Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft
Publishing Strategies
in Transformation?
Results of a study
on publishing habits and informationacquisition with regard to open accessPublished by:
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Information Management (IM)
Kennedyallee 40, D-53175 Bonn, Germany
The online edition of this report is available for download from: http://www.dfg.de/en/dfg_profile/facts_and_figures/
Study conducted on behalf of the DFG by:Society for Empirical Studies (Gesellschaft für empirische Studien), Kassel, Germany
Authors: Albert Over, Friedhelm Maiworm, André Schelewsky
Concept and study design:
Dr. Johannes Fournier, DFG Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (LIS), (project management)
Dr. Alexis-Michel Mugabushaka (IM), (project management)
Dr. Jürgen Güdler (IM)Dr. Thomas Rahlf (IM)
Dominik Sack (IM)
Project associates:
Thomas Lieser (IM)Michael Koch (IM)Translation:
SciTech Communications GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany
Translation editing:
Lisa Hoppe (DFG)
Publishers:
Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany
ISBN-13: 978-3-527-31708-0
ISBN-10: 3-527-31708-2© 2005 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn, Germany
Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany
Design:Designbureau Pi Heinz, Cologne, Germany
Cover: Dieter Hüsken
Great care has been taken in the preparation of this work. Nevertheless, the authors, editors and publishers do not accept liability forthe accuracy of the information, references and recommendations or for any printing errors. References to individual errors that were
not identified until after going to print can be found on the DFG website at http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/

Publishing Strategies in Transformation?
Results of a study on publishing habits andinformation acquisition with regard to open accessPUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary

9

1.

Context, motivation and objective

11

1.1

New tendencies in scientific publishing

11

1.2

Study objectives

122Study concept and process

14

2.1

Sampling procedure

14

2.2

Questionnaire

16

2.3

Field phase, response and representativeness

17

2.4

Sample description

18

3

Information acquisition and publishing habits

22

3.1

Use of different publication media

22

3.2

Publishing in scientific journals: criteria for selecting suitable periodicals

25

3.3

Target audience for own publications

28

3.4

Languages used when accessing and publishing scientific information

30

3.5

Involvement in the publication of scientific journals

31

3.6

The internationality of German publishing houses: an assessment

324Open access in scientific communication

39

4.1

Awareness of open access initiatives and declarations

39

4.2

Use of open access publications

40

4.2.1 Publication forms in open access40

4.2.2 Knowledge and use of open access journals

41

4.2.3 Free postprints (secondary publications)45

4.2.4 Preprints in open access

47

4.3

Assessment and recommendations for open access48

5Scientific publishing: cost aspects

53

5.1

Author fees for science publications

53

5.2

Funding models

56

6

Publication funding by the DFG

58

6.1

Revision of the publication grant policy

58

6.2

Application for and use of the publication grant

59

7

Funding of open access by the DFG

61

8.

References

65

5

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

List of Tables
Table 2.01

DFG Classification of Review Boards, Research Areas and Scientific Disciplines(as of 2005)

15

Table 2.02

Response statistics

17

Table 2.03

Distribution of respondents by scientific discipline

18

Table 2.04

Professional status

19

Table 2.05

Established researchers and young researchers

20

Table 2.06

Institution of employment at time of survey

20

Table 2.07

Age group

20

Table 3.01

Frequently used publication media for sourcing current information in research area

22

Table 3.02

Number of articles published conventionally through scientific publishers

24

Table 3.03

Main aspects when selecting a journal for publishing scientific work

26

Table 3.04

Most important readership for own publications

28

Table 3.05

Percentage of different languages used in publishing own research studies

31

Table 3.06

Involvement in the publication of scientific journals

32

Table 3.07

Main scientific/academic journals

33

Table 3.08

Existence of journals from German publishers with internationally high reputation

34

Table 3.09

Most important scientific journals from German publishers

36

Table 3.10

Measures needed to enhance the international reputation of scientific journals
from German publishers

37

Knowledge of national and international declarations and initiatives forpromoting open access

39

Table 4.02

Knowledge of open access journals

41

Table 4.03

Most important scientific open access journals

42

Table 4.04

Total number of journal articles published during the last five years

44

Table 4.05

Percentage of articles published by scientific publishers in conventional form thathave also been published on the internet

45

Table 4.06

Suitable places to publish electronic postprints

46

Table 4.07

Number of preprints of scientific studies in electronic archives

47

Table 4.08

Agreement with various statements on the topic of open access

49

Table 4.09

Agreement with various statements on the topic of open access by user type50

Table 4.10

Approval of promotion and use of scientific studies in open access

51

Table 4.11

Preferred measures for supporting open access

51

Table 5.01

Contributions made to cost of publishing own scientific work in journals

53

Table 5.02

Subsidies made to costs of publishing scientific work in journals

54

Table 5.03

Author fees paid for conventional publications or for open access publications

55

Table 5.04

Willingness to finance journal articles out of own research budget

56

Table 5.05

Preferred funding models to ensure free access to scientific journal articles

57

Table 6.01

Awareness of DFG amendment to publication funding of December 2001

58

Table 6.02

Use of grants from the publication fund

59

Table 6.03

How publication funds from the DFG were used

60

Table 4.01

6

LIST OF TABLES / TABLE OF FIGURES

Table of Figures
Figure 3-1

Researchers outside Germany as target group for own publications

29

Figure 3-2

Percentage of different languages used in accessing scientific texts

30

Figure 4-1

Frequency of use of open access journals

43

Figure 4-2

Knowledge and use of open access journals

44

Figure 4-3

Knowledge of electronic preprint archives for own subject

47

Figure 6-1

Application and approval of a publication grant

60

Figure 7-1

Approval for greater promotion of publications in open access by the DFG

61

Figure 7-2

Approval for greater promotion of publications in open access by the DFG byexisting frequency of use of open access journals

62

7

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

8

SUMMARY

Summary
In 2004 the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germansciences are more strongly in favour of funding open accessResearch Foundation) commissioned a study on the major fac-publications than their more established colleagues.

tors that determine the publishing behaviour of DFG-funded

Conversely, in the humanities and social sciences, in which

researchers and their means of accessing scientific information,

further qualifications (such as the habilitation or a "second

particularly publications that are available for free over the inter-book”) still play an important role, established academics arenet. This report presents the results of this survey. It provides

more in favour of the DFG providing support for open accessvaluable insights into the transformation taking place in the pub-than their younger colleagues.

lishing landscape, an issue that has been much discussed, but
not adequately documented with empirical data. The study also

4. The reservations expressed about open access publications

provides those actively involved in this transformation an impor-

are typical of electronic publications. In particular the issues oftant basis for planning. More than one thousand researchers

quality assurance, long-term availability and frequency of cita-from all scientific disciplines took part in the survey. The maintion of free publications are questioned. These doubts do, how-results are summarised below.

ever, begin to recede in proportion to the amount of experience
respondents had with electronic publications in general and

1. Assertions on the awareness and use of open access publica-

open access publications in particular.

tion instruments can only be interpreted based on general, discipline-specific publishing practices. For this reason, the first

6. The willingness of researchers to use their research budgets

step consisted of analysing the common publishing paradigms

to make their publications available free of charge is propor-

for the four scientific disciplines surveyed. The natural and life

tional to the expenditure that scientists already have to financesciences are characterised by journal publications, in contrast

in order to publish their research results through conventional

to the humanities and social sciences, in which a book culturechannels. The life scientists show the most, and the humani-

is predominand. Researchers in the engineering sciences

ties scholars and social scientists the least willingness to pay

prefer to publish their results in conference proceedings. In

author fees for publications in open access.

general German science shows a marked trend towards internationalisation, which is reflected by the predominant use of

6. According to the respondents, the publication grant”, which

English for publications in the majority of the disciplines sur-since 2001 can be applied for directly as part of a DFG-fund-veyed. In the humanities and social sciences, however, ined project, is saved up in the humanities and social sciences

which language itself is a subject of research, the dominanceabove all to pay the costs of preparing monographs for publi-of English is naturally less widespread.

cation. In the life, natural and engineering sciences the majority of the publication funds are used to defray the costs of pub-

2. Across all scientific disciplines, very few researchers so farlishing in conventional journals. Only in exceptional cases is

actively publish in open access. Of all respondents, only about

the publication grant also used to finance open access publi-

one in ten had ever published in an open access journal. Evencations; only the natural scientists used their resources more

the distribution of freely accessible preprints on the internet,

frequently to publish their research results in open access

common practice in some subjects, does not occur frequently

publications.

according to the respondents. Slightly more frequent was thepractice of publishing articles in open access on the internet

7. The researchers’ proposals of how the DFG could promote

after they had already been published elsewhere. All in all,open access were mainly directed towards measures for

however, the number of open access publications available tointensifying the debate about free access publications, meas-

users in open access is still very low.

ures for ensuring the quality of open access journals, andtowards technical, legal and organisational support of second-

3. In contrast to the low rate of publishing activity in open access,a majority of respondents across all scientific disciplines are inary open access publication of articles already publishedthrough conventional media.

favour of more active promotion of open access by the DFG. Of
these, young researchers in the natural, life and engineering

9PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

10

CONTEXT, MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVE

1. Context, motivation and objective
1.1

New tendencies in scientific publishing

The growing internationalisation of science and research has increased the needfor access to scientific information to be independent of time and location. The
rapid development and spread of electronic means of communication haveopened up new ways for scientists to publish and access research results. On theinternet scientific studies can be made accessible to a worldwide readership within a short period of time and often with little effort. According to Stephen
Hitchcock 1, since the mid-1990s electronic journals have become of increasing
interest to publishing houses wishing to develop subject-specific, substantial
banks of information on the internet by digitalising the back issues of their journals. Access to these sources of information has been and is only provided inreturn for (sometimes) large fees, which have had to be paid out of researchbudgets or from the budgets of libraries. Oftentimes the research results were
financed by public funds in the first place. This leads to the paradoxical situation in which publications that could not have been produced without publicmoney have to be paid for a second time with state funds; at the same time thecosts of buying and providing scientific literature in university libraries andother institutions have been rising rapidly over the last ten years. In response tothis paradox, which can be observed worldwide and which has led to the cancellation of journal subscriptions and the purchase of fewer monographs bylibraries 2, scientists have coined the slogan "Science back to the scientists”,
which sums up the ideological background of the open access movement.
Open access aims to improve access to the results of scientific research by making them freely accessible over the internet. Access is free because authors store
the results of their work "in a suitable electronic format on at least one archive
server that has appropriate technical standards and is accessible online”, thereby publishing the work and granting permission to reuse the publication for any
reasonable purpose provided that they correctly acknowledge authorship 3.
There are two main types of open access publishing 4 : the "golden road to open
access” is a model in which authors pay their own fees to publish their articles
in refereed online journals; the author fees are used to pay the publishing costs
so that users can read the publications on the internet without having to pay
any licence fees themselves 5. The second model is the "green road to open
access”, a process whereby peerreviewed re search results that have already been

Paradox: publicly
funded research has tobe made accessible tothe scientific community
with the help of public
fundsOpen accessas an alternative?

