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Open Access with TUB: A look back at 2022

In 2022, TUB has been committed to Open Access in various ways. Some activities and developments of the past year are presented below in this blog post.

Open Access Transformation and Challenges

Not only in the context of the 80th Library Committee at the TUHH on 11.05.2022, the change of the academic publication system away from the traditional subscription and acquisition models (acquisition of access to scientific publications) to a financing of publications themselves was discussed with regard to the OA transformation. In January 2022, the German Council of Science and Humanities published recommendations on the transformation. These included well-known OA features such as faster and broader access to publications, possible access for interested parties outside specialist communities, and more transparency with regard to publication monitoring. These aspects were also a regular part of the day-to-day consulting work in the TUB team. In addition, not least, challenges such as increasing APCs (Article Processing Charges), mixed funding (funding of articles from different budget pots), electronic resource management, and more heterogeneous metadata work had to be overcome with a view to optimizing internal workflows.

DFG OA publication costs

In 2021, TUB successfully applied for the DFG program “Open Access Publication Costs 2022-2024”. This was achieved not least thanks to the support of many colleagues. In December 2021, the application, which is publicly available via TORE, was approved. It has had a positive effect here that the library has already been operating an Open Access fund for journal articles since 2013 and that Open Access has been anchored as a strategic goal at TUHH since then. The approved funds total 152,600 euros, with 700 euros of DFG funding available per article.

Expenditure and planning 2022

The development of the publication fund expenditures increased continuously in the past years. Thus, in 2018, 23,544.04 euros were spent on gold open access articles, and in subsequent years 37,573.64 euros (2019), 47,901.09 euros (2020), and 98,153.54 euros (2021). Funding has been provided from the library’s acquisition budget since 2020. For the year 2022, 80,000 euros were budgeted as well as supplementary annual DFG funds from the funding program “”Open Access Publication Costs 2022-2024″”. In the end, 97,046.68 euros were spent on gold open access articles.

Details on the APC payments of the entire TU Hamburg can be found via OpenAPC. The library offers an overview of the articles supported via the publication fund on its own service pages.

New open access publication offerings

Special conditions for Open Access publishing were agreed upon in 2022 with some publishers through license agreements or memberships.

  • Frontiers: through the Institutional Agreement with Frontiers, TUHH will receive a 2.5% discount on APCs from 12/12/2022.
  • PLOS 2023-2024: TUHH researchers can publish an unlimited number of articles in 17 PLOS journals without additional costs.

In order to determine the needs of TUHH regarding a possible participation in the PLOS consortium, professors and senior engineers were surveyed about the PLOS offer via a six-question questionnaire. The survey was conducted between August 23rd, 2022 and September 6th, 2022. The responses to the questionnaire were evaluated to determine the reasons for, or against, a publication by TUHH members in PLOS publications. Based on this evaluation, the offer was ultimately signed by TUHH.

In addition, TUB participated in the Open Access Free Purchase Consortium of the FID Educational Science and Educational Research. 18 book projects on educational science, education and higher education research will thus be published in open access immediately upon their publication between fall 2022 and summer 2023.

Information and consulting

The TUB’s consulting services and events were mainly held online in the past year. Individual OA inquiries were, however, not least also frequently handled by telephone or e-mail.

Introduction of Open Access Office Hours and Collect, Write, Publish 2022

In addition to the established event series “CWP – Collect, Write, Publish”, at which the Open Access team was again able to provide information in 2022 on the topic “Open Up! Making Research Visible with Open Access“, the new format of Open Access consultation hours was introduced in March 2022. An open Zoom room is available every Friday from 10:00 to 10:30 for interested TU members to engage in personal exchange. This opportunity for discussion complements our e-mail and telephone consultation services. We believe that this approach provides a more personalized experience for those seeking information and support regarding Open Access.

Inputs zu Open Access

Also in 2022, individually tailored introductory presentations were given to various TU institutes and working groups in response to their requests. These presentations covered a general insight into Open Access and addressed specific questions or problems. As a team, we value these events. They allow us to learn more about the needs and experiences of TU members regarding publication practices. In turn, this information can be used to improve our services and support for Open Access.

Throughout the past year, numerous external inquiries were received. Additionally, in 2022, prospective librarians of the elective module “scientific publishing” were granted practical insight into open access work at the HAW Hamburg. This included information on service offers and the financing of publication costs. The elective module was part of a course in library and information management.

Open Access Week 2022

As part of the Open Access Week 2022 (motto “Open for Climate Justice”), the TUB participated with a large number of contributions and activities. In addition to an invitation to hack together at the TUHH as part of the worldwide week-long event “Formats For Future: Liberating and Semantify IPCC Reports“, Gerrit Weiser and Robinson Perić provided insights into Open Access and Blue Engineering in a guest blog post. Other blog posts such as “Secondary publication in Open Access – A consultation“, “The PDF is not enough: Why science needs open formats” and an open Open Access consultation hour rounded off the program.

Other developments

The Open Access team regularly evaluates various tasks and processes. In 2022, this included many small steps such as grant application processing, publication monitoring, and even publication fund criteria. For the latter, adjustments are required at regular intervals to ensure the fairest possible distribution of funds for TU members. The changes for the year 2022 thereby included, among others, that…

  • … a limit of one article per author per year has been set,
  • … researchers in the early stages of their careers should be supported.

In the course of many OA topics, some of which were also listed in the context of this blogpost, a meeting with various libraries from Hamburg was also initiated which took place in January 2023.

We will be happy to advise you on Open Access

You can reach the Open Access team via mail openaccess@tuhh.de.

Please also feel free to take part in our Open Access consultation hours via Zoom (identification code: 190591) if you have questions regarding Open Access (every Friday from 10:00 am to 10:30 am).

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