Update: Slides for tub.talk DEAL – ein Blick hinter die Kulissen 23.10.2020

The DEAL contracts enables TUHH members to publish in the journals of the publishers SpringerNature and Wiley in Open Access and to access the journal offerings of both publishers for reading.

1. Who stands for DEAL? And what does the the contract allow?
2. What are your benefits as an author?
3. What conditions are attached to a publication?
4. When do you incur additional costs?
5. How to apply for funding for a publication to be published under DEAL?
6. Why Open Access and not ‘Opt-out’ = closed access?
7. What about the financing of articles from other publishers?

Who stands for DEAL? And what does the contract allow?

In recent years, the DEAL project, the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) on behalf of the Alliance of German Science Organisations, has negotiated transformation contracts with two large, commercial science publishers that further promote free access to research results. Contracts were concluded with the Wiley publishing house in 2019 and the SpringerNature publishing house at the beginning of 2020. The TUHH, as a participating institution of DEAL, has also joined them.

The contracts include a modified pricing model that provides for publication-based billing. As a result, the costs for subscription journals will no longer be covered as before, but the “Publish-and-Read” fee (PAR) will settle the publisher’s expenses based on a mixed calculation under DEAL. In addition to the “Publish” component for Open Access publications, the “Read” component of the contracts gives all participating institutions permanent full-text access to the publishers’ e-journal portfolio.

What are your benefits as an author?

Authors retain the exploitation rights to their publications and do not transfer them to the publisher. In addition, they reach a larger readership, because their publications are immediately and freely accessible worldwide to any scientist without embargo. Since the financing of the contract is handled centrally by the tub., authors do not have to worry about the financing after a successful peer review process in hybrid journals and completed submission procedure. The current situation is different for Gold Open Access journals. Here, the TUHH is seeking a financial contribution from authors through project funds.

What conditions are attached to a publication?

• Most of the journals of the two publishers are part of the DEAL contract. However, there are exceptions: the Nature titles, for example, are not part of the contract! More detailed information can be found in the Springer journal list as well as the Gold OA journal list and the hybrid journals of Wiley.
• The publication must fall under the Wiley article types or Springer article types.
• Furthermore, the Corresponding Author must be a member of the TUHH and must prove this according to the new affiliation guidelines of the TUHH.
• The preferred license type for publication is CC-BY. Individual journals from the publishers are currently only available under the limited licenses CC-BY-NC and CC-BY-NC-ND.

When do you incur additional costs?

• Additional costs arise when the publisher can charge for additional services, such as color illustrations or excess length. These are billed directly to the author.
• The financing agreed in the contract does not include articles in pure OA journals (Gold OA). Instead, authors of TUHH receive a 20% discount on the APCs. Billing is carried out centrally at the end of the year via the library, which then uses an internal settlement if necessary. Financing by the TUHH Publishing Fund in the library can be applied for if the conditions for funding are met.

How to apply for funding for a publication to be published under DEAL?

The Corresponding Author submits the publication to the hybrid journal alternatively to the selected OA journal of the publishers SpringerNature or Wiley and identifies him/herself there as a member of an authorized institution. By specifying the correct TUHH affiliation, the article is assigned to us to confirm that the costs can be settled centrally via the library at the end of the year. In order to get an overview of the costs under the DEAL contracts, an additional tu-internal application for funding should be submitted via our website.

Why Open Access and not ‘Opt-out’ = Closed Access?

It is possible not to publish the publication in Open Access (opt-out). The article then appears in Closed Access. This gives the publisher exclusive rights and the article is only accessible to subscribers of the journal. This option does not lead to a cost reduction for the TUHH! Therefore we recommend the publication in Open Access. A subsequent “OA-switching” without additional costs is possible with Wiley. Springer unfortunately does not offer this option.

What about the financing of articles from other publishers?

In addition to financing through the DEAL contracts, the tub. continues to provide a publication fund. Articles in pure OA magazines (Gold OA) can be financed from this publication fund. At IEEE, tub. has also pre-financed a contingent of 10 OA articles. This contingent can be used until the end of 2021. In the case of IOP, an article can also be published in OA until the end of 2020, which has already been co-financed under a licensing agreement.

Further information on the DEAL project at the TUHH as well as information on publishing under Wiley and Springer can be found on our website DEAL at the TUHH. In addition, the DEAL project provides a general overview and up-to-date information on the DEAL contracts. If you have any questions please contact the team openaccess@tuhh.de.

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