Publishing in Open Access journals

Charité and BIH support open access to scientific knowledge and have signed the Berlin Declaration 2018. The Open Access Transformation measures are coordinated by the Open Access Team of the Medical Library. The Berlin Senate adopted an OA strategy for Berlin in 2015, and the goal of 60% freely accessible publications in 2020 stated there has been achieved for Charité (see dashboards of the Medical Library and the QUEST Center).

Publishing in Open Access journals is the so-called golden way of Open Access and means the first publication of an article in a freely accessible journal. Publication fees are often payable per publication.

Suitable Open Access journals

To make it easier for you to select a suitable Open Access journal, BIH's QUEST Center has developed an Open Access journal positive list. It contains journals with high quality standards to protect you from publications in so-called predatory journals. In addition, you will receive information on publication costs and review times.

The list is undergoing maintenance to reflect recent changes in funding criteria. An update is upcoming. In the meanwhile, you can consult the list of journals eligible for the Publication Fund of the Charité Medical Library.

Predatory Open Access

So-called predatory journals are journals with no or inadequate quality assurance procedures. Like many OA journals, they are based on the APC funding model, i.e. the author pays publication fees for publication in these journals. The term predatory publishing has become established for this practice.

How do I recognise predatory journals?
You should be careful, if:
a journal/publisher keeps sending emails - almost like spam - and aggressively soliciting submissions
the title of a journal or the design of the website is strongly reminiscent of a well-known journal
the review and release of an article takes place within the shortest time
the website of the journal contains many grammar and spelling mistakes
the journal is not indexed in Pubmed or other databases you normally use
The following online offers can help you to assess the seriousness of a journal:
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) only lists journals that apply quality assurance procedures
The checklist Think. Check. Submit. offers a comprehensive list of criteria for evaluating the trustworthiness of a journal
Journals that are members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) can be classified as harmless
Are Open Access journals generally of poor quality?
No. Precisely because critics like to use predatory publishing as an argument against Open Access, it is important to say that most Open Access journals have the same high quality standards as conventional journals and that their quality assurance procedures are in no way inferior to those of closed journals.
Predatory conferences
There are also some non-serious providers in the field of conferences. Here, websites are created with sham conferences on which scientists are sometimes listed as speakers or members of the organising committee without ever having heard of them. Or conferences are announced, which are then postponed at short notice. You should get suspicious, if:
you do not know the organisation organising this conference
your colleagues do not know the conference
you cannot find all the details of the conference (e.g.: attendance fees, submission date, conference date, venue)
you cannot find clear information on the timetable and agenda of the conference

Open Access publication costs

The business models for financing OA publications are diverse. One highly widespread financing model is the charging of Article Processing Charges (APC) as a prerequisite for the publication.

For more information on covering OA publication costs at Charité, please visit the Charité Medical Library pages.

Berlin Universities Publishing

Since 2022, the institutions of the Berlin University Alliance jointly operate the Open Access publisher Berlin Universities Publishing (BUP). This publishing house provides a platform that researcher communities can use to publish their own open access journals. The publishing model, the so-called “diamond open access”, does not rely on fees from authors or readers, but requires editors to take on additional tasks beyond peer review organization, like copy-editing and typesetting. Besides journals, BUP also publishes Open Access books. While publication itself is, as for journal articles, free of charge, supplementary services, such as copy-editing, typesetting, and layout, can be purchased for a fee.

Hybrid Open Access journals

Hybrid journals are journals in which both freely accessible articles (Open Access articles) and articles that are only accessible to subscribers to the journal are published. Such publication possibilities are offered under the names Open Choice, Author's Choice or similar.

In principle, this model means that subscription as well as publication fees for such journals must be paid to the relevant publisher by the institutions. To avoid this negative effect, preference should be given to publishing in open access journals.

Publications under a Creative Commons license

We recommend that you provide your Open Access article with a Creative Commons license (CC-BY 4.0) so that third parties can re-use your work and open access is guaranteed.

Further information

Medizinische Bibliothek der Charité

The Charité Medical Library oversees the topic of Open Access and advises you on all issues related to Open Access publishing.

Contact information
E-mail:	openaccess@charite.de
Website:	https://bibliothek.charite.de/en/publishing/open_access/