Why Open Access?
There are many reasons to use Open Access. We have compiled five of them here:

Access, interdisciplinarity, timeliness, creative freedom, cooperation, and equal opportunities.

Further information and links can be found below.
Open Access enables access to scholarly publications
Open Access enables free access to scientific publications for all interested persons. Institutional affiliation or financial resources are therefore irrelevant. This reduces barriers that hinder or prevent access to current research results. This not only improves scientific exchange, but also democratises knowledge by granting access to students, researchers, and the interested public alike.
Open Access encourages interdisciplinary learning and research
Open Access enables access to publications from various disciplines without financial or institutional barriers. This facilitates and promotes the exploration of interdisciplinary connections. The broad parallel availability of knowledge from different subjects makes it easier to generate new ideas and innovative solutions. Methods and findings from different fields can be better combined. This not only strengthens existing interdisciplinary research but also encourages the emergence of new research questions at the interfaces of traditional disciplines and, in the best case, a more holistic understanding of complex problems.
Open Access enables the use of state-of-the-art research results
Open Access makes current research results freely accessible immediately, as the delays typical of traditional publication processes are eliminated. This enables scientists, users, decision-makers, and others to access the latest findings in a timely manner for their own work and decision-making. In addition to science, this also accelerates the practical applicability of research results and thus the social impact of research. Especially for critical areas such as medicine or politics, but also in general, this more responsive science offers considerable advantages in innovation processes and in overcoming social challenges.
Open Access allows creative freedom and reuse
Creative Commons licences allow users to freely share, edit, and use published content for new purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors. This freedom promotes, for example, the development of innovative teaching materials, the creation of translations for a global audience, and the adaptation of research results for practical applications without time-consuming rights clarification and approval procedures. The possibilities for creating derivatives such as data visualisations, interactive applications, or multimedia presentations are also greatly expanded.
Open Access supports global cooperation and equal opportunities
Open Access gives researchers worldwide direct access to the latest scientific findings and allows them to use these for their own work. This global availability promotes international cooperation and reduces barriers for researchers from developing and threshold countries, who are thus better able to collaborate on an equal basis with colleagues from better-equipped research institutions. Furthermore, the ability to freely share and adapt research results supports the development of local solutions to global challenges, thereby contributing to a more equitable distribution of knowledge and innovation opportunities.

Those encountering Open Access for the first time often feel overwhelmed. In the more than twenty-year history of the approach, a variety of concepts, models, and, indeed, colours have emerged in interaction with different framework conditions, requirements, and wishes for the basic idea of free digital access to scientific content.

Wikipedia is a highly recommended starting point for those new to the topic: Open Access. The article briefly outlines the key aspects.

Finding content

If you are looking for scientific content, you will find it at OpenAlex, for example: openalex.org. The reference system, with a database of several hundred million entries, makes it very easy to filter for Open Access content. OpenAlex is itself part of the Open Access culture and links directly to the free full texts whenever possible.

The OpenAIRE Graph also allows you to search for scientific literature and filter for open access content: OpenAIRE Graph.

A third tip for finding Open Access publications is the Unpaywall browser extension. This visualises when an Open Access version of a scientific article is available.

Publishing content

If you want to publish content yourself in Open Access, there are several options available. A key tool for choosing where to publish is the oa.finder from open–access.network: oa.finder. For journals, there is another recommended tool with the lovely name B!SON.

Journals

First, there are Open Access journals. There is an enormous variety of these, which does not exactly make the selection any easier. Many rely on the so-called golden route, which corresponds to the classic publication workflow of scientific journals. One disadvantage is that they often charge publication fees. These can be extremely high in some cases and are often unaffordable for individual scientists and researchers without additional funding, for example, through so-called publication funds. Those who work at an institution that is part of the so-called DEAL consortium have it easier at first. Here, the costs are usually covered by the institution. In any case, when publishing in such journals that charge publication fees or APCs (article processing charges), it is advisable to consult with the Open Access staff at your own institution. They will be happy to advise and inform you about the options available.

A second publication route is the so-called Diamond Open Access publications. Here, the costs are covered not by subscriptions or publication fees, but by other financing models. Access is therefore free for both reading and publishing. Unfortunately, there are not yet sufficiently established options in every discipline. However, where this is the case, we recommend considering this publication option.

If you want to know which Open Access journals are available, you can find out a lot in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It also kindly lists which titles do not charge publication fees.

Preprints

In many disciplines, it is common practice to share manuscripts as preprints prior to the actual publication of the publisher’s version. The oldest and therefore best-known offering of this kind is arXiv: arXiv.org, which has been in existence since 1991. It primarily publishes manuscripts from the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, electrical engineering, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, financial mathematics, and economics. The Open Access archive currently lists more than 2.4 million articles. Over the years, similar services have emerged for other disciplines. Some examples are bioRxiv, which focuses on biology and life sciences, medRxiv for medical research, SocArXiv for social sciences, EarthArXiv for geosciences, ChemRxiv for chemistry, psyArXiv for psychology and cognitive neuroscience, and EconStor for economics.

Most of these platforms are strongly anchored in their respective disciplines on an international level and are well established in their role as preprint servers.

Books

Open Access books are still less established than Open Access journals. But they do exist, and in considerable numbers, as demonstrated by the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the Online library of open access books (OAPEN). Here, the challenge of publication fees also presents itself. In the state of Brandenburg, there is even a special fund for this purpose.

When it comes to books, the first recommendation is, of course, to consult the Open Access and publication advisory staff at your own institution. 

Repositories

Publication servers such as the examples mentioned above are also referred to as repositories. Repository is also one of the words to remember when it comes to Open Access. This is because almost every scientific institution and university now offers a publication server. Here, for example, is the repository of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. Here is the one at the TH Wildau. Here is the one at the HNE Eberswalde. The Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) also has a repository, as does the Film University Babelsberg. The FH Potsdam has one too, and of course, the University of Potsdam, which even runs its own university press.

With these repositories, the institutions offer a wide range of Open Access publication services for everyone associated with the institution. If you want to use these services, it is best to contact the contact persons named on the websites directly.

Another, if you will, more global repository is ZENODO, which is maintained by the major research institution CERN. This enables the publication of all conceivable digital scientific content, including data sets, presentation slides, research reports, software, and posters. It is also considered very well established and is suitable for almost anything that goes beyond traditional publication formats, such as journal articles or books.

Shadow libraries

Contrary to popular belief, so-called shadow libraries such as Sci-Hub (Wikipedia) or Library Genesis (Wikipedia) do not fall within the scope of Open Access. Their function is reminiscent of the music file-sharing networks of the early Internet, and they are similarly problematic from a legal perspective.

Further Information

Anyone wishing to explore Open Access in depth will find an almost inexhaustible pool of further materials, links, event information, and details of projects at open-access.network. And anyone interested in the ideological core of the Open Access movement will find the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities from 2003 an ideal introduction to the topic.

Anyone in the state of Brandenburg who would like to not only use Open Access but also help shape it is welcome to contact us directly at Open Access Brandenburg.

The graphics can be downloaded as PNG files via the links below. Depending on your browser, the graphics will open in a new tab or window:

All graphics may be freely used in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) that applies across the Open Access Brandenburg website. We recommend citing Open Access Brandenburg as the reference or attribution.