Open access journals usually provide the same quality assurance by means of peer review as conventional subscription journals. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), opens an external URL in a new window provides an overview of the aforementioned open access journals.

Please note that there are also open access publishing houses with dubious business practices (known as predatory publishing), which publish fake journals and organise fake conferences. Prior to submission, we would recommend that you take a look at the "Think Check Submit", opens an external URL in a new window website or also consult the Guidelines to identify dubious open access journals, opens an external URL in a new window.

When publishing in open access journals, publication fees, known as article processing charges (APCs), may be incurred. TU Wien provides a subsidy for this purpose from the publication fund managed by TU Wien Bibliothek. Funding requirements are those of the publication fund. To submit a funding application, please use our web form.

To facilitate operations, TU Wien Bibliothek has set up individual accounts for open access journals based on agreements with selected publishing houses. If an article is submitted to these journals, the library is informed by the publishing house and contacts the corresponding author. If the subsidy criteria are fulfilled, the costs are paid from the publication fund. There is no need for authors to apply separately to the publication fund.

--> Overview of agreements with publishing houses on open access journals

Publishing open access articles in subscription journals (hybrid open access) incurs double the costs, as the publishing companies charge publication fees to authors and subscription fees to institutions. Many of these journals have a long history and have a high reputation in their respective discipline.

TU Wien Bibliothek is negotiating open access components more and more frequently and concludes what are known as transformative agreements with publishing houses, which are a vital contribution to arranging for the transformation process from closed access to open access to be cost neutral as far as possible. This provides members of TU Wien with the opportunity of making their publications freely accessible around the world in established journals as soon as they are published.

TU Wien Bibliothek is negotiating open access components more and more frequently and concludes what are known as transformative agreements with publishing houses. This provides members of TU Wien with the opportunity of making their publications freely accessible around the world in established journals as soon as they are published. Invoicing is conducted centrally by TU Wien Bibliothek. However, outside the publisher agreements specified in the overview (see link below), the library does not assume any costs for hybrid open access, due to cost issues.

--> Overview of the transformative agreements with publishers

Within the scope of existing licence agreements, TU Wien Bibliothek has also negotiated discounts with the following publishing houses for TU Wien members. The library does not assume costs automatically.

AAAS: "Science Advances", opens an external URL in a new window

• 15% discount on article fees through the library's licence agreement
• Applies for all paying authors (usually corresponding authors) of TU Wien
• The paying author needs to validate the reduced price by clicking on "Apply Discounts" and by selecting TU Wien from the drop-down list of affiliations. The link for this is included in the notification of acceptance of the article

IWA Publishing (The International Water Association), opens an external URL in a new window

• 25% discount on the cost of open access books through the TU Wien Bibliothek agreement
• This will be deducted by the publishing house automatically on submission for all corresponding authors of TU Wien

Portland Press, opens an external URL in a new window

• 15% discount on article fees through TU Wien Bibliothek's licence agreement
• Automatically deducted by the publishing house for all corresponding authors of TU Wien, if open access is selected on submission and TU Wien affiliation is specified during the payment process

In principle, usage rights for a publication are set out in author agreements between the publishing house and the author. These agreements delineate the scope in which the usage rights are assigned to the publishing house. Many publishers permit self-archiving in repositories often upon expiry of a retention period (embargo). Also, only a specific version of the publication ("submitted/accepted version") may be archived.

The following should therefore be taken into consideration:

• You should only grant the publishing house "non-exclusive usage rights" for the electronic publication, so that you can also make your work available in parallel in a repository. To do this, you can delete any restrictive wording in the text of the agreement (expressions such as exclusive submission of all rights). You should draw attention to any amendments in the covering letter.
• There is another option to attach an addendum to the agreement, in which you reserve the non-exclusive right of use for publication in a repository.
• For agreements written in German, you could use the text below as a template for an addendum:

1. Der Verlag stimmt zu, dass der Autor_die Autorin das nicht exklusive Recht behält, eine digitale Kopie des Dokumentes vor/während/nach der Publikation durch den Verlag zeitlich unbeschränkt auf einen öffentlich zugänglichen akademischen Non-Profit-Server zu legen.
2. Der Autor verpflichtet sich, das Originaldokument auf dem akademischen Non-Profit-Server zu zitieren.

• For agreements written in English, there is a practical online tool, the Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine. You can choose between the three options (Reuse Access, Immediate Access or Delayed Access) and compile the addendum online.

For some open access publications, so-called article processing charges (APCs) have to be paid. The OpenAPC initiative, opens an external URL in a new window was established in 2014 at Bielefeld University Library to collect and display data on expenditure for open access publications. The aim of this open data service for APCs is to help create transparency and enable monitoring of fees paid for open access publications: price development of APCs and the shift towards open access can be viewed and evaluated over the long term. The APC datasets are aggregated on GitHub, opens an external URL in a new window and released under an open database license. Since 2021 OpenAPC has been part of the EU-funded project "OpenAIRE Nexus, opens an external URL in a new window".

TU Wien Bibliothek's expenditure on gold open access journals is disclosed annually to OpenAPC and can be viewed on the APC Treemap visualisation, opens an external URL in a new window. Articles published under transformative agreements are reported via the Austrian Academic Libraries Consortium without data on fees, and are visualised separately, opens an external URL in a new window.

ESAC , opens an external URL in a new window– standing for Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges – aggregates data and relevant facts for various facets of the open access market: for example, recommendations on open access workflows and guidelines for transformative agreements are published there. A registry lists parameters of transformative agreements. TU Wien Bibliothek's transformative agreements are reported via the Austrian Academic Libraries Consortium, including the agreements with American Chemical Society (ACS), opens an external URL in a new window [2020-22], Cambridge University Press (CUP), opens an external URL in a new window [2020-22], Elsevier, opens an external URL in a new window [2021-23], Emerald, opens an external URL in a new window [2020-22], Institute of Physics (IOP), opens an external URL in a new window [2020-22], IWA Publishing, opens an external URL in a new window [2019-21], Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), opens an external URL in a new window [2021-23], Springer, opens an external URL in a new window [2019-21], Taylor & Francis, opens an external URL in a new window [2020-22] and Wiley, opens an external URL in a new window [2021-23].

ESAC was developed together with OpenAPC between 2015 and 2018 as part of the INTACT (Transparent Infrastructure for Article Charges) initiative, but the initiatives are now independent.