1. Hitchcock, Stephen Meirion: Perspectives in Electronic Publishing: Experiments with a New Electronic Journal Model.
Doctorate Thesis, January 2002, pp. 42-53; http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/Jnls-research/thesis/thesis-text.pdf. See
also Keller, Alice: Elektronische Zeitschriften: Entwicklungen in den verschiedenen Wissenschaftszweigen. in: zeitenblicke
2/2003,2 [22.10.2003], URL: http://www. zeitenblicke.historicum.net/2003/02keller.htm, section 8 ff.
2. Cf. e.g. Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (German Rectors’ Conference): Zur Neuausrichtung des Informations- und Publikationssystems der deutschen Hochschulen. HRK: Bonn 05. November 2002.
http://www.hrk.de/de/beschluesse/109_247.php. See Wissenschaftsrat (German Science Council): Empfehlungen zur
digitalen Informationsversorgung durch Hochschulbibliotheken. Greifswald: German Science Council, 13 July 2001, p.16.
(Drs.4935/01). Cf. also: Association of Research Libraries: ARL Statistics. Monographs and Serial Costs in ARL Libraries.
1986-1999. Washington: ARL 1999. http://www. arl. org/stats/arlstat/graphs/1999t2.html.
3. Translated from the German version of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences andHumanities, see http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin
4. The many other varieties of open access publishing, whose testing is mainly connected with the search for practicablebusiness models, will not be further discussed here. For the most well known of these, see e.g. Harnad, Stevan: The
Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access. in: Serials Review 30/4 special issue: Open Access(2004), pp. 310-314.
5. A working group from Lund University Libraries maintains a directory of the most important open access journals at
http://www.doaj.org/; at the end of April 2005 this directory listed 1,532 journals whose peer-reviewed articles areavailable free of charge on the Internet.

11

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

published elsewhere are published as a secondary publication – mostly in institutional or discipline-specific repositories – for free access on the internet.
Because these works are made available by the authors themselves, the term
"self-archiving” has been adopted to describe this approach 1.
The statements and initiatives that bear the term "open access” serve as a clear
indication of the increasing importance of this movement 2. These statements
include the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences andHumanities, which is of particular significance to the German scientific landscape. The Berlin Declaration was signed in October 2003 by representatives ofGermany’s major research organisations, including the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, and theLeibniz Association, all of whom committed themselves to promoting publishing practices based on the principle of open access.

1.2

Survey of
publishing habits
and means ofaccessing information with regard
to open accessStudy objectives

After signing the Berlin Declaration, the DFG’s statutory bodies had to decide
how the DFG could increase its efforts to promote open access. Because little reliable information existed about either the relevance or the impact of open accesspublications in the different scientific disciplines, the DFG commissioned a survey in order to determine the main factors that influence publishing habits andthe means of accessing information, as well as the status attributed to such publications. The aim of the study was to establish the willingness of DFG-funded
researchers to make their work available in open access, including both primary
publications in open access journals and secondary publications of works
already published elsewhere. In addition, they also wanted to test the readiness
to use scientific results published in this way within each specialist scientificcommunity. The DFG would use the results of the survey to assist it in deciding
whether and in what form it would give researchers more encouragement andsupport to publish scientific work in open access.
In order to determine the readiness for online publishing and acquisition, andto identify what modalities would be desirable for this type of publishing and/oruse, information and data were recorded and examined in three main areas:> the researchers’ current methods of publishing and accessing scientific information;> the researchers’ views on the opportunities for publication and use offered byopen access;> the researchers’ expectations in terms of the content modalities as well as thetechnical and organisational framework conditions surrounding the publication and use of material in open access.

1. According to a study of the British SHERPA project, the vast majority of publishing houses (including international ones)
allow the secondary publication of works that have already appeared in published journals, although the conditions
imposed on the secondary publication vary from case to case. A list of these conditions can be obtained fromhttp://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php.
2. A detailed overview of the development of the open access movement is given by Peter Suber in: Timeline of the Open
Access Movement. http://www.earham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm. Open access is not just a form of publication, but
has itself become the subject of an intense scientific debate about the publishing industry. In April 2005, the first extensive
bibliography of subjects on this topic was issued and is also available online free of charge. Charles W. Bailey, Jr.: Open
Access Bibliography. Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals. Association of Research
Libraries 2005. http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/oab.pdf.

12

CONTEXT, MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVE

The data collected were analysed according to biographical and professionspecific variables. In this regard, current publishing practices and the readinessto exploit electronic publishing opportunities had to be identified above allwithin the context of the research discipline from which the respondents came.
This report presents the results of the survey. The first part (section 2) presents
the empirical bases, methodology and process. The remaining structure of thestudy largely follows the four content-based sections of the questionnaire, which
cover respondents’ publishing habits and means of accessing scientific information (section 3), the actual importance and subjective assessment of open access(section 4), cost aspects of scientific publishing (section 5), and publication
funding by the DFG (section 6). Finally, section 7 examines the proposals andrecommendations made by the respondents on how the DFG could promote
open access more strongly. Respondents’ answers have been documented in an
extensive series of tables 1, and have been broken down for analysis by scientificdiscipline, research area, status, professional position, age and sex. The last partof the table series classifies the analyses according to the characteristics of thesampling structure (section 2).

Further analyses
in an extensive seriesof tables

1. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005). Publikationsstrategien im Wandel? Tabellenband.
http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/

13

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

2 Study concept and process
The empirical basis for this publication is a survey of scientists and academics
who were funded by the DFG in different programmes between 2002 and 2004.
In general all researchers who have completed their academic education (usually a doctorate) are eligible to apply to the DFG for funding; for researchers working in non-university institutions there was however one restriction during theperiod being considered, in that they could only apply for funding in an area
outside the main scope of the work of their institution or working group 1. In
addition to funding individual projects, the DFG also funds research projects
within the framework of coordinated programmes, which aim to promote cooperation between scientists and build capacities 2. In view of the wide circle ofapplicants, it can be assumed that the results of a survey of DFG-funded scientists and academics will produce a generally representative picture of German
top-level research. The study should above all take into account the different
publishing habits and ways of accessing information in the individual research
cultures and their potentially differing views on open access. The survey
therefore included members of all scientific disciplines and also differentiatedbetween young and established researchers. For this reason individuals being
funded in programmes for young researchers (e. g. the Emmy Noether
Programme, the Heisenberg Programme, and a programme for "Temporary
Positions for Principal Investigators”) were also included in the survey.

2.1

Sample: 1600 DFGfunded scientists andacademics from allscientific disciplines

Sampling procedure

The survey was addressed to 1,600 scientists and academics who had been or
were being funded in different DFG programmes. They were selected according
to a stratified sample structure, which offers the advantage over purely random
sampling that it allows the inclusion of smaller sampling units. This method was
designed to ensure that the study delivered a sufficiently reliable body of data,
even in disciplines with a relatively small number of funded researchers, which
would also ensure an adequate representation of young researchers.
The quota criteria applied were the status of the person being funded at the timeof proposal submission (established researchers versus young researchers), andthe four broad scientific disciplines (humanities and social sciences, life sciences,
natural sciences and engineering sciences).
The four scientific disciplines constitute the top hierarchical level in the DFG’s
subject classification system (cf. Table 2.01). This system includes the division of
201 individual subject areas into a total of 45 review boards, whose members areelected by the scientific community. For statistical purposes, the review boards
are classified into 14 research areas, which are allocated to the four scientific disciplines. Table 2.01 shows the connections between the review boards, researchareas and scientific disciplines.

1. Since January 2005 there has been a new rule governing the eligibility of scientists from non-university research institutions within the framework of individual funding; see at http://www.dfg.de/aktuelles_presse/information_fuer_die_wissenschaft/andere_verfahren/info_wissenschaft_03_05.html.
2. A detailed description of the funding programmes and details on how to apply can be found on the DFG website atwww.dfg.de; see also Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: Annual report 2004. Aufgaben und Ergebnisse at
http://www.dfg.de/jahresbericht. See also Table 2.02.

14

STUDY CONCEPT AND PROCESS

Table 2.01:
DFG classification system for Review Boards, research areas and scientific disciplines(As of 2005)
Review Board
101
102
103
104

Ancient Cultures
History
Fine Arts Studies
Linguistics

105

Literature, Theatre and Media Studies

107
108

Ethnology, Non-European Cultures,
Religious Studies
Theology
Philosophy

109
110
111
112
113

Education Sciences
Psychology
Social Sciences
Economics
Jurisprudence

201
202
203

Foundations of Biology and Medicine
Plant Science
Zoology204

Microbiology, Virology and Immunology

205
206

Medicine
Neurosciences

207

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture andVeterinary Medicine

106

301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
401
402
403
404

Humanities and Social
Sciences

Social and Behavioural Sciences

Biology

Medicine

Life Sciences

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture andVeterinary Medicine

Chemistry

Condensed Matter Physics
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics ofAtoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Particles, Nuclei and Fields
Statistical Physics and Nonlinear
Dynamics
Astrophysics and Astronomy

Physics

Mathematics
Atmospheric Science andOceanography
Geology and Palaeontology
Geophysics and Geodesy
Geochemistry, Mineralogy and
Crystallography
Geography
Water Research

Scientific Discipline

Humanities

Molecular Chemistry
Chemical Solid State ResearchPhysical Chemistry of Molecules,
Liquids and Interfaces, General
Theoretical Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry, Method
Development
Chemistry of Biological Systems
Polymer Research

Natural Science

Mathematics

Geosciences (incl. geography)

Production Technology
Mechanical Engineering and Production
Mechanics and Constructive MechanicalTechnology
Engineering
Process Engineering, Technical
Chemistry
Heat Energy Technology, Thermal
Machines and Drives

405

Materials Engineering

406

Materials Science, Raw Materials

407
408
409

System Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Computer Science
Construction Engineering andArchitecture

410

Research Area

Heat Energy Technology/ Process
Engineering
Engineering Science
Materials Science
Electrical Engineering, Computer
Science and System Engineering
Construction Engineering andArchitecture

15

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Each scientific discipline had to be represented by the same number of people
surveyed in the sample. The percentage ratio between the two status groups(established researchers and young researchers) was set at 80:20 1. Within thesecircumscribed sub-groups, the persons surveyed were selected at random and arethus representative in a statistical sense.
The "scientific discipline” and "professional status” sampling characteristics represent the main areas for analysis of this report. Many of the findings are alsopresented according to individual research area. Where significant differences
could be observed within the scientific disciplines and research areas, theanswers were also analysed in relation to review boards.

2.2

Questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed above all to establish the status and acceptability of open access as a new form of scientific publishing. In order to place theseassessments in their correct context, the introductory questions related to thegeneral publishing habits and means of accessing information in the different
disciplines.

Questions aboutpublishing habits andmeans of accessing
information;
experience with open
access and the use of the
publication grant

The questionnaire was drawn up by a working group from the DFG’s head office,in cooperation with external experts experienced in publishing open access journals. The initial step was to review the draft questionnaire as to contents, formand empirical methodology. In a final pre-test the revised questionnaire waschecked for completeness of content and conclusiveness, for comprehension
problems and validity; minor revisions were made. The questionnaire, which isincluded in the appendix, was composed of five sets of questions totalling 38
questions in all. The first three sections covered the publishing habits of theresearchers surveyed and their means of acquiring information, their experiences and views on open access publications, and economic aspects in relation
to publishing in conventional or open access journals. Respondents were also
asked to state how they had previously used the DFG’s publication grant. The
final part of the questionnaire was reserved for recording the demographic
details that are essential to any detailed analysis of responses.
In addition to closed, multiple-choice questions, the questionnaire also provided space for respondents to write open answers. This allowed respondents who
had not yet published in open access to state the reasons in their own words.
The same open format was used when asking about ways in which the DFG
could promote open access publications. Finally, researchers were asked to provide any additional comments, recommendations or suggestions on the DFG’s
publication funding policy and/or a policy for promoting open access.

