BioMed Central publishes approximately 200 open access journals, including Chemistry Central and SpringerOpen journals.

Publications in journals of one of these publishers fall under the conditions of the Springer Nature-DEAL contract (see below).

The Library and Information System (BIS) is a participant in the consortium (headed by the Bavarian State Library and supported by the DFG) that has signed a two-year Publish-and-Read contract with Cambridge University Press.

The agreement includes the APC for corresponding authors who are members of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Oldenburg researchers and scientists may publish in CUP's so-called hybrid open access journals in their Full Collection at no additional cost to them.

• List of CUP hybrid open access Journals
• Info page on CUP website

Frontiers raises APCs

On July 29, 2022, Frontiers notified its institutional partners about an increase in the APC by 9.32%:
"At Frontiers, the currency APCs are primarily charged in is US dollars, the value of which has recently been under strong inflationary pressure. Against international cost-of-living indicators, the dollar has lost 13% of its value since the last time we adjusted APCs at the end of 2017. Unlike other publishers, we have not made annual adjustments to the costs of our services during that period.  
But as of August 2022, to help partially offset the recent inflationary losses to the value of the dollar, we will raise APCs by 9.32% [...]"
This means that most APCs for articles in Frontiers journals will be at 3225 USD (before VAT).

The university library is one of Frontiers institutional partners through a central invoicing agreement where article processing charges for all articles by affiliated authors will be billed directly to us. Other than in the years prior to 2022, Frontiers is not willing to offer discounts on these APCs. This new policy and the price increase mean that authors will have to pay a share of roughly 2,500 Euros. Make sure to contact us before submitting a publication.

The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg participates (2022—2024) in the IOP National Consortium to allow researchers to publish In 56 hybrid and 16 „gold” OA Journals at no cost to them. These costs will be covered by the library.

• Eligible Journals (refer to lists A, B and D)
• IOP info page

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, www.mdpi.com) was founded by researchers in Basel, Switzerland in 1996 as an institute to collect, preserve and redistribute rare chemical samples for research purposes. In 2010, MDPI AG was formally registered in Basel as a professional publishing house while the original institute was restructured and retained its original purpose.
In 2015, the more than 150 MDPI journals received over 40.000 manuscript submissions, of which nearly 52% were rejected. Authors retain the copyright of their papers, and all papers are released under the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license, thus allowing maximum dissemination and re-use of the research reported in our journals.

The Library and Information System (BIS) participates in MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program, and corresponding authors from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg receive a 10% discount on the APC. The central billing is administrated by the BIS.

PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization founded to accelerate progress in science and medicine. PLOS publishes a number of open-access journals (PLOS Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Medicine et al.).
The journal PLOS ONE (www.plosone.org ) features reports of original research from all disciplines within science and medicine, and provides a platform to publish primary research, including interdisciplinary and replication studies as well as negative results. The journal’s publication criteria are based on high ethical standards and the rigor of the methodology and conclusions reported.

The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg has a central-billing agreement with PLOS that invoices will be sent directly to the BIS.

Under the agreement with SAGE Publishing (2021—2023) Oldenburg researchers may publish open access in over 900 hybrid Open Access Journals (SAGE Choice) at no cost to them. The costs will be covered by the university library.
A discount of 20% will be granted in selected gold open access journals.

• SAGE info page

In January 2020, the DEAL consortium and Springer Nature signed an open access transformation agreement. As the Carl von Ossietzky University participates in that consortium, corresponding authors who are members of our university have the following publishing options:

• As of January 1, open access publicaton in more than 1,900 hybrid open access journals (open choice) is free of addirtional cost. (Please, avoid opting out of the open-access option, as we will be billed for every article in these journals regardless of your choice.)
• Since August 1, we are granted a 20% discount on the APC in ca. 600 gold open access journals.

If a gold open access publication fulfills the criteria of our university's open access publication fund, APC can be paid through that fund.

In eraly 2019, the DEAL consortium signed an agreement with Wiley & Sons, that contains a reading component as well as an open access publishing component (further information). The Carl von ossietzky University participates in this consortium.

Scientists and researchers who are members of our university and corresponding authors have the options of pubishing in either

• the so-called hybrid open access journals (online open) at no additional cost to them (APC will be covered by the university library), or
• the gold open access journals, where a discount of 20% on the APC will be granted.

If a gold open access publication fulfills the criteria of our university's open access publication fund, APC can be paid through that fund.

German Medical Science does not offer authors the possibility to reduce their publication costs. However as an important portal for medical open access publications it deserves to be mentioned here.

German Medical Science (GMS), the interdisciplinary portal of the German Association of the Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF) offers peer-reviewed, high quality medical science articles. All articles published on the GMS portal are open access.
GMS charges publication fees. They are generally paid by the publishing medical society. The cost depends on the number of articles to be published (price lists on request: ).