FAQ Publishing
What does the MLU Publication Fund support?
The MLU Publication Fund supports publications that appear in Gold Open Access journals or monographs that are published as Gold Open Access with a publisher. These must be made Open Access immediately after publication. This also applies to edited volumes in which all contributions appear directly in Open Access.
Gold Open Access publication fees from DEAL contracts and other transformation contracts can be funded with up to EUR 2000. The difference will be invoiced to the institute by the ULB.
Does the Publication Fund also support articles in journals subject to license that are only made Open Access after an embargo period?
No, this model is excluded by the Publication Fund.
Are additional costs for publications covered by the Publication Fund?
No, these costs (e.g. color pages, fees for the title page, fees for additional pages, costs for submission or translation/editing, costs for additional fee-based storage of research data) cannot be covered. In addition, some of these costs should not be charged separately if a transformation contract exists. If you receive such invoices, please contact us. (erwerbung@bibliothek.uni-halle.de)
Does the Publication Fund cover the costs of storing research data for publications?
No, this is not currently planned. However, research data can also be stored on the university repository Share_it and receive a referenceable DOI.
Can emeritus professors also publish articles with Elsevier Open Access and other transformation contracts, and are the costs covered by the journal contract?
Yes, emeritus professors can also publish within the transformation contracts if the project is related to MLU and MLU is specified as a mandatory affiliation.
Why do we not support open access publications in hybrid journals with the publication fund?
Hybrid publications are currently not funded, as publishers may profit twice by charging license fees and charging publication fees for individual articles. This is known as “double dipping”.
In transformation contracts, on the other hand, reading access to a larger part or all of the publisher’s portfolio is often granted in addition to the publishing costs and hybrid publishing is included in the costs. Hybrid publishing within the framework of transformation contracts is therefore currently supported.
Information on the transformation contracts currently concluded by MLU can be found here.
Does the choice to publish under the subscription model (opt-out) with the publishers Springer, Wiley and Elsevier have an impact on visibility and funding?
If you opt out of Open Access, transfer your usage rights to the publisher and make your article visible only to paying subscribers (“opt out”), the results of MLU’s research are not freely visible to all. The university supports DEAL and the transformation by providing appropriate funding and it is therefore strongly recommended to always use the Open Access option within the framework of DEAL.
Is co-financing from several funding sources possible?
Yes, co-financing from several funding sources is possible
How can I find out whether an open access journal is reputable?
You can check whether a journal is listed in relevant databases, e.g. EZB, DOAJ, Web of Science (check in JCR whether the impact factor is genuine). Further check criteria can also be found at ThinkCheckSubmit.
Which license model should I choose?
The use of a recognized open content license, e.g. Creative Commons licenses (CC licenses), is a prerequisite for the assumption of costs by the Publication Fund. In agreement with the DFG and other research funders, the use of CC-BY without a suffix (-ND, -NC etc.) is recommended. The use of suffixes can cause difficulties in scientific communication, but is sometimes necessary.
Why is it better to publish Open Access than to make the publications available on Academia.eu, ResearchGate or another academic network?
Making a publication available on an academic social network does not meet the criteria of Open Access, as these are not securely archived for the long term and are often only accessible after registration. There is also a risk of copyright infringement if – as is usual with publications that are not freely accessible and subject to a charge – the rights to them are no longer held by the author but have been transferred exclusively to a publisher.
In the case of publications published under an open license, this is possible under appropriate licensing conditions. A publication, whether published via Gold Open Access or Green Open Access, should ideally only be integrated in academic social networks as a reference and with a link to the publication.