1. See also Table 2.02.

16

STUDY CONCEPT AND PROCESS

2.3

Field phase, response and representativenessTo carry out the study, both a printed and an online version of the questionnaire
were developed. All persons surveyed received a printed copy of the questionnaire, which also contained personal information on how to access the online
version. The printed questionnaires were sent out at the beginning of October
2004, at which time the online questionnaire was also activated. The field phase
ended on 24 November 2004, by which time two reminders had been sent.
By the end of the survey, a total of 1,083 questionnaires had been returned either
by post or online, resulting in a response rate of 67.7 %. The questionnaires werefirst checked for completeness, and then the procedure for correcting and checking the data was established and carried out. At the end of this first examination,
approximately 10 % of the questionnaires completed online (about 3.4 % of allcompleted questionnaires) had to be excluded from the subsequent evaluation.
None of the questionnaires returned by post had to be excluded. From the 1,083
questionnaires that were returned, 1,028 were deemed useable. Of these, 505
had been received online and 523 by post. Measured against the number of questionnaires sent out, the take-up rate was 64.3 %. This is significantly higher than
the response rate for similar studies and shows the high level of interest accorded to the topic by DFG-funded researchers.

Over two-thirdsof those asked took
part in the survey

Table 2.02 shows the relationship between the scientific discipline and professional status, first in relation to the sample selection, and second in relation to
the response.
Overall, the distribution by scientific discipline and status group of those whocompleted the questionnaire matches the sample. Differences between the grossand net sample are evident above all in the humanities and social sciences. In
this discipline there was a generally lower level of participation, which worked
significantly to the disadvantage of established researchers. However, the differences in participation levels between the different groups in the survey are too
minor as to call into question the representativeness in relation to the gross sample.

Table 2.02:
Response Statistics
Gross Sample
Scientific Discipline*

Status**n

Humanities and Social Sciences

Life Sciences

Natural Science

Engineering Sciences

Participant Distribution
%
Total

n

% per
Scientificdiscipline.

%
Total

Early-stage Researchers

80

20.0

5.0

60

25.9

5.8

Established Researchers

320

80.0

20.0

172

74.1

16.8

Early-stage Researchers

80

20.0

5.0

46

17.5

4.5

Established Researchers

320

80.0

20.0

217

82.5

21.2

Early-stage Researchers

80

20.0

5.0

59

22.1

5.8

Established Researchers

320

80.0

20.0

208

77.9

20.3

Early-stage Researchers

80

20.0

5.0

53

20.1

5.2

320

80.0

20.0

211

79.9

100.0

1026

Established Researchers
Total

% per
Scientificdiscipline.

1600

20.6
100.0

* Allocated by the Review Board in which the last project proposal was assessed.
** Professional status at time of last funding application.

17

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Before being analysed the questionnaires sent in by post were scanned andmerged with the data submitted online in an SPSS system file.

2.4

Sample description

In line with the response rates given above, the study included data from a totalof 1,028 scientists and academics. The respondents were asked to categorise theirmain area of research according to the DFG classification system (cf. Table 2.01).
Approximately 25 % of the respondents were assigned to the humanities andsocial sciences and the life sciences, 22 % to the engineering sciences, and 30 %to the natural sciences. Table 2.03 illustrates the distribution of respondents byscientific discipline and research area.
The proportion of female scientists in the respondents group was 16 %. This
divided into 24 % in the humanities and social sciences and life sciences, 9 % in
the natural sciences, and 8 % in the engineering sciences.

Table 2.03:
Distribution of Respondents by Scientific Discipline and Research Area(in percent and absolute figures)
Scientific Discipline
Humanities andSocial Sciences

Research Area

Percent*n

Humanities

52.1

124

Social and Behavioural Sciences

44.1

105

Research area not specified

Life Sciences

Natural Science

Engineering Sciences

3.8

9

All

100.0

238

Biology

45.1

115

Medicine

45.5

116

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture andVeterinary Medicine

5.5

14

Research area not specified

3.9

10

All

100.0

255

Chemistry

34.1

105

Physics

32.5

100

Mathematics

10.7

33

geosciences / earth sciences

19.8

61

Research area not specified

2.9

9

All

100.0

308

Mechanical Engineering and Production
Technology

12.3

28

Heat Energy Technology/ Process Engineering

13.7

31

Materials Science

18.1

41

Electrical Engineering, Computer Science andSystem Engineering

43.6

99

Construction Engineering and Architecture

6.6

15

Research area not specified

5.7

13

100.0

227

All
Total

1028

* Basis for percentage calculation: Scientific discipline
Basis: 1,028; No response: 0
Question 33: Please name the subject area that includes the focus of your research. Please enter the subject
code which you will find on the back of the questionnaire.

18

STUDY CONCEPT AND PROCESS

More than half of all respondents are professors, and a further 15 % are university lecturers or "privatdocents”. The remaining third comprises university assistants, research assistants, research fellows and scientists who work in anotherposition at a university or non-university research institution.
In a comparison of scientific disciplines (cf. Table 2.04), the following picture
emerges:> The vast majority of professors are in the humanities and social sciences(62 %), the smallest number in the life sciences (43 %).
> Around a quarter of the life scientists work as university lecturers or privatdocents, compared to 13 % in the natural sciences, and 10 % in the otherdisciplines.
> The percentage of university assistants varies relatively little between thedisciplines, ranging from 6 % in the life sciences to nearly 8 % in the naturalsciences.
> A high proportion of research assistants are to be found in the life andnatural sciences, at about 16 % each. This percentage was lowest in thehumanities and social sciences, at almost 9 %.
> Most research fellows come from the humanities and social sciences (8 %),and the fewest from the engineering sciences (3%).
In order to be able to consider the categories of "young researcher” and "established researcher” in the further analysis, the limitation of employment contracts was used as an important differentiating criterion. Research assistants atuniversities or non-university research institutions were therefore classified as
young researchers if they had limited contracts; permanent staff or those withcivil servant status (on a permanent contract basis) were classified as establishedresearchers (cf. Table 2.05).

Table 2.04:
Professional Status (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Professor

61.6

42.6

47.7

59.9

52.3

University Lecturer/
Privatdozent

10.8

24.5

12.8

9.9

14.6

University Assistant

7.3

6.0

7.6

7.2

7.1

Research Assistant

8.6

16.1

16.1

12.6

13.6

Research Fellow

7.8

5.6

6.6

2.7

5.8

Other

3.9

5.2

9.2

7.7

6.7

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

232

249

304

222

1.007

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 21
Question 34: Professional status

19

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

The majority of respondents (85 %) were employed at a university at the time ofthe survey, while only 15 % worked at a non-university research institution.
These were distributed quite evenly – at about 3 % – throughout the large, wellknown German research institutions (cf. Table 2.06). Only the proportion of
respondents working at a Fraunhofer institute is lower, at nearly 1 % (cf. Table2.07).

Table 2.05:
Established Researchers and young Researchers (in percent)
Humanities andSocialSciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Establishedresearchers

84.4

81.9

84.9

90.3

85.2

Early-stage
researchers

15.6

18.1

15.1

9.7

14.8

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

231

248

298

217

994

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 34
Question 34: Professional status: Question 36: How long is your current employment contract?

Table 2.06:
Institution of Employment at Time of Survey (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

University

93.9

81.0

79.4

86.1

84.6

Max Planck Society

0.9

4.0

4.3

2.3

3.0

0.4

1.3

1.4

0.8

Fraunhofer Society
Helmholtz Association

0.4

5.3

2.3

5.1

3.2

Leibniz Association

1.3

4.0

6.3

0.9

3.4

Other institution

3.5

5.3

6.3

4.2

4.9

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

230

247

301

216

994

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Total
Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 34
Question 35: Where do you work?

Table 2.07:
Age Group (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

30 or under

1.3

2.4

3.9

2.2

2.5

31 to 40

26.5

32.9

39.9

29.5

32.8

41 to 50

27.7

42.4

27.6

31.7

32.2

51 to 60

24.8

16.9

16.9

21.6

19.7

61 or older

19.7

5.5

11.7

15.0

12.7

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

238

255

308

227

1.028

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 0
Question 37: Which age group do you belong to?

20

NaturalSciencesSTUDY CONCEPT AND PROCESSAn analysis by scientific discipline reveals that> the number of respondents working at a university is highest in the humanities and social sciences.
> one-fifth of the natural scientists work outside the universities, most of whomat Leibniz institutes.
> most of the life and engineering scientists employed outside universities workfor the Helmholtz Association.
Other non-university research institutions mentioned included research institutes abroad, federal research institutes, etc.
The age of respondents was established using predefined groups. Almost a thirdof all respondents were in the 31 to 40 or 41 to 50 age groups. Three-quarters of
the life scientists fall into the middle age groups, between 31 and 50 (cf. Table2.07).

21

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

3 Information acquisition andpublishing habits
3.1

Use of different publication media

Scientific progress relies on the rapid exchange of the latest research results.
Being able to access the latest scientific knowledge in the individual disciplines
quickly is just as important as informing each specialist community about
research studies and results quickly.
Here the ways in which the different disciplines both access and publish information vary considerably. Apart from the separate scientific traditions, the international orientation of the individual disciplines also makes a difference; also,
differences in regional importance as well as career-specific aspects have to betaken into account depending on subject and speciality. Finally, the preferenceof different publication media depends on the application and the pace ofknowledge discovery in different scientific disciplines.
With regard to how the respondents gained access to information (cf. Table
3.01), use of the different publishing media varied across the scientific disciplines and research areas: A relatively wide use of different forms of publicationin the humanities and social sciences contrasts with a clear preference for certain types of publication in the other scientific disciplines.
While the overwhelming majority of respondents in all disciplines access new
information either frequently or very frequently through articles in scientificjournals, other types of publication were used by less than half of the respondents. These publication forms include, in the order preferred, articles in edited
volumes, papers in conference proceedings and monographs.

Table 3.01:
Publication media frequently used for accessing current information in
research area (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
NaturalSciences Sciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Articles in journals

93.6

98.0

95.8

90.7

94.7

Contributions in edited volumes

74.8

39.6

41.0

40.2

48.4

Monographs

70.9

20.5

33.1

36.1

39.6

Contributions in proceedings

44.6

26.0

31.9

83.9

44.9

Reviews

38.2

7.5

3.8

6.2

13.3

Grey literature

14.9

3.7

9.9

9.7

9.4

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

236

255

307

225

1.023

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 5
Question 1: To get the latest information in your research area, how often do you use the following
types of publication? (Answer category 1= 'very often' to 5 = 'very rarely' ; Categories 1 and 2 combined).

22

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

Although there is a clear difference in the frequency of use of specific forms of
publication between the different scientific disciplines – for example 33% of thenatural scientists surveyed use monographs frequently or very frequently, compared to almost 21% of the life scientists – there is a similar trend. However,there are two exceptions:> Although less than half of the natural and life scientists frequently use publications other than articles in journals, around 84% of those surveyed in theengineering sciences access new information from papers in conference proceedings. The use of these publications thus took second place in this scientific discipline. If the findings are analysed more closely, it is clear that the useof proceedings in all engineering research areas is rather high: Around 96% of
mechanical engineers and production engineers and 93% of architects andcivil engineers use conference proceedings frequently or very frequently.
Engineers in the areas of heat energy technology and process engineering
indicated the lowest usage of articles in proceedings, at 73%.
> Another exception in accessing information is revealed in the humanities andsocial sciences. While for respondents in other scientific disciplines journals
are by far the most frequently used source of information, researchers in thehumanities and social sciences also use other media to a much greater extent.
Articles in edited volumes are an important source for around three-quartersof the humanities scholars and social scientists, but for only 40% of otherresearchers. Monographs are used frequently or very frequently by 71% of thehumanities scholars and social scientists, but by only 30% of otherresearchers. There are clear differences, too, in the use of reviews: Around 38%
of respondents in the humanities and social sciences often get informationfrom reviews, while the proportion in the other disciplines is just 6%. Whenit comes to grey literature, the percentage ratio between the humanities andsocial sciences and others is 15:8.

Articles inscientific journals
are the most importantsource of information,but...

