals
The impact factor (IF) is a measure for academic journals, which reflects the average number of citations of articles published in a certain journal. Scientists can thereby compare the influence of different journals within a certain field. Efficiency and visibility are essential for the reputation of scientists: higher publicity often promotes careers.
Open Access Journals still struggle for reputation within the scientific community, although some already achieve higher IF-values than “conventional” journals. Studies have also shown that articles with free access on average have higher citation rates than ones appearing in journals with restricted access. But not only citation rates and impact factors are essential for the evaluation of journals. Download rates for articles are a useful measure of the visibility of scientific results. It´s clear that articles with open access have a much better chance to be downloaded, read and used. Hence they are more integrated in the circulation of scientific communication.
Springer Compact – Open Access publishing for authors of IST Austria for free
Starting with 1 January 2016 a new deal between the science publisher Springer and Austrian academic libraries takes effect: The Springer Compact deal combines reading and Open Access publishing for Austrian Consortium members like IST Austria. As a result our Institute will gain access to over 2,000 Springer journals from 1997 on. Additionally scientists affiliated to IST Austria will have the opportunity to publish their research Open Access in more than 1,600 Springer journals without additional charges.
Thus the frequently criticized “double dipping” by paying both license fees and article processing charges can be avoided. Furthermore our scientists don’t have to deal with publication fees if their paper was accepted for a Springer journal. Besides all articles published by this means are going to be completely Open Access. While publishing Open Access intellectual property rights stay at the author.
Papers are eligible for the deal:
- If it was accepted after 1 January 2016
- If the corresponding author is affiliated to IST Austria
- If the paper is going to be published in one of the 1.600 Springer Open Choice journals
f you plan to publish your article in a journal of Springer and you have further questions please visit Springer’s Open access agreement for Austrian authors or contact the library team at library@ist.ac.at.
With the help of the new deal the Austrian science community expects a strengthening of the Open Access idea with all its benefits: worldwide free accessibility of scientific publications, higher visibility of science output and probably higher citation rates.
Questionable Open Access Journals
“A negative consequence of the rapid growth of scholarly open access publishing funded by article processing charges is the emergence of publishers and journals with highly questionable marketing and peer review practices. These so-called predatory publishers are causing unfounded negative publicity for open access publishing in general.” © 2015 Shen and Björk.
“Predatory” open access publishing is defined as a business model of publishing that charges publication fees (APCs) as most of “gold” open-open access journals do, without providing proper peer review. They pretend to be serious journals despite a lack of editorial and publishing services.
Although its not always easy to draw the line between serious and pseudo-journals some tools can help you to find out, if a journal is trustworthy or not:
- The Directory of Open Access Journals puts a lots effort to filter out questionable journals, only trustworthy ones ought to be listed here.
- Go through the list of Chrissy Prater.
- Possibly the most sufficient way to find out if an open-access journal meets your scientific expectations is to check the quality of some of their articles by skip-reading them.
If you are not sure about the quality of a journal please contact the library team for further information and guidance.
Green Open Access
How to archive in a repository?
If you are planning to publish your paper in a conventional journal without open access, you often still have the chance to place the results of your research in a repository. This way, your work gains visibility, becomes reachable for everybody with online access, and promotes re-use and citation.
Repositories make use of the fact that while publishers employing the classic subscription model restrict the spread of articles published in their journals, they often still allow making pre-prints, post-prints, working papers or technical reports accessible. At some journals, it is also possible to upload the last submitted version of a paper after a period of time. To find out more about permissions normally given as part of each publisher’s copyright transfer agreement, visit SHERPA /RoMEO. Here you can search for your publishing journal and your rights to archive your pre-print, post-print, embargo times etc.
Mainly, there are two different sorts of repositories that you can choose between:
So called subject repositories specialize in the dissemination of specific fields of science. An example of such an extensive subject repository is arXiv.org, holding more than 900.000 e-prints mainly in physics, mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology. Several scientists at IST Austria have already uploaded numerous pre- or post-prints onto one of the platforms. If you are still looking for an appropriate subject repository, have a look at OpenDOAR, an authoritative directory of quality-controlled academic open access repositories.
