Open Access (OA) means that scholarly publications can be accessed and read by everybody in the world, unrestricted and free of charge. Furthermore, OA means that research results can be re-used as flexibly and unrestrictedly as possible. OA publications are always electronic, resp. online publications that may additionally be published in print.
Readers benefit from OA because they can access scholarly publications immediately and without any paywalls. Authors of OA publications benefit because OA publications are usually read and cited more frequently than non-OA publications.
There are two essential pathways of OA publishing: Direct OA publishing through a publisher and OA publication of a manuscript concurrently to the publisher’s version, or after a delay. Both pathways will be described below. Of equal importance is that OA publications are made legally sound through licencing – please find more information below, as well.
Gold OA publications are published immediately in Open Access, including journal articles, books or other forms.
In Gold OA, fees incur for the authors. (article/book processing charges, APCs resp. BPCs). The GU Open Access Publication Fund can in many instances cover these publication fees for journal articles. Additionally, expected publication expenses can be applied for in many funding applications at research funding institutions.
A growing number of publishers and journals offers free OA publishing for authors and readers. This means that contrary to Gold OA, no publication fee incurs for authors. This form of OA is called Diamond Open Access. Diamond OA is the easiest and fairest form of OA to all parties involved. This is why the university library supports numerous Diamond OA initiatives.
Another form of immediate OA is called »hybrid Open Access«. Here, publishers offer the option to “buy out” an article from a conventional »closed-access«-journal through paying a publication fee. This praxis is controversial, since publishers are earning twice: Once through subscription or licencing fees, paid by the libraries, and once through the hybrid publication fee.
The GU OA-publication fund only supports hybrid OA if the publishers plan to successively flip their journals to OA, as regulated by transformative agreements. Well-known examples are the current agreements with Wiley and Springer Nature
The following publishers offer free hybrid OA publication to GU members:
Sometimes a journal or a publisher does not offer any or no affordable direct OA option. In many cases authors still have the option to make certain manuscript versions available in OA either concurrently to the publisher’s version, or after a delay. This is called “green Open Access” or “self-archiving”. No costs for authors incur.
In journal publishing, more and more „preprints” are made available long before the articles are published in a journal. Authors make the manuscript version available on subject-specific preprint servers that they submit to a publisher. Preprint servers are well-established in a number of disciplines, such as
In other disciplines, they are currently gaining in popularity, such as
Additionally, many journals offer the option to make the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, also known as “postprint”) freely accessible. This means the accepted, final version of the manuscript after the peer review process (but without the publisher’s layout). This option is often available for contributions to edited volumes, as well. German copyright law in many cases enables authors to publish AAMs 12 months after the publication of the journal article in OA, e.g. on the Goethe University repository.
Many publishers explicitly grant such rights to authors, as well. In some cases, it is even permitted to make the final publisher’s version available on a repository after a certain embargo period (this more and more frequently applies to contributions to edited volumes in the humanities, as well). The university library’s OA team is happy to support you in self-archiving your publications.
Creative Commons licences (CC licences) make publications "truly" open access. They grant authors more rights to their own publication and facilitate reuse in the research cycle by the scholarly community. Nevertheless, they protect the authors' copyright and maintain the same level of scholarly integrity as conventional publications.
CC licences are internationally recognized standard licence agreements. Academic publishers usually offer authors one or a choice of several CC licences for OA publications. Research funding institutions encourage publishing under free licences or name specific licenses as an obligatory part of their OA mandate.
When publishing on an institutional or subject-specific repository or in an academic blog, authors apply CC licences themselves. This simply is done by including the corresponding licence reference on a suitable position of the document.
A licence reference consists of
CC licences are put together from different components. Depending on the combination, the licence grants freer or more restricted usage rights. There are six different cc licences in existence (see below).
For scholarly publications, we recommend the CC-BY (Attribution) licence. This is the "freest" CC licence and grants re-usage rights according to the Berlin Declaration's Open Access idea. For publishing books, the CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) licence can be used, as well.
