Open Access

Open Access opens up many positive opportunities for HWR Berlin’s Higher Education Development. Resulting from OA, the visibility, findability, and reception of publications and projects of HWR Berlin can be augmented. Thus, OA can contribute significantly to the international and innovative communication culture at HWR Berlin.

By signing the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, HWR Berlin’s President Prof. Dr. Andreas Zaby the importance of Open Access at HWR Berlin was emphasized. In this context, the Open Access Office of HWR Berlin, already implemented in summer 2018, actively pursues Open Access.

In February 2020 the Open Access Policy of HWR Berlin was thus passed by the Academic Senate of HWR Berlin. Next to providing Open Access support to all interested members of HWR Berlin, the Open Access Office is also working on the strategic implementation of the Open Access Policy; the aim is a comprehensive Open Access infrastructure for HWR Berlin.

Open Access: Basic concepts

• Open Access glossary of HWR Berlin

OA is the free and worldwide access to publicly funded research and its findings, including scientific articles, monographs and other academic forms of communication. This goal can be achieved through (many) different ways: the two most common models are labelled "Gold OA" and "Green OA".

Gold OA signifies the situation in which scientific publications are made immediately available in the sense of OA upon their first publication; this can be done through the payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs) per article or cost absorption by scientific communities or consortia. To achieve Gold OA, OA journals can be utilized; see the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for a comprehensive listing. Additionally, the Think. Check. Submit. check list provides a good starting point for researchers to examine the quality of a journal they potentially wish to publish in.

Green OA means the self-archiving of academic publications via publication servers (also called repositories) after the potential embargo periods (during which an article may not be posted outside of the initial subscription journal) has elapsed. These publication servers allow the free and worldwide access to scientific information as well as serve as its long-term preservation.

Among others, institutional publication servers can contain academic articles and e.g. (un-)published final theses (such as Bachelor’s or Master’s theses). The institutional publication server of HWR Berlin, the OPUS publication server, has been used predominantly as an archive for final theses of HWR Berlin; however, increasingly scientific articles and other publication forms are being added.

Subject-specific publication servers, such as EconStor (in the fields of economics and business studies) or <intR>²Dok (for (international) law and legal studies) also allow for OA publications. Further, there are universal publication servers (such as Zenodo) and preprint servers (such as arXiv) that offer possibilities for open academic communication.

How can I gather further information on Open Access?

Central OA actors in Berlin-Brandenburg are, among others:

• AG Open-Access-Strategie Berlin
• Arbeitskreis der Berliner Open-Access-Beauftragten  
• Open-Access-Büro Berlin 

Further interesting OA information can be found via:

• Information Platform Open Access, e. g. concerning the following disciplines:
• OA in economics and business studies
• OA in law and legal studies
   
• FAQ der Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen zum Thema Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht (2015; please note that this text is written in German and with the specific German legal situation in mind).
• Overview of academic OA journals with quality insurance measures: Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
• in the overview of scientific OA books with quality control Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). HWR Berlin has joined the DOAB as a member. Further information

Leading HWR Berlin’s OA development are Vice President Prof. Dr. Claudius Ohder, Chancellor Dr. Sandra Westerburg, and OA Officer Frank Wehrand. In cooperation with these actors, the Open-Access-Büro der HWR Berlin was established in 2018 as part of the academic library of HWR Berlin.

An important foundation for this development is constituted by the Open-Access-Strategie des Landes Berlin (the Open Access Strategy of Berlin) which envisages 60% OA for scientific articles by 2020. In this context, a central OA coordination office, the Open-Access-Büro, was established, as well as various working groups that jointly construct OA infrastructures for Berlin.