Institutional repositories have been established to provide open access to institutional research output and to enhance the visibility of an institution’s scholarly research. More and more universities and research institutes are following the idea of storing and preserving their research results, independent of restrictions by publishers. IST Austria also offers the service of reliable archiving for its scientists. Please visit our IST Austria Research Explorer.
If you are planing to make use of the IST-repository, or you need help in finding a suitable subject repository, please feel free to contact your IST Austria Library.
OA publication repositories used by researchers at IST Austria:
IST Austria Research Explorer
arXiv
PubMed Central
Cryptology ePrint Archive
IST Austria OA Fund
To foster Gold Open Access at IST Austria an Open Access Publishing Fund is available.
In order to be eligible for support, a work has to be
- created by an author affiliated to IST Austria,
- published in a Gold Open Access journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals,
- or published in Hybrid Open Access journals of following publishers: IOP Publishing, Royal Society of Chemistry and Taylor & Francis. Further information at Publisher Agreements on OA.
- already accepted for publication at the time of application for funding support.
- Article Processing Charges must be billed to IST Austria and paid by a research group cost center.
- The fund can only be applied if no other grant is available.
This Open Access Publishing Fund covers 50% of the charge.
The procedure is as follows:
- First please make sure that your article is eligible for funding.
- In a following step the research group/author needs to pay the whole article processing charge to the publisher.
- Afterwards the research group/author can apply for the refund by filling out the application form. Please download (PDF / Word) and send the filled in form via email to library@ist.ac.at.
- Finally IST Library will transfer the amount to your cost center.
In case you need further details please contact the library team.
Publisher Agreements
Under certain circumstances the Open Access funding of your publication is provided by funding agencies like the FWF or the IST Austria Open Access Fund.
Besides these opportunities IST Austria Library negotiates agreements with publishers to enable publishing Open Access without additional or reduced costs for authors at IST Austria.
Frontiers
In which journals can I publish for free at IST Austria?
Under the terms of the Austria Open Access Publishing Framework Agreement, the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) will cover Article Publishing Fees for eligible authors in any of the Frontiers journals.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
Eligible authors are corresponding authors of a given article who meet the funding criteria of IST Austria.
If the author(s) are members of a FWF-funded project, the FWF may cover the APCs (more information here).
If you have any questions, or want to check if your article is eligible, please contact IST Austria’s library at library@ist.ac.at.
Wiley
In which journals can I publish for free at IST Austria?
You can publish Open Access in any of Wiley’s hybrid, OnlineOpen journals at no charge.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You only need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
Please follow Wiley’s OnlineOpen instructions at the point of acceptance.
Further information about the publication process is provided to the authors as a short information or a detailed description.
Springer Compact
In which journals can I publish for free at IST Austria?
Most of the Springer journals (more than 1.700)
Check the Springer Open Choice journal list if the journal you want to publish in is included.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You only need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
As soon as your paper was accepted Springer will send you an online form where you can verify your affiliation to IST Austria and permit to publish paper within an Open Access license. You will receive a receipt of € 0.-. No further action is needed.
To avoid double dipping (charging both authors and subscibers for OA publishing) IST Austria also signed several publisher agreements, which allow us to discount your article processing charges.
Royal Society of Chemistry
In which journals can I publish discounted at IST Austria?
You can publish Open Access in all RSC journals.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You only need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
You can apply for a refund (50%) of the article processing charges by using the IST Austria OA Fund. Further details including the application form is to be found in the OA Fund guideline.
IOP Publishing
In which journals can I publish discounted at IST Austria?
The agreement enables to publish Open Access in 45 subscription based journals of IOP Publishing.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You only need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
You can apply for a refund (50%) of the article processing charges by using the IST Austria OA Fund. Further details including the application form is to be found in the OA Fund guideline.
Taylor & Francis
In which journals can I publish discounted at IST Austria?
More than 2.300 regular (subscription) journals with Open Access option (“Open Select”) and more than 1.400 Gold Open Access Journals
Check T&F Author Services if your journal is eligible.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You only need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
You can apply for a refund of the article processing charges by using the IST Austria OA Fund. Further details including the application form is to be found in the OA Fund guideline.
