MATH+ strongly supports the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, as well as the Berlin Senate’s 2015 Open Access Strategy for Berlin. The members of MATH+ are encouraged to make their scientific output available via open-access publications. Most commercial journals charge a so-called article processing charge (APC). Depending on the institution in which the researchers are located, different approaches to cover the potential costs of open-access publication are established.
It is always a good idea to first check if your desired journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Details of open access policies
If researchers in MATH+ decide to publish their results via open access they need to first call upon their respective research libraries. Most university libraries have agreements with publishing companies that reduce APC charges tremendously. If the journal you want to publish in is not covered by your institution, please contact rdm@mathplus.de for further assistance.
Regardless of whether you want to publish open access or behind a paywall, remember to put the funding reference in your publication:
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany´s Excellence Strategy – The Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+ (EXC-2046/1, project ID: 390685689).
For publications in German please use:
Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) im Rahmen der Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder – Das Forschungszentrum der Berliner Mathematik MATH+ (EXC-2046/1, Projektnummer: 390685689).
Below is the list of the contact persons of the comprising institutions of MATH+:
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Document Server Editorial Team
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Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Open Access Team of the University Library |
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Open Access Team
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Hausvogteiplatz 5-7 |
Some notes on predatory publishers
The traditional revenue path for journals is to publish the output of researchers in form of papers and then charge the readers for access to these papers. You may not have noticed this “reading fee” because usually your institutional library pays for it and you as a member have unlimited access.
This procedure places a double burden on society. Once to finance the research and then to make the results of the research available to other researchers. To change this state of affairs, more and more open-access journals have emerged. PlosOne or Documenta Mathematica should be mentioned here.
In the meantime, more and more open-access journals have been created. In order to still be able to make money from publishing scientific results, Article (or Author) Processing Charges (APC) are levied. In this case, the money is also charged by the institution at which the scientist works, but the publication is made available free of charge.
This method also seems to be extremely lucrative for publishers, as this study shows: 10.5281/zenodo.7057144
Where there is money, shady companies are also attracted. This is where so-called predatory publishers come into play. Journals that call themselves “renowned journals”, only with one or two extensions in the name or freely invented journals with made-up editorial boards. The increasing pressure to publish and the sometimes quite good presentation of these journals may make it quite difficult to distinguish them from serious offerings.
Two ways to make a distinction can be found under the following links. Journals listed in the Directory of Open Access usually have a good reputation.
And if you are not sure, you can find a compilation of methods to identify suspicious journals at thinkchecksubmitt.