Open Access

“By open access to research literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, [...] without financial, legal, or technical barriers [...].”
(Extract from the Budapest Open Access Initiative)

Through Open Access, your publications are freely available to everyone worldwide and are therefore easier to find and cited more frequently.

Strategies of Open Access

There are two strategies to implement Open Access, the golden and the green route.

Golden road means the primary publication in an Open Access Journal.
Green road means the simultaneous or subsequent deposit of already reviewed and published publications in an open access online repository.

Gold Open Access: Publication in an Open Access Journal

“Gold Open Access” means publishing in an Open Access Journal. Open Access Journals run a peer review process to insure scientific quality. Access worldwide is free of charge and public.
Open Access Journal Publishers often charge a fee for each article in opposite to charging for a journal subscription. The fee is usually paid by the author or their affiliated institution. The price for publication fees depends on the respective journal. According to the Open APC initiative, the price can range between 100 € and 4,000 €. The estimated average price for publishing fees paid in Germany is approximately 1,500 €.

  • A suitable Open Access Journal can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It provides an overview of more than 19,000 refereed Open Access Journals (August 2023).
  • Even monographs are increasingly being published via Open Access. The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) provides an overview of individual titles and publishers.
  • The Open APC initiative is committed to the disclosure of publication fees. The publication costs of different institutions can be viewed and evaluated.

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The text is based on the contents of the Open Access website of the TU Berlin University Library. This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International Licence.

Green Open Access: Secondary Publication

Green Open Access” (also known as self archiving) describes the parallel publication of documents after their first publication with a classic publisher. The second publication takes place either simultaneously or delayed (6–24 months) in an institutional or a disciplinary open access repository.

You can publish your publications at the Digital Repository of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. Please contact us! We will support you and give advice!

Most publishers and journals have different regulations regarding the secondary publication rights and which version of the publication may be deposited. The Sherpa directory gives an overview of what publishers or the individual journals allow their authors. Further possibilities and repositories can be found below under the tab “Repositories etc.”.

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The text is based on the contents of the Open Access website of the TU Berlin University Library. This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

Open Access @ BTU

In order to make your article open access available, you can use OPUS the Digital repository of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg operated by the University Library which is available to all members of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.

 If you're interessted, contact us! We love to hear from you and to help or advise you!

The University Library will inform about...

  • Open Access and Secondary Publishing
  • Support and contact persons for the use of OPUS
  • Information on electronic publishing

The department Research Services will inform about ...

  • Organisation, Regulations and Requirements of funding
  • Information and advice on funding strategies and funding opportunities offered by the EU, the BMBF and the DFG for research projects
Open Access Strategies in Germany

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) published its Strategy for Open Access in Germany (in German) at the end of September 2016 and announced that it would include Open Access as a condition in its project funding.

You can find more detailed information in the BMBF’s Strategy Paper (in German).

The Open Access Strategy for Brandenburg was developed by a project group led by Prof. Ellen Euler, Professor for Open Access, Open Data, and Open Science at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, funded by the Ministry of Sciences. The paper published in July 2019 describes how Open Access can be strengthened extensively in the coming years.

The Wissenschaftsrat (German Science and Humanities Council) gives extensive Recommendations for the Transformation of Scientific Publishing to Open Access (in German) (published in January 2022).

ORCID: Open Researcher and Contributor ID

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized. Furthermore with ORCID you can combine other identifiers and profiles in one place. 

Learn more at orcid.org and get you own individual ORCID-iD!

Further Information

open access network
Informationen about Open Access

Schwerpunktinitiative Digitale Information
Initiative of the German Alliance of Scientific Organisations for the improvement of information supply in research and teaching

Sherpa Services
Database for research funders, journals, publishers, and repositories regarding their open access policies

FAQs for Open Access
Questions and Answers on the topics of academic publishing and open access compiled by Publissio, the ZB Med publication portal for life sciences

FAQ Zweitveröffentlichung
Questions and Answers about the Secondary Publication Right in Germany compiled by the initiative "Digitale Information" 

Legal issues
The most important information concerning german copyright law compiled by open-access.net

 Legal Issues FAQ
Compilation of the most important questions concerning copyright by the university library of TU Berlin

DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
List of Open Access Journals

DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
List of Open Access Books

ROAR: Registry of Open Acces Repositories

List of Open Access Repositories

re3data: Registry of Research Data Repositories
List of research data repositories