Biomed Central
If publishing in one of Biomed Centrals Open Access journals authors affiliated to IST Austria are eligible for a 10% discount to the list price for publishing Open Access.
ACS Publications
In which journals can I publish discounted at IST Austria?
The agreement is valid for all ACS journals.
Which requirements do I need to fulfill?
You need to be corresponding author of the accepted paper.
What do I need to do?
To make your paper freely accessible you have different options:
During the publication process you will be asked to choose your home organization from a dropdown menu. Recognized as IST Austria affiliated author you are eligible for 25% discount to the normal APC ($3.000 instead of $4.000). A further discount of 50% is also possible, if you become a member of ACS ($1.500 instead of $3.000). The
membership costs $171 but already pays off with one publication. However, picking these options copyright still remains at the publisher.
To unlock your publication under the terms of Creative Commons (copyright at the author) further $1.000 will be charged. As a member of ACS this fee will be reduced to $500.
For further assistance please contact IST Austria Library team.
Funding Agencies on OA
FWF – Der Wissenschaftsfonds
“As a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the FWF is committed to advance sustained Open Access to scholarly publications and research data. To this end, the FWF requires and supports all project leaders and co-workers to make their research results freely available through the Internet.”
Read more about the Open Access Policy of the FWF and the IST-Guideline for Publications resulting from FWF projects.
The FWF provides additional funding for author processing charges on Open Access and hybrid journals. Read more about the requirements to apply.
EU Horizon 2020 including ERC
“To increase the circulation and exploitation of knowledge, open access to scientific publications shall be ensured. Furthermore, open access to research data resulting from publicly funded research under Horizon 2020 should be promoted, taking into account constraints pertaining to privacy, national security and intellectual property.”
Read more in the regulation establishing Horizon 2020
According to the Grant Agreement (Art. 29.2), the grantees must ensure open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications resulting from H2020 projects. This can be done by providing “gold” or “green” open access. Specific steps are to be found in the IST-Guideline for Publications resulting from H2020 projects. The open access provisions apply to all types of H2020 projects – including ERC, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and collaborative projects.
FP7 – Seventh Framework Program including ERC
“The European Commission is conducting a pilot initiative on open access to peer reviewed research articles in its Seventh Research Framework Program (FP7). In this pilot, open access to articles resulting from research funded in areas participating in the pilot should be provided within a specified time period. (…) This initiative (…) applies to the following areas:
Energy; Environment; Health; Information and Communication Technologies (Challenge 2: Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics); Research Infrastructures (e-Infrastructures); Science in Society; Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities.
Grant agreements in these areas signed after the beginning of the open access pilot will contain a special clause requiring beneficiaries:
1. to deposit articles resulting from FP7 projects into an institutional or subject based repository;
2. to make their best efforts to ensure open access to these articles within six months (Energy, Environment, Health, Information and Communication Technologies, Research Infrastructures) or twelve months (Science in Society, Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities).”
Read more about the Open Access Pilot in FP7.
DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
“The DFG expects the research results funded by it to be published and to be made available, where possible, digitally and on the internet via open access. To achieve this, the contributions involved should either be deposited in discipline-specific or institutional electronic archives (repositories) following conventional publication, or should be published in a recognized peer-reviewed open access journal.”
You can find more information about publication of research findings in the Guidelines for the Use of Funds.
SNSF – Swiss National Science Foundation
“The SNSF requires grantees to provide open access to research results obtained with the help of SNSF grants (Article 44 Funding Regulations).“
Read more about Open Access at the SNSF in chapter 4 of “Regulations on information, valorisation and rights to research results”.
Wellcome Trust
“The Wellcome Trust (…) supports unrestricted access to the published output of research as a fundamental part of its charitable mission and a public benefit to be encouraged wherever possible.”
Specifically, the Wellcome Trust
• requires electronic copies of any research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by Wellcome Trust funding, to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) as soon as possible and in any event within six months of the journal publisher’s official date of final publication
• encourages – and where it pays an open access fee, requires – authors and publishers to licence research papers using the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY)** so they may be freely copied and re-used (for example, for text- and data-mining purposes or creating a translation), provided that such uses are fully attributed.”
Read the whole Open Access Policy of the Wellcome Trust.