In the following table, you will find, for each of the six CC licences:
The following information an resources can help you in selecting a suitable licence. You can use this information and resources to select the appropriate licence for a publication with a publisher. For publications you publish yourself (e.g. on the repository), you can apply a valid licence reference.
| CC licence | Attribution to creators | Derivates allowed | Commercial use allowed | Share under the same conditions | Supplement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CC BY 4.0 |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
|
 CC BY SA 4.0 |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ⚠ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
 CC BY ND 4.0 |
✔ | ☓ | ✔ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
|
 CC BY NC 4.0 |
✔ | ✔ | ☓ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
|
 CC BY NC ND 4.0 |
✔ | ☓ | ☓ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
|
| CC BY NC SA 4.0 |
✔ | ✔ | ☓ | ⚠ |
Licence note PDF attachment (ca. 90KB) |
| Component | Explanation |
|---|---|
| BY |
A work's creator and its original place of publication must be named. This is the basic component of all CC licences. It guarantees the creator's copyright. |
| SA |
The work itself and all derived can may only be published under the conditions of this licence. This makes sure that, once published under a CC licence, the work and its derivatives remain CC-licenced and all other requirements must be observed. |
| NC |
The work may not be used for commercial purposes. "Commercial purposes", however, can also include forms of re-use that may be desireable (see FAQs below). |
| ND |
The work may not be redistributed in a modified form, e.g. abridged or derived from the original. "Derivatives" and "Commercial purposes", however, can also include forms of re-use that may be desireable (see FAQs below). |
Copyright law stipulates that a work may not be reused without the author's consent. Exceptions are regulations such as the citation right or the right to reproduce works for private use or for research and teaching. When publishing through a publisher, authors contractually transfer rights of use to the publisher, which usually allows the publisher to determine the work's use.
CC licences grant general permission for certain re-use options, depending on the licence you choose. This means users do not have to negotiate a separate contract with authors or publishers for each use, which corresponds to the open access idea.
No. As the author of a publication, you retain full ownership of the rights to your publication. You often even retain more rights than in a conventional publishing contract. CC licences merely grant various general re-use options. This means that authors neither lose their rights nor do they lose the freedom to use their works elsewhere.
In the scholarly context, re-use can take very different forms, e.g.
All these forms of utilisation are possible and reasonable, and can be part of the research cycle.
No. The CC licence always requires that the authors must be named, including a specification of the licence and a link to the original. Every new work created from another work must therefore include a reference to the author, licence and source of the original work.
It remains possible to object to the use of your own work in an undesirable context at any time. This can initially be done on a low-threshold basis (contacting the person responsible). If the author wishes, a note can also be included stating that the use of the work is not supported by the author (non-endorsement). Legal action is also an option.
If a work is used in an extremist context, licensors do not have to tolerate this.
Attribution stipulates that authors of a CC-licensed work must always be acknowledged. It is the basic component of every CC licence. If a link to the original source is provided, this must be included (e.g. a DOI link). The Creative Commons Foundation also recommends citing the original source of the work. Changes that have been made to the publication must be labelled as such. See also the FAQ on Creative Commons.
Those who follow correct and good academic practice cite the name of the author and the source of a referenced publication in the references. However, these are "only" references or citations. CC licences enable you to use the publication beyond this, e.g. through the above-mentioned re-use options. The care with which scholarly references are handled by researchers can be regarded as exemplary practice of " Attribution" in the CC context.
The CC-BY licence is the freest CC licence (apart from CC-0). It enables Open Access in the spirit of the Berlin Declaration and enables the widest possible re-use of research results. The work may be reused in its entirety: It may, for example, be redistributed on the Internet or in print, elements may be extracted and integrated into another work, the work may be translated and the translation distributed. Commercial use of the work is also possible.
A publication that is made available for free and for which the author receives no compensation - why should someone else be able to use it commercially? Because of this completely reasonable question, many authors choose a CC licence with the NC (NonCommercial) component.
However, "commercial use" in the definition that applies here would also include incorporating a publication into academic blogs that are financed by ads, or use by non-profit organisations. Such re-use is, in many cases, entirely desirable. In addition, including research results in databases that are created as a commercial product, for instance, can also create greater benefit for research and increase the reception of a publication - thus being in the interests of the author.