...so are proceedingsin the engineeringsciences...

...as well as othermedia in the humanities
and social sciences

Closer analysis reveals that the way in which humanities scholars access information is clearly different from that of their colleagues in the social sciences.
Although both groups indicate journal articles as a frequent source of information (at 93% each), contributions to edited volumes are used frequently or veryfrequently by approximately 88% of researchers in the humanities, but by only
58% of those in the social and behavioural sciences. A similar picture emerges
for monographs, which are used relatively frequently by 85% of humanities
scholars but by only 53% of social and behavioural scientists. With regard tocontributions in proceedings, the percentage ratio between representatives of
the two research areas is 60:24, 55:15 for reviews, and 6:22 in the use of grey
literature.
When questioning the ways that respondents access information, it is clear that
respondents were also asked about the preferred form of publication for theirown research. As expected most articles are published in scientific journals. In
the last five years, the scientists surveyed have published an average of 20 articles each in periodicals (cf. Table 3.02).
The largest number of journal articles were published by the life scientists, andthe fewest by the humanities scholars and social scientists. Engineering scientists, on the other hand, published far more papers in proceedings thanresearchers in other fields. Humanities scholars and social scientists preferred to
publish their shorter scientific studies in edited volumes, compared to scientists
in other disciplines. The same applies to monographs: With more than two bookAn average of
20 articles in the last
five years...

23

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

publications in the last five years, they do not publish in book format significantly more than life scientists, but far more than respondents in other scientific disciplines. However, this analysis must take into account the sometimes considerable standard deviations 1.

... with large differences
within fields

If the responses regarding specialist journals are analysed more closely, significant differences between the representatives of different research areas within
the individual scientific disciplines sometimes appear. On average, social scientists have published approximately 16 articles in the last five years, while
humanities scholars have published close to 10. The highest publication rates in
specialist journals can be found in the area of law/jurisprudence, at around 24
articles, the lowest in philosophy, with 6.
While in the life sciences publication rates are relatively uniform across the individual research areas and fields, in the natural sciences it is above all physicists(27) and chemists (25) who reveal above-average rates, with geoscientists (14)and mathematicians (13) averaging much lower. In the engineering sciences,too, the number of journal publications varies considerably: In the materials sciences an average of 25 articles were published in the last five years, compared to
11 articles in the fields of electrical engineering, computer science and systemengineering. That discipline-specific habits play an important role is shown bylooking at the number of contributions in conference proceedings, where thevalues are an exact mirror-image: Here researchers in the fields of electrical engineering, system engineering and computer science have the most contributions,with about 26 articles, followed by mechanical engineers and production engineers (20) and material scientists (15). In other disciplines this type of publication is obviously less important.
Humanities scholars and social scientists prefer to publish their research studies
in edited volumes and monographs. The highest number of articles published inTable 3.02:
Number of articles published conventionally through scientific publishers(Average value and standard deviation)

Journal articles

Papers in proceedings

Contributions in edited volumes

Monographs

Other

Number (n)Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

a

12.7

23.6

21.8

17.6

19.2

s

13.9

24.1

17.5

21.0

19.8

a

4.0

5.7

5.9

20.4

8.7

s

6.1

13.7

9.4

28.4

17.4

a

6.2

1.3

0.9

2.2

2.5

s

8.0

2.6

1.7

4.5

5.0

a

1.4

0.5

0.2

0.5

0.6

s

2.8

1.5

0.7

1.2

1.7

a

1.0

0.4

0.2

0.1

0.4

s

10.0

3.6

1.7

0.8

5.2

199

213

266

197

875

Basis: 1,028; No response: 153
Question 16: In the last five years: How many of your studies have you published in a conventional form within
this period? (i.e. via publishers in printed or digital form and offered to readers against payment)

1. Standard deviation: The higher the measurements are scattered around the mean value, the higher the measured value –this shows that even within the individual scientific disciplines the frequency of use of different publishing channels varies
widely amongst respondents.

24

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

edited volumes can be found amongst all humanities and social sciences subjects
that occupy the first twenty places of all 48 single disciplines; the same applies
for monographs.
Other studies into the publishing behaviour of research scientists show similar
patterns in the different types of publication in each scientific discipline (cf.
Enders/Mugabushaka 2004, in particular Chapter 6).
Regardless of scientific discipline, research area, individual discipline or form of
publication, young researchers presented fewer publications than establishedresearchers 1, although it must be noted that in some cases their research publishing activity goes back less than five years. While established researchers in
the humanities and social sciences, for example, published around 14 journal
articles in the last five years, the number for young researchers was only 6. In thelife sciences the ratio between established and young researchers was 27:9, in thenatural sciences 24:11, and in the engineering sciences 19:7.

3.2

Publishing in scientific journals: criteria for selecting
suitable periodicals

The data provided by respondents were also used to determine the criteria
applied by authors when selecting a journal in which to publish their own
research results. The respondents were asked to rate a total of ten items on a scalefrom 1 to 5. They were asked, for example, about the importance of a journal’s
reputation, the importance of peer reviews and the role of publication costs.
Before the significance of the different aspects was analysed in percentage terms,
the items underwent a factor analysis. After that the individual criteria weredivided into four categories and used for comparison (cf. Table 3.03).
Specialist orientation:
The specialist focus or thematic relevance of a journal had its own uniquestatus in comparison to other aspects. Almost 93 % of the authors regarded
this criterion as important or very important when deciding on a journal inwhich to publish their studies.
International specialist importance:
This heading can be used to cover individual aspects relating to the international distribution of the selected journal, its reputation among specialists
and its impact factor.
Organisational qualities:
This heading encompasses questions relating to the review quality of the articles submitted, the interval between submitting an article and its publication,and the long-term availability of the journal.
Cost aspects:
This heading covers aspects relating to publishing costs that must be borne by
the author, subscription prices, payments to authors and the amount of theirfees. However, the overall category labelled "cost aspects” was only regarded
as important or very important by 3 % of all respondents.

1. For the category of young researchers, see the lists in Table 2.04.

25

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

If certain aspects are examined separately, the specialist focus of the journal
emerges on top. For over 90% of the respondents in each of the different scientific disciplines, this is the most important criterion when choosing a place of
publication. For engineering scientists in particular, followed by natural scientists, this criterion is even more important than for humanities scholars andsocial scientists or life scientists.
Internationality
in life andnatural sciences

For respondents in the life and natural sciences, the individual aspects combined
under the heading "International specialist relevance”, including the level ofinternational distribution of the journal in which they wish to publish, are evenmore important than its thematic orientation. In the life sciences, only the horticultural, agricultural and forestry scientists and veterinarians gave slightly lessemphasis to the high or extremely high weighting of this single criterion, at
85 %, than their colleagues in the other single disciplines grouped under thisheading, nearly 100% of whom agreed. In the natural sciences it is the mathematicians (88%) and geoscientists (95%) who mention the international orientation of the journals selected for publication slightly less frequently.

Table 3.03:
Main aspects when selecting a journal for publishing scientific work(in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

90.0

90.7

93.3

97.7

92.6

Journal's international distribution

80.7

98.0

97.3

90.5

92.2

Journal's reputation

85.1

93.4

93.7

89.5

90.7

Journal's impact factor/ frequency of
citation

42.7

83.3

66.1

50.2

61.7

Quality of reviewing of work
submitted

74.1

84.1

86.6

84.5

82.7

Speed of publication

52.8

65.3

61.0

57.7

59.5

Journal's long-term availability

63.8

52.9

65.4

59.8

60.7

Publication costs to author

20.7

16.8

27.3

27.2

23.2

Journal's subscription price

3.6

5.0

14.6

10.6

8.8

Fees paid to author

2.2

0.4

0.7

Count (n)

230

246

301

Specialist orientation
Specialist focus / subject relevanceof journalInternational specialist importance

Organisational qualities

Cost aspects

0.8
220

997

Basis: 1,028; No response: 31
Question 6: When you wish to publish a study in a scientific journal: How important are the following aspects?
(answer category 1 = 'very important' to 5 = 'not at all important'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

26

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

A journal’s international distribution also plays an important role among thehumanities scholars and social scientists, at around 81 %, although to a somewhat lesser degree than in other disciplines. It is above all the social andbehavioural scientists who accord this criterion a relatively low significance:
Only 72 % give a journal’s international distribution as one of their main selection criteria for publication, in contrast to 87 % of the humanities scholars. In
terms of individual research area, only 64 % of those in the social sciences andlaw regarded this aspect as important or very important. More importance wasnaturally attributed to this aspect by ethnologists, academics in the field of religious studies and non-European cultures (100 %), ancient cultures (100 %), andalso by psychologists (97 %) and historians (91 %).
The journal’s reputation is the third most important criterion considered whenselecting a suitable journal in which to publish. Humanities scholars and social
scientists perceived this aspect as less important, compared to researchers fromother disciplines. Whereas 90 % of the social and behavioural scientists statedthat this factor was important or very important, only 80 % of the humanities
scholars were of the same opinion.
The impact factor plays a different role within the individual disciplines. It isregarded as an important or very important criterion when selecting a suitable
type of publication by 55 % of the social and behavioural scientists, but by only
31 % of the humanities scholars. In the life sciences it plays an important rolefor only 54 % of agricultural and forestry scientists, horticulturalists and veterinarians, compared to about 84 % for the representatives of other disciplines
grouped under this heading. In the natural sciences, it is above all the mathematicians who accord this criterion relatively low importance, at 31 %.
In comparison to established researchers, the impact factor clearly and understandably plays a more important role for young researchers, in particular in thehumanities and social sciences and engineering sciences. While in the engineering sciences 70 % of young researchers consider this criterion as important whenselecting a suitable journal for publication, this applies to only 50 % of the established researchers. In the humanities and social sciences, the percentage ratio
between young and established researchers is 55:31.

Reputation

Impact factor

Most important
to young researchers

Of the aspects classified under "organisational qualities”, the quality of the peer
review of articles submitted was somewhat less important to the humanities
scholars and social scientists than to representatives of other disciplines, morethan 80 % of whom viewed this as being important or very important 1. Only
73 % of the respondents in the humanities and 74 % of the social and behavioural scientists shared this opinion.

1. With one single exception in the agricultural and forestry sciences, horticulture and veterinary medicine. Here 77 % of the
respondents viewed this criterion as important.

27

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

3.3 Target audience for own publications

The target groupis primarily
one’s own scientificcommunity...

... which isviewed increasingly
as international

The work produced by the researchers and academics in the study is naturally
aimed first and foremost at their own scientific peers. Asked about the readership to which their own publications were mainly addressed, almost 99 % of the
respondents named the colleagues in their own area. The differences between
the scientific disciplines are negligible (cf. Table 3.04).
Researchers in neighbouring disciplines were mentioned as likely or interested
readers, ranking second. The gap between these two target groups is considerable, amounting to approximately 57 % in the engineering sciences and 43 % in
the life sciences. The application-oriented target audience, which ranks third,
has figures that are markedly below those of the first two groups. As might be
expected, it is mainly authors in the engineering sciences who include thisgroup amongst their target readership. If a comparison is made between the individual research areas, it is mainly architects and civil engineers who mention
practitioners (73 %), followed at some distance by the mechanical engineers(48 %). In the engineering sciences, clear differences are revealed between theestablished researchers (39 %) and young researchers (29 %).
When it comes to targeting application-oriented users, the place of employment
plays a decisive role. While approximately 17 % of those employed at universities and 20 % of researchers working at non-university research institutions
mainly or predominantly address their work to this type of readership, the percentage varies considerably between the non-university research institutes, aphenomenon which is adequately explained by the emphasis on the content of
the research by the respective institutes: Approximately 88 % of the researchers
at Fraunhofer institutes, and 28 % of those employed by the Helmholtz
Association overwhelmingly or predominantly emphasise an application-oriented readership.

