Research and Publication Service

The library of Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt supports researchers in publishing their scientific work. We advise you on the selection of a suitable journal and accompany you throughout the entire publishing process. In addition, our repository provides you with a way to make your articles permanently available online.

Scientific Publishing

About Open Access

Open Access means that scientific literature is published online and is accessible free of charge and largely free of legal and technical restrictions.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities are considered the fundamental and initial statements of the Open Access movement.

Publishing scientific literature as Open Access offers several advantages, e.g.:

The publications can be accessed anywhere at any time and are easy to find via search engines such as Google Scholar and BASE, as well as databases such as the Directory of Open Access Journals and the Directory of Open Access Books.
Awareness and citation frequency of the contributions are increased, which contributes to the reputation of the authors and the institutions at which they conduct research.
Authors have full control over usage rights, e.g. by granting Creative Commons licenses.

A comprehensive overview of reasons for and also reservations against Open Access can be found on the Open Access Information Platform.

Important projects to advance the provision of scientific research results as Open Access are DEAL and Plan S.

Publish Open Access

The two main ways to publish articles as Open Access are the Gold Open Access and the green way. First publication of scientific articles in journals, monographs, and edited volumes that are published as open access is referred to as the Gold Open Access. Usually, these publications go through a quality assurance process, e.g. in the form of peer review. Gold Open Access in journals that do not charge publication fees is also referred to as diamond or platinum to emphasize the fact that they are free of charge.

The Green Open Access is the secondary publication of articles as open access on repositories published by a publisher or journal. This additional publication can be made in advance, at the same time or later. Whether and under what conditions secondary publication is possible is governed by the contract between you and the publisher.

To decide where to publish your article, these links may be helpful:

An overview of Open Access journals is provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals.
The Eigenfactor® Project shows the cost-benefit relationship between publication fee and citation rate.
The policies of many publishers on parallel publication of articles are noted at Sherpa Romeo.
Help in identifying dubious journals is offered by Think. Check. Submit.

Publication fees

Publishing articles as Open Access incurs costs, either a Publish & Read Fee (PAR) or an Article Processing Charge (APC).

The Publish & Read Fee is a fee that is charged for publishing in subscription journals. In addition to publication costs, this also includes the cost of reading access to all issues of the hybrid journals in question.

The Article Processing Charge applies to publication in Gold Open Access journals.

Dubious Publishing Practices: Predatory Journals / Predatory Publishers

Predatory journals or predatory publishers are publications that massively solicit scientific papers in order to obtain publication fees without adhering to the standards of good scientific work (such as peer review). Predatory journals do considerable damage to science and research by publishing articles that do not meet scientific and ethical standards. Publication in such a publication thus also damages the reputation of serious researchers and the institution to which they belong. Unfortunately, it's not easy to spot Predatory Journals right away. You should pay attention to the following points:

If you are asked by a journal to publish in it, you should check the Directory of Open Access Journals to see if that journal is white listed.
Check the pages of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association and Committee on Publication Ethics organizations to see if the journal in question is listed as a member. Be sure to take the test on these pages, even if a membership is mentioned on the journal’s website.
Search for the journal in relevant subject databases and catalogs, e.g., the Electronic Journals Library or the Master Journal List of the Web of Science Group.
Use the checklist on Think. Check. Submit.

Check with professional colleagues about the journal. Inform them and the library of your suspicions.

More information and further literature on this topic can be found on the Open Access information platform.

Creative Commons

By granting a Creative Commons license, you can specify the ways in which your work can be used by others. A common and recommended license for open access publications is CC-BY: Your publication may be redistributed, copied, modified, and used in other ways (including commercially), but your name must always be acknowledged and any changes must be identified. There are also stricter licenses that prohibit, for example, editing or commercial use.

ORCID

Researchers can register with ORCID to receive a unique identification number. In this way, persons and their research achievements can be permanently linked, even if the names are the same, the names have changed, or there are different spellings.

Repository of the THI

The Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt has an OPUS document server that serves as an Open Access repository. On the one hand, students' theses are permanently archived here and made accessible (depending on the release declaration). On the other hand, publications by university members are also published free of charge as first or second publications. Their publications are listed in the online catalog of the university library as well as being referenced in search engines such as BASE and Google Scholar, making them discoverable worldwide.

For further questions and information, please do not hesitate to contact us. Email us at openaccess@thi.de.