B!SON Recommender Service for Open Access Journals

• Journal Finder

B!SON is the acronym for 'Bibliometric and Semantic Open Access Recommender Network'. The service—developed by the TIB Hannover and the SLUB Dresden—is intended to facilitate a successful open access transformation. The poject partners cooperate with OpenCitations and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), all recommended journals are gold open access journals.

The Journal Finder offers a selection of possible journals, but all results should in every case be double checked on the resp. journals’ websites or with the open access office, as there are a (growing) number of different pricing tiers, financing options and procedures.

Find more info on the service at B!SON Project.

As of January 1, 2025, researchers of the Oldenburg University may publish open access in nine hybrid oa journals of the APS at no cost to them (must be corr. author). The journals are:

• Physical Review Letters (PRL)
• Physical Review A (PRA), Physical Review B (PRB), Physical Review C (PRC), Physical Review D (PRD) as well as Physical Review E (PRE)
• Physical Review Applied (PRApplied)
• Physical Review Fluids (PRFluids)
• Physical Review Materials (PRMaterials)

Publications in APS's golden oa journals are not covered under the agreement and will be funded according to the regular funding requirements of the Open Access Publication Fund of the Oldenburg University.

The university library is paricipating in a consortium's publish-and-read agreement (2025-1-1 to 2029-12-31) with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Corr. authors, who are members of the Carl von Ossietzky University, may publish in ACM open access journals at no cost to them.

• Info on ACM journals

Oldenburg researcher may as corr. authors publish open access in the hybrid open access journals of LWW's „Total Access Collection” at no cost to them. Publication fees are paid for by the university library.
Additionally, researchers and students have reading access to more than 300 LWW journals.

• Total Access Collection title list

The new publish-and-read agreement with the Microbiology Society grants members of Oldenburg University full reading access to and (as corr. authors) unlimited publication rights in the Microbiology Society's journals. The agreement is valid until 2027-12-31.

Gold oa journals:

• Microbial Genomics
• Microbiology

Hybrid oa journals:

• Journal of General Virology
• Journal of Medical Microbiology
• International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology

Members of the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg may as corr. author publish open access in Springer's Nature and the Nature-branded hybrid open access research journals at no cost to them. Publication fees are paid for by the university library.

• Nature title list 2025

A Read-and-Publish agreement with the Rockefeller University Press allows members of the Unviersity of Oldenburg to publish open access as corr. author in Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM) and in Journal of General Physiology (JGP) at no cost.

• RUP info webpage

The Library and Information System (BIS) is a participant in a consortium that has signed a Publish-and-Read contract with AIP Publishing. Under the terms of the agreement, researcher of the Carl von Ossietzzky Universität Oldenburg may publish open access in selected AIP journals at no cost to them.

• Upon submission of a paper, state your affiliation with the university (via the drop-down list in the „validate institution” menue)
• Under "Publication Charges and Funding" select "I wish to publish Open Access as part of an institutional agreement"

When your submission has been accepted, we will be contacted to confirm that we will cover the APC. As the number of articles that can be published OA is limited, you will be notified should the OA option not vbe valid any longer. You may then find other financing options or decide to publish in closed access.

AIP Publishing info page: https://publishing.aip.org/resources/researchers/open-science/read-and-publish/authors/

Under a transformative agreement (2023-2025) the Library and Information System (BIS) enables Oldenburg researchers to publish in all ACS hybrid and golden open access journals at no cost to them.

• How it works

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

The university library is partner in a consortium agreement (2023 to 2024) with de Gruyter, that allows corresponding authors who are members of our university to publish in de Gruyter’s hybrid open access journals at no cost to them. A discount of 20% is applied to the APC in golden open access journals.

• Eligible humanities and social sciences journals
• Eligible economics journals

Members of the Carl von Ossietzky Unviersity of Oldenburg may publish open access in ECS’s hybrid OA journals JES and JSS at no cost to them (valid until the end of 2025). When publishing in the gold OA journals the funding requirements of our publication fund apply.

• Open Access Info at ECS (external page)
• OA Submission Guide (external page)

The DEAL-Elsevier transformative agreement officially came into effect on Jan. 15, 2024 (see DEAL-Konsortium News). Besides the reading access to Elsevier journals, it covers the following:

• Submitting corresponding authors, who are members of the Carl von Ossietzky University, may publish open access in over 2,500 Elsevier open access journals incl. Cell Press and The Lancet journals.
• The PAR fee for publications in hybrid open access journals will be covered by the university library
• Participating institutions will receive a 20% discount on list prices for the Elsevier Fully Gold open access journals and a 15% discount on list prices of the Fully Gold Cell Press and The Lancet journals. (The financing regulations of the OA publication fund apply.)

List of eligible journals

The university library is partner in a consortium agreement with Frontiers. Through a central invoicing arrangement, article processing charges for all articles by affiliated corresponding authors will be billed directly to us. Additionally, corr. authors from Oldenburg will receive a ten percent discount on the regular APC.

A transformative agreement with Hogrefe allows University of Oldenburg researchers to publish open access in 29 psychology and psychiatry journals at no cost to the authors.

• Workflow and qualified journals (publisher’s websitesite)

An agreement with IEEE (terminates on Nov. 29, 2025) allows for five articles by Oldenburg scientists to be published open access at no cost to the authors. Please, contact us for futher details (see left).

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

The Library and Information System (BIS) participates in a consortium agreement with MDPI. Corresponding authors who are members of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg receive a 30% discount on the APC. 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.

The university library particpates in a consortium allowing Oldenburg researchers (must be corr. author) to publish research articles or reviews articles in the RSC’s hybrid open access journals at no cost to them.

• Journals included in the agreement

Note: In the publication process do not select the standard license when submitting your paper, but select an open access license only after acceptance of your submission.
Golden open access journals are not included in the agreement, however, a discount of 15% is applied to the APC.

Under the agreement with SAGE Publishing (just renewed for 2025), Oldenburg researchers may publish open access in over 900 hybrid Open Access Journals (SAGE Choice) at no cost to them (list of eligible journals) . 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.

For a list of qualified journals and their resp. APCs see: : keeper.mpdl.mpg.de/f/a6dc1e1ed4fc4becb194/?dl=1.

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

The transformational agreement between Thieme and the University Library allows corr./primary authors affiliated with our university to publish open access in the following hybrid oa journals at no cost to the authors:

• Hormone and Metabolic Research
• International Journal of Sports Medicine
• Methods of Information in Medicine
• Pharmacopsychiatry
• Thrombosis and Haemostasis

Thieme info page

In early 2019, the DEAL consortium signed an agreement with Wiley & Sons, that contains a reading component as well as an open access publishing component. 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.

For a list of qualified journals and their resp. APCs see: keeper.mpdl.mpg.de/f/fed54cfc4e7f4c178137/?dl=1.

If a gold open access publication fulfills the criteria of our university's open access publication fund, APC can be paid (at least in part) through that fund.

New Wiley Gold OA Journals

In 2024, Wiley will flip additional journals from hybrid OA to gold OA. Due to the varying average duration of the individual journal’s peer reviews, certain dates were appointed after which submissions will be considererd gold-OA submissions and will be invoiced accordingly.
The journals will not accept any hybrid-OA submissions after the appointed dates in July/August 2023.

• For a list of the journals and the appointed dates see: 2024 Journal Flips (external page)