Table 3.04:
Main readership for own publications (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Scientists in my own discipline

98.7

99.6

98.7

98.7

98.9

Scientists in neighbouring
disciplines

55.4

54.4

42.2

41.3

48.2

Application-oriented target groups

14.4

6.7

14.2

38.8

18.1

Interested lay readers

15.8

2.5

2.5

1.0

5.2

Other

10.0

4.8

11.1

6.2

Count (n)

235

308

225

1.023

255

Basis: 1,028; No response: 5
Question 2: What readership are your own publications usually intended for?
(Answer category 1= 'overwhelmingly' to 5 = 'not at all' ; Categories 1 and 2 combined).

28

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITSWith the increasing internationality of research, it is hardly surprising that the
respondents’ publications are addressed primarily to a global scientific community (cf. section 3.2 on the international orientation of publications). Around
78 % of the respondents stated that they addressed their publications overwhelmingly to researchers outside Germany (cf. Figure 3-1).
In the life and natural sciences, more than 90 % of the respondents address theirwork to an international readership. Two findings need closer examination.
> In comparison to other scientific disciplines, the international relevance isemphasised much less strongly by humanities scholars and social scientists.
The international relevance is only partially relevant for 55 % of these respondents, compared to just 6 % of the life scientists, 8 % of the natural scientists,and 23 % of the engineers. After all 50 % of the social and behavioural scientists address their work mainly to an international audience, compared toonly 38 % in the humanities. The wide differentiation between individual
subjects shows that it is above all representatives of education science (88 %),literature, theatre and media studies (84 %) and historians (79 %) who only
partially target an international audience. By contrast, 82 % of the psychologists, 71 % of the ethnologists and academics working in the field of religious
studies and non-European cultures, as well as 50 % of the philosophers,
claimed to write overwhelmingly for an international readership.
> A total of 22 % of the engineering scientists indicated that they address their
publications only to a limited extent to a non-German peer audience. This
more national orientation, in comparison to the life and natural sciences, isobserved in the fields of architecture, civil and mechanical engineering (54 %)and production engineering (52 %).

Figure 3-1:
Researchers outside Germany as target group for own publications(in percent)
0.3

1.3

100%

5.6

7.6
23.1

21.6

80%
55.3
60%

N0
94.4

20%

Partially

92.4

40%

76.9

78.1

Engineering
ScienceAll

Overwhelmingly

43.4

0%
Humanities
and Social Sci.

Life
ScienceNaturalScience

Basis: 1.028; No response: 19
Question 3: Do you address your publications also to researchers outside Germany?

29

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

3.4

Four out of fivetexts read are written
in English...

... and in the life sciences
and natural sciences,
three out of four are published in English

Languages used when accessing and publishing scientificinformation

In most disciplines English has evidently been adopted as the language of publication. Over 78 % of all publications read by the scientists and academics surveyed were English-language publications (cf. Figure 3-2).
If the humanities and social sciences, in which language itself is the subject of
research, are excluded, the percentage of scientific texts read in English rises toan average of approximately 87 %. Almost half of the specialist publications
accessed in the humanities and social sciences are written in English, but 41 %of all publications are still published in German. In the other scientific disciplines, between 80 % and 91 % of the specialist publications are read in English,
with other languages playing a more marginal role. In the engineering sciences
19 % of the publications read by respondents were still written in German, compared to 9.5 % in the natural sciences and just over 8.5 % in the life sciences.
An analysis of the subjects grouped under the humanities and social sciencesshows once again the differences imposed by subject-specific habits and the factthat language itself is the object of research. In the humanities in the narrower
sense around 45 % of the texts read are in German, compared to 37 % in thesocial and behavioural sciences. Educationalists access around 83 % of their specialist literature in German, compared to 63 % of the academics in the fields ofliterature, theatre and media studies, and 58 % of the theologians. Linguists(27 %), psychologists (17 %), ethnologists and academics in the field of nonEuropean cultures and religious studies (16 %) are much less likely to access
German-language publications.

Figure 3-2:
Percentage of different languages used in accessing scientific texts(average value of percentage values)
100%

0,6

0,2
5,3
5,3

0,3

1,7

0,7
1,0

1,7

0,4

80%
60%

48,5
90,9

88,9

79,6

Other languages
78,1

English

40%
20%
0%

FrenchGerman40,98,6Humanities and Life
Social Sci.
Sciences

9,5NaturalSciences

19,3

18,6

Engineering
Sciences

All

Basis: 1,028; No response: 86
Question 4: When you read scientific texts or publish scientific studies yourself: What role is played by thefollowing languages? Please give an estimate in percent.

30

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

Complementary to ways of accessing information, similar linguistic tendencies
can also be found in publishing practices: Around three-quarters of the academics and researchers surveyed publish their own work in English. Less than a quarter of the material is published in German, which is largely due to publishingintentions to target an international readership (cf. Table 3.05). Once again thehumanities scholars and social scientists form the exception to this trend, in
whose publications the German language still plays an important role.

Table 3.05:
Percentage of different languages used in publishing own scientific work
(arithmetic mean of percentage values)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

German

59.7

10.6

7.9

21.9

23.5

English

36.1

89.1

91.9

78.0

75.4

French

1.7

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.4

Spanish

0.7

0.1

0.1

Other languages
Total
Count (n)

0.2

1.9

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.5

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

215

230

289

208

942

Basis: 1,028; No response: 86
Question 4: When you read scientific texts or publish scientific studies yourself: What role is played by thefollowing languages? Please give an estimate in percent. - I publish around 'x' percent of my own work in thefollowing languages.

Approximately 60 % of the publications in the humanities and social sciences
appear in German. A closer analysis again reveals significant differences between
individual subjects. Economists publish 74 % of their work in English, psychologists 73 % and ethnologists, and academics in the area of religious studies andnon-European cultures 61 %. By contrast, 91 % of educationalists’ publications
are published in German. It should be noted here that the use of German also
correlates with the intended target audience of the individual disciplines (cf.
above under 3.3).

3.5 Involvement in the publication of scientific journals
Approximately 43 % of the respondents indicated that they actively participate
in the publication of scientific journals. Humanities scholars and social scientists
are most frequently involved in journal publication, followed by the life scientists (cf. Table 3.06). Taking into account the multiple attributions – different
respondents are active in various functions for different journals – it emergesthat participation in the scientific advisory committees of journals is more frequent than the function of (co-)editor.
For obvious reasons, young researchers are less likely to participate in the editing of scientific journals. In the humanities and social sciences, 59 % of theestablished researchers, compared to just 19 % of the young researchers, areengaged in the publication of journals. In the life sciences the percentage ratio
between established and young researchers engaged in this activity is 51:13, inthe natural sciences 43:20, and in the engineering sciences 53:24.

31

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Table 3.06:
Involvement in the publication of scientific journals(in percent, multiple references allowed)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

No involvement

50.7

58.9

63.7

53.7

57.3

(Co)editor of one or morejournals

25.1

11.2

15.9

18.7

17.5

Scientific committee of one ormore journals

33.2

24.1

16.6

23.4

23.8

Other function

8.5

12.0

11.4

13.6

11.4

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

223

241

289

214

967

Total
Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 61
Question 9: Are you involved in the publication of scientific journals?

The following section deals with status of scientific journals published byGerman publishing houses. It remains to be seen whether proposals to strengthen the international reputation of German scientific periodicals vary against thebackground of existing publishing expertise.

3.6

The internationality of German publishing houses: an assessment

Against the background of the increasing internationalisation of science andthe evident increase in the universal use of English in many fields, stands thequestion of the importance of German publishing houses. There are three mainquestions of interest:
1. Which are the most important scientific journals in the individual research areas
and/or disciplines?
2. In the differentiation according to scientific discipline and/or research area,
how is the international reputation of journals from German sciencepublishers rated?
3. What measures, if any, could be important in strengthening the reputationof journals from German publishers?

Over 1,800 journals are
regarded as important

When asked to name the main scientific journals with an international reputation, respondents named more than 1,800 different titles. The same journals
were often mentioned in different scientific disciplines. Taking into accountthese multiple attributions, the number of periodicals named in each scientificdiscipline was as follows: 630 in the humanities and social sciences, 410 in thelife sciences, 488 in the natural sciences, and 499 in the engineering sciences.
Table 3.07 lists the ten most frequently named journals in each discipline.
Just over half of all respondents (51 %) confirmed the existence of Germanscientific journals with a strong international reputation. At the same time(cf. Table 3.08), a relatively high number of respondents (more than 32 %) did
not acknowledge that journals from German publishing houses had a renowned
international status in their scientific discipline.

32

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

Table 3.07:
Most important scientific journals (number of mentions)
Journal Title

Number of
Mentions

Humanities and Social Sciences
Historische Zeitschrift

18

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

12

Geschichte und Gesellschaft

12

Zeitschrift für Soziologie

10

Kölner Zeitschrift f. Soziologie u. Sozialpsychologie

10Euphorion – Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte

9Language

8

American Economic Review

8

American Journal of Sociology

8

Zeitschrift für Pädagogik

8Life Sciences
Nature96

Science Magazine

71

Cell

42

The Journal of Biological Chemistry online

30

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

26

Journal of Neuroscience18

The Journal of European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO)18The Journal of Immunology

18

Nature Medicine

18

The New England Journal of Medicine

18

Natural Science
Physical Review Letters

92

Nature72

Science Magazine

61

Angewandte Chemie, International Edition

34

Physical Review B

32

Journal of the American Chemical Society

31

Applied Physics Letters

23

Journal of Chemical Physics

20

Journal of Geophysical Research

17

Chemistry – A European Journal

16

Engineering Sciences
Applied Physics Letters

13

Journal of the American Ceramic Society

11

Acta Materialia

9

SIAM Journal on Computing

9

Journal of the ACM

9

AIChE Journal

9IEEE Transactions on Communications

8

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

8

Chemical Engineering Science8

Physical Review Letters

7

33

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

A total of 17 % of all respondents said that they were unable to answer thisquestion. The majority of those who were persuaded of the excellence ofGerman scientific journals were academics in the humanities, social sciences andnatural sciences. Approximately 59 % of the academics in these disciplines
supported this view, significantly above the average. In the engineering sciences,almost half of the respondents agreed. Finally, a mere 35 % of the life scientists
surveyed felt that German academic journals in their field had an international
reputation.
If a comparison is made by research area within the disciplines, significant
differences emerge:> Around 71 % of the humanities scholars confirm the existence of highranking academic journals from German publishers in their research area,
although among social and behavioural scientists this falls to 42 %. It is mainly theologians (89 %), art historians (88 %), academics from the field of

Table 3.08:
Existence of journals from German publishers with internationally highreputation (in percent)Yes

Don't know

No

Total

Count (n)Humanities

71.2

14.4

14.4

100.0

118

Social and Behavioural Sciences

41.8

19.4

38.8

100.0

98

Biology

41.7

16.7

41.7

100.0

108

Medicine

27.0

21.6

51.4

100.0

111

Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture,
Veterinary Medicine

61.5

0.0

38.5

100.0

13

Chemistry

68.3

12.9

18.8

100.0

101

Physics

47.4

15.8

36.8

100.0

95

Mathematics

65.5

20.7

13.8

100.0

29

Geosciences / Earth Sciences

59.6

15.8

24.6

100.0

57

Mechanical Engineering, Production
Technology

59.3

25.9

14.8

100.0

27

Heat Energy Technology, Process
Engineering

64.3

17.9

17.9

100.0

28

Materials Science

61.1

19.4

19.4

100.0

36

Electrical Engineering, Computer
Science, System Engineering

39.1

10.9

50.0

100.0

92

Construction Engineering, Architecture

33.3

46.7

20.0

100.0

15

Total

50.9

16.9

32.2

100.0

928

Humanities and Social Sciences

Life Sciences

Natural Science

Engineering Sciences

Basis: 1,028; No response: 100
Question 7: In your research area, are there any journals from German publishers with an internationally highreputation?

