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2022-01-17
  • Open Access
  • E-Media

Expansion of Open Access publishing opportunities at Cambridge University Press and de Gruyter

An adjustment to the transformation contracts for the journal offerings of Cambridge University Press and de Gruyter will result in improved OA publishing options from 2022.

In accordance with the Open Access Resolution of the University of Freiburg, the University Library promotes Open Access (OA) publications in a variety of ways and thus free and unhindered access to scientific information. Through participation in various framework agreements, members of the university who act as corresponding authors have the opportunity to publish articles free of charge or at a discount. In 2022, the University is now participating in two consortium agreements that significantly expand publication opportunities with the publishers Cambridge University Press and de Gruyter compared to previous years.

The contract for the Cambridge University Press journal portfolio not only allows for unlimited publications in the hybrid journals, as before, but henceforth also in the golden OA journals.(1) This means that there is now a choice of over 400 journal titles in which to publish with minimal administrative effort; funding applications for the university's publication fund are not required. The articles are made open access under a CC-BY licence as standard immediately upon publication. The spectrum of article types that can be published in open access is also being expanded. In addition to Research Articles, Review Articles and Rapid Communications, Brief Reports and Case Reports will also be eligible article types in future.
In addition to publication rights, reading rights are also being extended, which in future will encompass the publisher's entire package.

The de Gruyter contract implements a model for the OA transformation of the publisher's humanities and social science journal portfolio. The model differentiates between two sets of conditions, for which different conditions apply. Collection A consists of 104 journals and as of now offers unlimited publication possibilities under a CC-BY licence.
For the 65 journals in collection B, on the other hand, a so-called "Subscribe to Open" model (S2O) applies. This means that these journals continue to be subscribed to and thus reading rights are acquired. When a defined revenue threshold is reached, however, eleven journals in the collection are expected to be transferred to an OA model. Furthermore, the list prices of the publication fees (Article Processing Charges) in the golden OA journals are discounted by 20 %. These discounted costs are eligible for reimbursement through the University Publication Fund. Please submit a funding application for this.

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(1) For the distinction between hybrid and golden OA journals cf. https://open-access.network/en/information/glossary