Publishing Policy May 2015, Göttingen

Since summer 2003 the University Press of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen publishes research results of the university's disciplines. Providing those results in Open Access—free online access to readers worldwide — is a guiding principle for the press. In our Open Access publishing model, owners of intellectual property rights (authors and editors) stay in control of their publications as the press receives only those rights necessary for publishing. With the 2005 adoption of its Open Access resolution, the University of Göttingen clearly supports the Open Access principle. Therefore, the press expects authors and editors to comply with Open Access publishing. The vast majority of our publications get published as a free online edition, together with a printed volume available through the book trade. This form of hybrid publishing improves impact and dissemination of publications thus showcasing the quality of the underlying research. Göttingen University Press operates on a non-profit basis, relying for most publications on financial contributions from authors or editors to make Open Access possible while maintaining low retail prices. We provide access to all our publications also via the central publication data management system of the university Göttingen GRO.publications.

In January 2015 the presidential board of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen approved the terms of entitlement (available in German only) for the Göttingen University Press. These terms clarify how the press publishes and which target groups it is meant to serve. The terms of entitlement enable the press to become active for third-party-funded projects whose strict funding guidelines would normally exclude an inhouse service such as the university press as a beneficiary. We appreciate that our terms of entitlement help us to promote Open Access especially in those disciplines that rely on publishing their research results in books—especially against the backdrop of little or no uptake of Open Access among the disci-plines' commercial publishing houses.

Open Access publishing in the Göttingen University Press covers the following aspects

  1. Publications from Göttingen University Press are available worldwide to anyone via the trusted repositories of the University of Göttingen. As such, they can be read, downloaded, printed and offered by third-parties. If the work is licensed under a Creative Commons license their respective agreements apply.
  2. To grant Open Access to the respective work, the university press needs rights holders (authors and editors) to transfer certain rights. The press needs permanent and non-exclusive rights to publish an electronic edition in public data networks and on the repositories of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. As data formats change over time, the university press also needs the right to migrate or emulate. As a protection for the press' investment into the printed version exclusive rights for print should be transferred. Exceptions are usually possible upon request.
  3. Authors and publishers may put the work online in identical form on personal homepages and in sub-ject-specific or institutional repositories, either as a whole or in part. Upon arrangement with the press parts of the work can also be re-printed elsewhere. However reference to the primary publication and the Open Access version should be provided.
  4. Generally all publications of Göttingen University Press are assigned with the Creative Commons License 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) International with the obligation of the right attribution and the possibility of sharing alike.