34

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS

ethnology, religious studies and non-European cultures (83 %) and specialists
in the field of ancient cultures (80 %), who claim to know of German academic journals of international standing. In the social and behaviouralsciences only 41 % of the economists, 40 % of the social scientists and 39 % of
the psychologists believe that there are any internationally recognised
German periodicals in their subjects.
> In the life sciences, 62 % of the scientists in the agricultural and forestry
sciences, horticulture and veterinary medicine accorded an international
reputation to German academic journals, followed by 42 % of the biologists.
The zoologists stated that all of the German scientific journals in their profession were prestigious and of international importance. Microbiologists,
virologists and immunologists (21 %) and medical biologists (26 %) were leastin agreement with this point of view.
> In the natural sciences, chemists in particular viewed German journals as
having a good international reputation. A total of 89 % of the molecularchemists and 80 % of the scientists who conduct research on the chemistry of
biological systems were of a similar opinion, as were 66 % of the mathematicians.
> Finally, in the engineering sciences internationally renowned German journals were recorded in particular in the field of heat energy technology andprocess engineering (64 %) and in the materials sciences (61 %), but by few of
the computer scientists (35 %).
It was interesting to compare the previous answer, to the question about whichwere the overall most important journals in the different disciplines, to theanswer to this question. In both cases certain journals were mentioned several
times by respondents from different scientific disciplines. Including these
multiple references, the humanities and social sciences academics named 200, in
the life sciences 89, in the natural sciences 143, and in the engineering sciences
103 journals.
The ten most frequently mentioned journals grouped under this heading arelisted in Table 3.09 by scientific discipline. Because of the large number ofjournals mentioned and the variety of specialist publications in each specificsub-discipline, a comparison with the internationally relevant periodicals listed
above is of only limited relevance. In the humanities and social sciences, fiveof the German journals referred to above are also included among the first ten
most frequently mentioned academic journals; three journals from the naturalsciences occur in both lists.
When almost half of the respondents disagree that there are internationallyrenowned scientific journals in the ownership of German publishers, or express
no opinion, this also poses the question of whether and how this situation canbe improved. Table 3.10 presents an assessment of the different proposals.
> 73 % of all respondents approve of more frequent publication of Englishlanguage articles. In most scientific disciplines the approval rating was high,ranging between 71 % and 86 %. However, only 52 % of the humanities
scholars and social scientists were in favour of such a measure. This is consistent with the importance attributed to the German language by this group foraccessing and publishing their research results (see section 3.4).

35

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Table 3.09:
Most important scientific journals from German publishers(Number of mentions)
Journal Title

Number of
Mentions

Humanities and Social Sciences
Historische Zeitschrift *11

Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie *7

Euphorion. Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte *6Geschichte und Gesellschaft *5

Zeitschrift für Soziologie *5

Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte

4

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft

4

Deutsche Vierteljahreszeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte

4

Zeitschrift für Assyriologie

4

Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters

4Life Sciences
Planta96

Plant Biology

71

Molecular Genetics and Genomics

42

Cell & Tissue Research

30

Journal of Comparative Physiology A

26

Naturwissenschaften

18

Oecologia

18

Journal of Biological Chemistry

18

Flora

18

European Journal of Cell Biology

18

Natural Sciences
Angewandte Chemie, International Edition *55

Chemistry – A European Journal *14

Mathematische Annalen

9Mathematische Zeitschrift

9European Journal of Organic Chemistry9

Inventiones Mathematicae

8International Journal of Earth Sciences8

Synthesis

7

Applied Physics Letters *6Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology

6

Engineering Sciences
Zeitschrift für Metallkunde

7

Chemie Ingenieur Technik

6

Experiments in Fluids

6

Advanced Engineering Materials

5AEÜ International of Electronics and Communications

5

Frequenz4

at – Automatisierungstechnik

4Advanced Materials

4

Angewandte Chemie. International Edition

4

Materialwissenschaft und Werkstofftechnik

4

Journals marked with '*' also rank among the top 10 internationally most important journals

36

INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING HABITS> 71 % of all respondents asked for more frequent publication of works byleading international research scientists from other countries. Here too the
59 % approval rating from the humanities scholars and social scientists islower than that of other disciplines.
> 63 % suggested stricter quality criteria when selecting studies for publication.
The number of those in favour in the different disciplines varies between
57 % and 60 %; only the life scientists consider such a course of action to beabsolutely necessary or necessary, with 78 %.
> 61 % considered that increased advertising of German academic journals is
imperative or necessary. There are no great differences between the approval
ratings in the different scientific disciplines.
> 7 % of the respondents believed that scientific journals from German publishers could become more attractive if they paid higher author fees.
The approval rating of established researchers for these suggestions differed fromthat of young researchers. Established researchers asked for more frequent publication of English-language articles or more frequent publication of articles byleading foreign research scientists. Only in the engineering sciences was the ratio
reversed: Here 90 % of the young research scientists, but only 76 % of the established research scientists were in favour of more English-language articles; inaddition, 79 % of the young researchers, but only 70 % of the establishedresearchers thought that the works of foreign research scientists should be published more often, in order to strengthen the reputation of journals from
German publishers.

More articles
in English

Young researchers as a rule are more in favour of using appropriate advertisingmeasures, albeit only slightly more frequently than their established colleagues.
However, there is a clear difference in the humanities and social sciences. Here
67 % of the established researchers argued in favour of more active promotion ofGerman academic journals within the scientific community, compared to only
47 % of the young researchers.
Table 3.10:
Measures needed to enhance the international reputation of scientific journals
from German publishers(in percent, multiple references allowed)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Publish more articles in English

51.7

85.7

71.0

77.8

72.9

Publish more articles by leading foreign
research scientists

58.7

79.7

72.6

70.4

70.6

Stricter quality criteria in selecting articles

59.7

78.2

57.0

58.5

63.4

Use appropriate advertising measures

62.8

65.5

58.5

57.2

61.0

Pay higher fees to authors

12.1

4.5

4.3

5.4

6.5

Count (n)

223

233

268

204

928

Basis: 1,028; No response: 100
Question 8: In your opinion, what measures are needed to strengthen or enhance the international repurtation ofscientific journals from German publishers in your research area? (Answer category 1= 'absolutely necessary' to 5
= 'not necessary'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

37

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

More young researchers in the humanities and social sciences and in the life
sciences approve of higher royalties than their established colleagues. In the natural sciences, as many as 14 % of young researchers were in favour, in contrast
to only 3 % of the established scientists. A reversal of this trend can be seen in
the engineering sciences. Here 6 % of the established researchers would likehigher author royalties, but none of the young researchers.
When asked to provide further suggestions on how the deficit in the international reputation of scientific journals from German publishers could be remedied, 77 respondents replied. Their answers were made more in the form of summary comments than complementary suggestions. A relatively frequent comment was that in view of international scientific cooperation a question about
journals from German as opposed to international publishers, about German
versus international journals, was of somewhat secondary importance. There
were occasional suggestions to add parallel translations in English or summaries
in English of certain articles in German scientific publications; other recommendations included using international reviewers and including international
members on publishers’ committees.
The approval rating for the different suggestions varies above all against thebackground of the perceived existence or absence of German academic journalsof high standing. According to whether the existence of these periodicals is confirmed or denied, suggestions for improving their international reputation vary:Amongst respondents who found no renowned scientific journals of German
provenance in their field, 86 % argued for more publication of English articles,
compared to just 63 % of those who did find such journals. That more frequent
articles from leading foreign research scientists would contribute to their international reputation was believed by 78 % of those who thought there were no
German journals of international standing on the science market, but by only
two-thirds of respondents who do know of renowned German journals in theirfield.
The question arose as to whether experience and expertise in the publication of
periodicals influenced the recommendations for how to improve the international reputation of scientific journals from German scientific publishers. The
survey indicated that this was not the case. For example, the same percentage of
researchers with or without publishing experience (73 %) were in favour of more
frequent inclusion of English-language articles; 64 % of those involved in publishing such journals argued for stricter quality criteria when selecting manuscripts for publication, along with 63 % of those persons not involved in suchactivities.

38

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

4 Open access in scientificcommunication
4.1

Awareness of open access initiatives and declarations

After examining the publishing habits of DFG-funded researchers and their waysof accessing information through conventional channels, and questions relating
to the reputation and status of international and German scientific journals, it
was interesting to compare researchers’ experiences with and opinions on open
access publishing. In view of the increasing level of debate on this topic, invarious national and international institutions and scientific committees, thefirst question that arises is how familiar scientists and academics are with these
discussions. In order to find out, various statements and initiatives were listed atTable 4.01:
Knowledge of national and international declarations and initiatives forpromoting open access (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Berlin Declaration on Open Access in Science and Humanities
Good knowledge

6.9

4.8

6.7

1.9

5.2

Not in detail

30.0

33.3

32.0

28.4

31.1

No knowledge

63.1

61.8

61.3

69.8

63.7

All

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

233

243

295

213

984

1.2

2.0

0.9

1.8
10.5

Number (n)Budapest Open Access Initiative
Good knowledge

3.0

Not in detail

11.6

11.5

9.2

9.9

No knowledge

85.4

87.2

88.8

89.2

87.7

All

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

231

245

294

213

983

Number (n)Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing
Good knowledge

1.3

4.9

1.0

1.4

2.1

Not in detail

10.4

26.9

11.9

7.5

14.3

No knowledge

88.3

68.2

87.1

91.1

83.5

All

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

233

242

293

211

979

Number (n)Open Archives Initiative
Good knowledge

1.3

3.7

2.4

1.9

2.3

Not in detail

21.5

27.3

22.5

19.9

22.9

No knowledge

77.3

69.0

75.1

78.2

74.8

All

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

232

244

295

212

983

3.9

22.1

5.1

2.8

8.5
27.9

Number (n)Public Library of Science
Good knowledge
Not in detail

24.6

36.5

27.5

22.2

No knowledge

71.6

41.4

67.5

75.0

63.6

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

232

244

295

212

983

Count (n)Question 10: There have been a number of national and international declarations and initiatives promoting
open access. Which ones are you familiar with?

39

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

the beginning of this part of the questionnaire, and the respondents asked torate their knowledge of them. Overall, it was revealed that only slightly morethan half of the scientists and academics surveyed had heard of the open accessdeclarations and initiatives listed in the questionnaire. A total of 47 % admitted
that they had never heard of any of the declarations and initiatives. However,the level of awareness of individual initiatives varied according to scientific discipline, which is easily explained by the different orientation of these initiatives.
The best known are the Public Library of Science 1 and the Berlin Declaration 2,
both of which had at least been heard of by 36 % of all respondents. However,
only 5 % of the respondents stated that they were very familiar with the Berlin
Declaration, and 9 % said the same in relation to knowledge of the Public Libraryof Science – considering the high percentage of 22 % in the life sciences, towards
whom the initiative is directed. A quarter of the respondents said that they had
heard of the Open Archives Initiative 3. A total of 16 % are familiar with the
Bethesda Declaration 4 and 12 % with the Budapest Initiative 5. Table 4.01 gives
details of the knowledge of the different declarations and initiatives by individual discipline.

