Publishing FAQs
What does the MLU Publication Fund support?
The MLU Publication Fund supports publications that appear in Gold Open Access journals or monographs published as Gold Open Access by publishers. These must be made available as Open Access immediately upon publication. This also applies to edited volumes in which all contributions are published directly as Open Access.
Gold Open Access publication fees arising from DEAL contracts are paid in full. Publication fees for Gold Open Access journal articles from other publishers can be funded up to a maximum of €3,000 (including VAT), and Gold Open Access monographs up to a maximum of €5,000 (including VAT). The ULB will invoice the institute for the difference.
Does the Publication Fund also support articles in journals subject to a licence that are only made available as Open Access after an embargo period?
No, this model is excluded from the Publication Fund.
Are additional costs for publications covered by the Publication Fund?
No, these costs (e.g. colour 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. Furthermore, some of these costs should not be charged separately if a transformation contract is in place. 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 assigned a citable DOI.
Can emeritus professors also publish articles under Elsevier’s Open Access and other transformation agreements, and are the costs covered by the journal contract?
Yes, emeritus professors may also publish under the transformation contracts provided that the project is related to MLU and MLU is specified as the mandatory affiliation.
Why do we not use the publication fund to support open-access publications in hybrid journals?
Hybrid publications are not currently funded, as publishers may profit twice by charging licence fees and publication fees for individual articles. This is known as „double dipping“.
In transformation contracts, on the other hand, reading access to a large 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 in place at MLU can be found here.
Does the decision 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 will not be freely accessible to everyone. The university supports DEAL and the transition by providing appropriate funding; it is therefore strongly recommended that you always use the Open Access option within the framework of DEAL.
Is co-funding from several sources possible?
Yes, co-funding from several 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 criteria can also be found at ThinkCheckSubmit.
Which licence model should I choose?
The use of a recognised open content licence, e.g. Creative Commons licences (CC licences), is a prerequisite for the Publication Fund to cover the costs. In agreement with the DFG and other research funding bodies, 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 via 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 for Open Access, as these publications 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 usually the case with publications that are not freely accessible and are 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 released under an open licence, this is possible subject to the relevant licensing conditions. A publication, whether published via Gold Open Access or Green Open Access, should ideally only be shared on academic social media platforms as a reference and with a link to the publication.