There is no danger that a publication that is not excluded from commercial use will disappear behind a paywall. After all, the original publication is CC-licensed and remains freely available.
An adequate "replacement" for licences with the NC component is the CC-BY-SA licence. It ensures that the publication can always be reused under the conditions of this licence - i.e. freely accessible.
Information specifically on the NC component (though not limited to academia) can be found in the official Creative Commons FAQ and in this booklet from irights.info (dt.).
ND (NoDerivatives) prevents publications from being redistributed in a modified form - they may only be redistributed/reused as an exact copy. Many researchers choose this option because they fear that third parties could manipulate the publication and then pass this version off as the orginal one. There is also a fear that parts of the publication could be extracted and incorporated into other publications - essentially paving the way for plagiarism.
Both of these concerns are unwarranted. Alterations must be clearly indicated and the authorship of the original author as well as the source of the original publication must be stated. Both the manipulation of an existing publication and the incorporation of parts of the original into another work would therefore require reference to the original, which would expose the deception.
Where this does not happen, the licence conditions are violated - and thus a copyright infringement is committed. This could also happen under the conditions of "normal" copyright law. The integrity of the original work is therefore no more at risk than it would be under conventional circumstances of publication.
Applying the ND component can exclude desirable forms of use as well. Examples include compiling works in anthologies, databases or metastudies. Translations that increase the reach of the publication are also considered to be adaptations.
If you use funding to finance an open access publication, there may be regulations. For example, the EU funding programme HORIZON EUROPE stipulates that articles must be published under CC-BY. The DFG-funded publication fund of the GU requires the choice of CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licences as a funding condition for open access books.
Check the conditions of your funding organisation. We will gladly support you under openaccess[at]ub.uni-frankfurt.de.
Please enquire whether different contractual conditions may be applicable to your publication. If certain licences are among the requirements for financial support of the publication, most publishers will accept a reference to this and adapt the contract accordingly.
You must not have previously transferred the usage rights to your publication to third parties. This is usually the case if you have transferred the "exclusive rights" to the publication to the publisher in a publishing contract. This generally applies if the publication has not been or is not to be published Open Access.
If, on the other hand, you have contractually transferred only the "non-exclusive rights" - or if the publication has not yet been published at all - you can in most cases grant a CC licence.
Yes, please find further information on the repository's help pages.
On the current page you will find resources (licence references, links or PDF attachments, that you can use in your document.
Yes, like any other publication, dissertations can be published under a CC licence. If you publish the dissertation open access via a publisher, they will present you with various licences to choose from. If you publish the dissertation via the GU repository, you can select the desired licence during the submission process. In this case, please attach the PDF with the corresponding licence reference to your dissertation.
Bitte beachten Sie, dass dies nur für zusammenhängende Dissertationsschrift gilt. Im Fall von kumulativen Dissertationen beachten Sie bitte den folgenden Punkt.
It is possible that your publication contains individual elements such as images that are not CC-licensed or have a CC licence that differs from the one you have chosen. As a rule, the right to quote applies here, so this has no consequences for your choice of licence.
To unambiguously indicate which legal conditions apply to the individual elements, you can add the following note to the licence reference of your publication: "Unless stated otherwise, this publication is published under the Creative Commons licence ..." The applicable licence or rights information must then be placed as close as possible to the corresponding element or listed in the bibliography or list of illustrations.
Special case of cumulative dissertations and similar forms of publication: If your work is essentially made up of several other publications - as is the case with cumulative dissertations - it may only be published under the "strictest" licence. If all components are CC-licensed, the entire publication may only be published under the most restrictive licence. If a single component is not CC licenced, unfortunately no CC licence may be granted at all. In this case, the relevant legal conditions for self-archiving are required.
The contractual conditions and policies of a publisher sometimes include the right to self-archive under a CC licence. We will gladly check whether this is possible for your publication(s) via the University Library's self-archiving service.
The Creative Commons Foundation provides a comprehensive FAQ.
Feel free to contact the Open Access team.
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