4.2

Use of open access publications

4.2.1 Publication forms in open access
The types of publication that can be uniquely subsumed under the term open
access are not always clear or generally applicable. In order to ensure a uniform
understanding and comparability of the answers provided in the study, the questionnaire defined open access publications as those that, unlike conventional
publications, can be accessed for free over the internet. A distinction was also
made between the "golden” and "green” roads to open access, i.e. access to articles in open access journals and self-archived open access publications (preprints
and postprints). The question relating to the rights granted in connection with
open access publications, which are an important component of most open
access definitions, was deliberately not addressed in the terminology used here.
The distinctions made were as follows:
Conventional publications:Publications of scientific works – monographs, journal articles, contributions
to edited volumes, etc. – that readers can access in printed or digital form in
return for a fee.
Open access publications:
Scientific works that are accessible to all readers for free over the internet andwhose quality is generally ensured in the same way as with conventional publications, through peer review.

1. http://www.plos.org/
2. http://www.zim. mpg. de/openaccess-berlin/BerlinDeclaration_dt.pdf
3. http://www.openarchives.org/index.html
4. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm
5. http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml

40

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATIONOpen access publications are typically found in these forms:
Open access journal articles
Peer-reviewed scientific articles that can be accessed for free by readers via special internet journals.
Electronic postprints
Originally conventional publications that, after initial publication, are placedon the internet by their authors where they can be accessed for free.
Electronic preprints
Advanced publications of scientific studies that have not yet undergone peer
review, made available by their authors for free access over the internet.

4.2.2 Knowledge and use of open access journals
Approximately 38 % of the research scientists surveyed are familiar with open
access journals (cf. Table 4.02). Divided into scientific discipline, this reveals thefollowing distribution:> In the humanities and social sciences 42 % of the humanities scholars arefamiliar with open access journals, compared to 36 % of the social and behavioural scientists. A total of 53 % of the historians and about 50 % each of thefine arts academics, linguists and educationalists use open access journals.
> In the life sciences 52 % of the biologists and 46 % each of the medical biologists and agriculturalists, forestry scientists, horticulturalists and veterinarians
are familiar with open access journals. In the natural sciences the level ofawareness varies from 43 % in the geosciences, to 46 % in mathematics and
47 % in physics. These journals are much less well known in the field of chemistry. Only 29 % of the chemists surveyed said that they knew of any open
access journals.
> Compared to other scientific disciplines, the level of awareness of open accessjournals in the engineering sciences is relatively low. In electrical engineering,
computer science and system engineering, 34 % of the respondents know of
this form of publication; the highest percentage here is among computerscientists, at 51 %. In mechanical engineering and production engineering,
31 % of the scientists said they knew about open access journals, compared tojust 13 % in the area of heat energy technology and process engineering. In
the areas of civil engineering and architecture this type of publication is completely unknown.
Table 4.02
Knowledge of open access journals - by scientific discipline(in percent)Scientific discipline
Humanities and Social Sciences

Yes

No

Total

38.9

61.1

100.0

Life Sciences

47.6

52.4

100.0

Natural Science

40.3

59.7

100.0

Engineering Sciences

24.2

75.8

100.0

Total

38.3

61.7

100.0

Basis: 1,028; No response: 32
Question 11: Are you familiar with any open access journals in your research area?

41

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Table 4.03:
Most important scientific open access journals(Number of mentions)1
Title of Open Access Journal

Number of
Mentions

Humanities and Social Sciences
H-Soz-u-Kult – Kommunikation und Fachinformation für die Geschichtswissenschaften7

sehepunkte

5

Zeithistorische Forschungen. Studies in Contemporary History

4

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung4

Zeitenblicke

3

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review

3

The British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES)

2

Forum historiae iuris

2

Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft

2

Historicum2

Life Sciences
Public Library of Science - Biology

17

Public Library of Science – unspez.

9BioMed Central

3

The Journal of Clinical Investigation

3

German Medical Science

3

The Journal of Biological Chemistry online k

3

Journal of Biology

3

Journal of Neuroscience k

2

Science Magazine

2

BMC Biology (BioMed Central)

2

Natural Science
New Journal of Physics

23

Documenta Mathematica

7

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP)

4e-Polymers

4

Optics Express

4

Annals of Mathematics k

3

Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics k

2

Condensed Matter Physics

2

Geometry & Topology

2

BMC Structural Biology (BioMed Central)

2

Engineering Sciences
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research

16Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science k

3

Journal of Machine Learning Research

2Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity

2

Logical Methods in Computer Science

2

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation

1

European Plastic News1

SIGKDD Explorations

1

The Internet Journal of Medical Simulation

1

Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR Journal of Scientific Research andDevelopment

1

Some of the journals named as open access journals by the scientists and academics in the study are only
partially available free of charge on the Internet (as at April 2005). In this case older issues are usually free, but
payment is required for the latest issue or issues published in the current year. Titles affected are marked with thesuperscript 'k' to indicate payment (sometimes) required. Journal titles that can only be accessed free of charge
under certain conditions (for example membership of an institution) and journals which only provide abstracts forfree were mentioned relatively frequently, but were not included in this summary table.

42

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

Established research scientists are more familiar with open access journals than
young researchers. The difference in the natural sciences and life sciences isaround 13 %, in the engineering sciences around 14 %. Clearer differences areshown in the humanities and social sciences, in which 43 % of the establishedresearchers know of these journals, but only 20 % of the young researchers.
An overview of the subject-specific open access journals regarded by respondents
as particularly important, broken down by scientific discipline and including
naming frequency, is given in Table 4.03. Taking into account any multiplereferences to individual journals by the different scientific disciplines, the total
number of periodicals named was as follows: 64 in the humanities and social
sciences, 69 in the life sciences, 91 in the natural sciences, and 57 in the engineering sciences.
Of the 381 research scientists who knew of open access journals, 360 provided
information about how frequently they used this form of publication.
Accordingly, around 83 % accessed their information more or less frequently
from open access journals (cf. Figure 4-1).
The use made of these journals in the individual scientific disciplines varies
considerably: Most users of open access journals are to be found in the naturalsciences, closely followed by respondents from the engineering sciences –although the latter have a higher frequency of use (allowing for the fact thatgeneral awareness of open access journals in the engineering sciences is quite
low, cf. Table 4.02). In the life sciences and in the humanities and social sciences,
the use of open access journals and frequency of use by individual researchers
falls slightly. The highest portion of scientists who are familiar with open accessjournals but do not use them can be found in the humanities and social sciences,at 23 %.

Most users ofopen access journals
can be found in
the natural sciences

Complementary to the question on use and frequency of use is the question on
publishing practices in open access amongst the research scientists surveyed.

Figure 4-1:
Frequency of use of open access journals (in percent)
100%
23.0

18.9

13.0

13.5

17.2

80%
50.0

60%

62.6
58.6

Never
60.3

64.2

Rarely
Often

40%

20%

36.5
18.4

17.0

Humanities
and Social Sci.

Life
Sciences

24.3

22.5

0%
NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

Basis: 381 respondents, who know other OA Journals in their Research Area
No response: 21
Question 13: How often do you use open access journals as a source of information?

43

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

According to their own statements, a total of only 122 respondents have everpublished one or more articles in open access journals. (cf. Figure 4-2)
In comparison
to overall publishingactivity, only a few
articles in open
access journals

If a comparison is made between the figures presented in section 3.1 concerning
the total number of journal articles published in the last five years with the number of articles published in open access, a clear difference emerges: While eachof the scientists surveyed published an average of around 19 specialist articles
during this period, the number of contributions to open access journals was on
average less than one (cf. Table 4.04).
Most publications in open access journals were in the field of the natural sciences; natural scientists are therefore in first place, even in comparison to thetotal number of articles they publish, followed by respondents from the engineering sciences. The fewest number of articles in open access journals camefrom the humanities and social sciences.

Figure 4-2:
Knowledge and use of open access journals (number of respondents)

100.0%

100%
100%

86,2%
86.2%

80%
80%
60%
60%
37,1%
37.1%

40%
40%

29,0%
29.0%

20%
20%
0%
0%

11,9%
11.9%
1.028 Befragte...
...886 davon
1.028 respondents...Auskunft...886 ofwhom
ber provided
ihren
information about
their knowledge
ofZeitschriften
open accessjournals...381 davon...381 of whomknow of open
access journals
in t heir
research area...122 davon...122 ofwhom havepublished inopen accessjournals...298 davon...298 ofwhom
use
Accessopen accessjournalts

Table 4.04:
Total number of journal articles published during the last five years(arithmetic mean and standard deviation)

Total number ofjournal articles

Of which in open
access journals

Count (n)Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

m

13.0

21.0

22.9

17.9

19.1

s

13.3

17.6

19.8

20.5

18.5

m

0.2

0.3

0.8

0.6

0.5

s

0.5

1.5

3.7

2.1

2.4

203

217

280

202

902

Basis: 1,028; No response: 126
Question 14: In the last five years: how many articles have you published ? Do these include any that haveappeared in open access journals?

44

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

4.2.3 Free postprints (secondary publications)Self-archiving, the process in which authors provide their scientific work on theinternet for free following conventional publication, plays a larger role thanpublication in open access journals. Here authors not only make journal articles
accessible free of charge, but other publications as well. In all 317 respondents
had used this method of making their studies available in open access.
The percentage of this type of secondary publication varies between the scientific disciplines and individual types of publication (cf. Table 4.05). In the caseof journal articles, the order of importance among the disciplines is similar tothat of publication in actual open access journals. Natural scientists use themethod of postprint publication for journal articles the most frequently.
Approximately 20 % of the articles originally published in conventional form arerepublished on the internet, compared to 18 % in the engineering sciences, 13 %in the life sciences, and just 6 % in the humanities and social sciences.

Self-archiving, theprocess in which authors
provide their scientificwork on the internet for
free following conventional publication,
plays a larger role thanpublication in open
access journals
Approximately one-fifthof the articles originallypublished in conventional form are republishedon the internet

Contributions in conference proceedings and edited volumes and monographs
are additionally published in open access especially often by engineering scientists. More than a quarter of engineering contributions in conference proceedings and 16 % of the articles in edited volumes are made accessible free of charge
in this way. The percentage for monographs is nearly 15 %.
A differentiated analysis reveals that the proportion of studies publishedsecondarily as postprints can vary considerably between specialist fields and subjects:> In the humanities and social sciences, it is mostly social and behaviouralscientists who use the option of secondary open access publication for theiracademic studies. While they make around 9 % of the articles published injournals available for free on the internet, this is done by only 3 % of thehumanities scholars surveyed 1.

Table 4.05:
Percentage of articles published by scientific publishers in conventional form
that have also been published on the Internet(arithmetic mean of percentage value)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

Journal articles

5.9

12.3

Papers in proceedings

7.7

4.4

Contributions in edited volumes

3.5

4.5

Monographs

2.7

Other publications

5.9

Total (n)59

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

20.1

17.6

14.4

20.4

26.0

16.5

12.9

16.2

8.6

5.4

15.0

14.7

7.7

9.1

20.0

28.6

13.3

60

104

94

317

Basis: 317 respondents had published postprints; No response: 0
Question 16: In some cases, scientific publishers allow articles that have already been published conventionallyto be republished on the Internet (electronic postprints) - e.g. on author's homepage, institute homepage, etc. In
the last five years: how much of your work have you published in conventional media, in other words usedpublishers to offer them to readers in printed or digital form against payment, and how many of these have you(or your publishers) also made available for free access on the Internet?

