Information for authors
Financing: Authors of monographs must generally secure financing for publication themselves, regardless of whether it is an open access publication. However, open access publications are often more expensive. In some cases, you must also pay a fee to publish open access articles in journals. There are several possibilties to fund the costs for your Open Access-publication:
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF): The SNSF covers the costs for Gold Open Access publications. Costs for Gold Open Access books are funded even if the publication is not part of a SNSF funded project.
- Read&Publish Agreements: There are several Read&Publish Agreements which allow you to publish in most of the publisher's jorunals without additional costs
- Publication funding provided by: the University of Lucerne, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (inside), PH Lucerne
Choosing a publisher/journal: The following directories serve as a starting point for finding the right journal or publisher for a direct open access publication.
- List of quality-approved gold open access journals: Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ
- Selected gold open access journals (for subjects taught at the University of Lucerne and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts): https://goo.gl/Niu9K9
- List of quality-approved gold open access books: Directory of Open Access Books
- Open access policies of international journal publishers: Sherpa/Romeo
- How can I find gold open access journals in my subject area? Tips from the ZHB
- Quality scoring of open access journals: Quality Open Access Market
Retaining rights for secondary publication on LORY/LARA: If you are not able to publish your work as open access straightaway, it's a good idea to make sure that your contract with your publisher contains beneficial terms for secondary publication on LORY. You can attach a pre-existing addendum to your contract to ensure that it allows for secondary publication:
If your work has already been published, it's advisable to obtain permission from the publisher for a secondary publication:
- General template letter to publisher
- Template letter to publisher concerning work funded by the SNSF
- Template letter to publisher concerning a cumulative thesis (in German and English)
Further information about the legal aspects of publishing contracts
Information for readers
Open access publications are included in the search results for most catalogs and databases, including iluplus, Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, Web of Science, Scopus and many others. However, if you want to search for open access publications specifically, we recommend the following search tools:
- Bielefeld Academic Search Engine BASE: Searches over 100 million entries, most of which are from open access repositories
- OAISTER: Searches over 50 million entries from open access repositories and open access journals, etc.
- CORE: Searches over 130 million entries, most of which are from open access repositories worldwide
- Paperity: Searches for articles from over 4,000 open access journals
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): Directory of over 10,000 quality-approved open access academic journals
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Directory of around 12,000 quality-approved open access academic monographs
You can also download a browser extension that will let you know when there is a free version of an article available:
- Unpaywall: Extension for Chrome and Firefox
- Open Access Button: Lets you search for a free version of an article (by searching for the DOI, title, etc.)