1. On this and the following table series: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005). Publikationsstragien im Wandel.
Tabellenband. http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/ evaluation by research area, in particular Table 16c

45

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

> Among the life scientists it is biologists in particular, who make 17 % of theirjournal articles available as postprints; in medicine the proportion is 8 %, andamong agriculturalists and forestry scientists, horticulturalists and veterinarians 7 % of journal articles published conventionally are republished as electronic postprints in open access. The latter republish around 9 % of their articles that have previously appeared in proceedings via electronic media,
among biologists this is 7 %, for medical biologists 1 %. Amongst biologists,
the preferred method of secondary publication of other forms of publication
is usually the internet.
> In the natural sciences, it is above all researchers in the field of mathematics
who republish a large number of their studies over the internet. According to
respondents’ statements, 32 % of their journal articles, 33 % of their papers inproceedings and 27 % of their contributions to edited volumes are accessible
for free as secondary publications on the internet. Physicists make around
25 % of their independent publications available again in open access, thereby achieving for monographs, almost as high a rate of secondary publicationas mathematicians for journal articles (31 %).
> In the engineering sciences it is the computer scientists who stand out, with
two-thirds of their articles in conference proceedings, 46 % of their journal
articles, almost 42 % of their contributions to edited volumes and nearly 24 %of their monographs republished on the internet.
Young researchers are more likely to make their studies available as free secondary publications than established research scientists. While around 13 % ofyoung researchers provide secondary publications over the internet, only 6 % ofestablished researchers do.
Postprints can be made available to readers as free secondary publications ofscientific articles in various ways. Publishing opportunities include one’s own

Table 4.06:
Suitable places to publish electronic postprints (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Author's homepage

70.3

63.6

77.0

78.0

72.3

Institute homepage

51.6

62.4

55.7

73.9

60.5

University server(library, computer centre)

51.9

57.8

44.1

44.4

49.5

Subject/discipline-specific archive on
the Internet

79.7

77.6

82.1

70.8

78.0

Count (n)

202

214

259

191

866

Basis: 1,028; No response: 162
Question 17: If publishers allowed conventional publications also to be published for free access on theInternet, where in your opinion would be the best place for this? (Answer category 1= 'very suitable' to
5 = 'not at all suitable'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

1. Vgl. zu diesen und den nachfolgenden Ausführungen Tabellenband: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005).
Publikationsstrategien im Wandel? Tabellenband. http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/
Auswertungen nach Fachgebiet, insbesondere Tabelle 16c

46

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

homepage or the website of the institution of employment, university servers or
subject-specific internet archives. In answer to the question of what is the bestplace on the internet for secondary publications, most researchers argued infavour of a subject or discipline-specific archive (cf. Table 4.06).
The second most popular places for presentation were the author’s own homepage, followed by the website of their institution where they work and university document servers. Only engineering scientists believe that publishing postprints on the author’s or institute’s own website is better than publishing in subject-specific internet archives.

4.2.4 Preprints in open access
Preprint archives enable scientific studies to be made available to a wider public
before final publication. A total of 29 % of the scientists surveyed had heard ofthese archives. This amounted to approximately half of the natural scientists,
about one-quarter of the life scientists, only around one-fifth of the engineering

Only a quarter ofthe scientists surveyed
are familiar withpreprint servers

Figure 4-3:
Knowledge of electronic preprint archives for own subject (in percent)
100%
80%

51.0
73.5

60%

79.7

86.1

71.1
No
Yes

40%
49.0

20%
26.5

20.3

13.9

28.9

0%
LebensSciences

Humanities andSocial Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

Basis: 1.028; No response : 174
Question 18: In some subjects it is possible to make interim results of scientific research available in anelectronic archive for downloading free of charge from the Internet (preprints).
Do you know of any such electronic archives in your subject?

Table 4.07:
Number of preprints of scientific studies in electronic archives(arithmetic mean and standard deviation)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Arithmetic mean

6.7

4.6

13.1

4.1

9.9

Standard deviation

5.8

4.9

11.4

3.0

10.2

Count (n)

15

21

86

19

141

Basis: 149 respondents who know of electronic preprint archives in their subject (filter from Question 18)
No response: 8
Question 19: In the last five years: during this period, have you yourself published any such preprints in anelectronic archive? If so, how many?

47

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

scientists, and only 14 % in the humanities and social sciences, in which thisform is uncommon (cf. Figure 4-3).
Of the 247 researchers who had heard of preprint archives, 239 gave information
about their use: Around 62 % of these respondents had already placed electronic preprints in these archives. Natural scientists use this resource the most (71 %).
Of the generally low number of humanities scholars and social scientists who
knew of this method of prepublication, almost 60 % have used it to publish theirwork, compared to 53 % of the engineers and 50 % of the life scientists (cf. Table4.07). A total of 141 of the scientists surveyed gave information about the publications they had already published on the internet.
On average each of these respondents had published approximately 10 studies
as preprints. In the natural sciences the average is 13 studies, in the humanities
and social sciences it is 7. Life scientists and engineers published an average of
5 and 4 preprints, respectively.

4.3

Assessment and recommendations for open accessIn the assessment of open access a clearly ambivalent attitude amongst the
respondents can be observed. From the point of view of easier access to scientific information, the respondents welcome the opportunities of this type of accessand publication, but from a research organisation point of view many remain
sceptical. It is noteworthy that the less experience a respondent has had of themedium, the greater the scepticism. And vice versa, the more open access isused, the fewer the reservations.
A set of scaled statements about open access was employed to obtain a general
overview of views on the subject. These were mainly statements taken from thecurrent debate. Respondents who believed that they could not give an opinion
on individual aspects could note this separately. In an initial step, the various
statements were reduced to five areas, which can be combined under the following keywords: Information Facilitation, Bibliographical Presence, Scientificand Organisational Reputation and Quality Assurance. Grouped into thesecategories, Table 4.08 first lists those statements that respondents in each scientific discipline agreed with more strongly.

Access to scientificstudies above all for
researchers fromdeveloping countries

The statement that open access will facilitate access to scientific studies above all
for scientists and academics from developing countries largely influenced theanswers listed under "Information Facilitation”. This item not only had thehighest approval rating of all the aspects in the first group, but overall, including in the individual scientific disciplines. Both of the other statements were along way behind. Based on approval ratings, they lie in fifth and seventh placerespectively of all the statements rated here.

Fears that a lack of
citation and poor bibliographic references incomparison to conventional publications
could lead to open accesspublications having
a negative impact on ascientist’s career

In the ranking of all items, the statements grouped under the "Bibliographic
Presence” category were far ahead in second, third and fourth place. Humanities
scholars and social scientists and life scientists agreed most strongly with thecritical views of open access listed here. However, it must be remembered, as
demonstrated in other sets of questions (Table 4.02), that it is precisely these scientific disciplines that have relatively little experience with open access. These
answers may be based on the fear that a lack of citation and poor bibliographic
references in comparison to conventional publications would lead to open
access publications having a negative impact on their professional scientific48

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

career. The more these fears predominate, the more the inclination to publish in
the new medium will decline. It is therefore not surprising that it is precisely theyoung researchers who tend to agree with these statements more than established researchers. Confirmation of this supposition can be found in the assessment of the items grouped under "Scientific and organisational reputation”.
With a small measure of variation between the disciplines, more than half of all
respondents believed that open access publications were not taken sufficiently
into account in the assessment either of scientific work or of funding proposals.
Young researchers are more likely than their established colleagues to assume alack of consideration for open access publications in funding proposals. It isnoticeable, however, that they are somewhat less likely to agree with the statement that such publications were insufficiently taken into account in the assessment of scientific studies than their established colleagues. A total of 66 % of theestablished researchers agreed with this statement, compared to only 63 % of theyoung researchers 1.
With regard to the statements grouped under "Organisational Integrity”, themain fear was that the long-term availability of open access publications was notguaranteed, a concern expressed by 59 % of all respondents.

Table 4.08:
Agreement with various statements on the topic of open access (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Facilitates access to scientific studies for researchers indeveloping countries

87.1

90.3

86.7

85.0

87.3

Contributes to the improvement of access to scientific knowledge

68.7

74.4

66.5

65.9

68.8

Contributes to long-term change of scientific publishing industry

56.7

61.1

66.8

58.6

61.4

Open access is too little known as a publishing medium

85.0

82.7

79.8

81.3

82.0

Citation is rarer than with conventional publications

80.1

74.8

67.0

71.4

73.1

Bibliographic referencing is rarer than with conventional works

78.5

65.5

66.5

67.9

69.8

Insufficiently considered in assessment of individual scientificachievement

67.7

70.9

60.3

62.4

65.2

Insufficiently considered in proposals for funding

59.5

68.2

47.8

56.0

57.7

Long-term availability cannot be guaranteed

66.9

56.5

55.3

59.3

59.3

Authors should have better copyright protection through licences

67.4

60.0

56.3

49.2

58.2

Quality assurance is just as guaranteed as with conventional
publications

30.1

52.7

38.9

40.3

40.2

Total (n)

203

222

272

193

890

Basis: 1,028; No response: 138
Question 20: Here we have assembled a series of statements on the topic of open access that are often mentioned in the current debate. Which do you
agree with? (Answer category 1= 'strongly agree' to 5 = 'strongly disagree'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

1. Cf. Table series: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005). Publikationsstrategien im Wandel. Tabellenband.
http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/ assessments by research area, in particular Table 20a49

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Humanities scholars and social scientists in particular, who often need access toworks published many years ago for their research, were among those most worried about this, at around 67 %.
Only 40 % of the researchers surveyed think that the same peer review quality
can be assured for research made available in open access as for those in conventional publications. Again it was the humanities scholars and social scientists
who least agreed with this statement, at only 30 %.
Table 4.09 shows that the figures given above reflect the researchers’ doubts, as
opposed to their actual experiences. The more experience the researchers had ofopen access, the lower the level of scepticism.
> That open access publications are cited or referenced in bibliographies less frequently, is confirmed by around 35 % and 31 % of experienced open access users.
The number of sceptics rises markedly amongst occasional or non-users.
> Correspondingly rare was the view expressed by frequent users as opposed toother respondents, that open access publications had a worse reputation thanconventional publications. However, around 46 % of respondents with experience of open access still concluded that these publications were not sufficiently
taken into account in the assessment of individual scientific performance. To alesser extent this was also considered a handicap when submitting funding
proposals.

Table 4.09:
Agreement with various statements on the topic of open access by user type (in percent)Often use open
access journals

Seldom use
open accessjournals

Know open
Know no open
access journals, access journals
but don't use
in my research
them
area

Total

Facilitates access to scientific studies for researchers indeveloping countries

81.3

91.4

95.2

85.3

87.1

Contributes to the improvement of access to scientificknowledge

85.3

73.2

60.5

65.2

68.7

Contributes to long-term change in scientific publishingindustry

77.4

59.9

62.8

59.1

61.2

Open access is too little known as a publishing medium

52.4

75.9

78.3

88.7

82.1

Citation is rarer than with conventional publications

34.5

67.3

90.0

82.1

73.8

Bibliographic referencing is rarer than with conventional
works

30.9

67.2

88.5

77.8

70.7

Insufficiently considered in assessment of individual scientificachievement

45.8

57.3

60.0

72.7

65.1

Insufficiently considered in proposals for funding

34.9

51.9

68.8

64.7

57.8

Long-term availability cannot be guaranteed

37.3

57.1

64.9

63.1

59.3

Authors should have better copyright protection throughlicences

54.0

53.4

62.9

59.6

57.7

Quality assurance is just as guaranteed as with conventional
publications

62.7

45.2

34.4

32.8

40.0

69

205

50

528

852

Total (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 176
Question 20: Here we have assembled a series of statements on the topic of open access that are mentioned repeatedly in the current debate. Whichdo you consider to be correct and which not? (Answer category 1= 'strongly agree' to 5 = 'strongly disagree'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

50

OPEN ACCESS IN SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION> A total of 63 % of experienced users of this medium indicated that the quality of open access publications is ensured as thoroughly as for conventional publications. A level of scepticism still remains among other user groups.
> Remarkably, well over half of the respondents who have extensive experienceof open access publications believe that the authors of these publications should
receive more copyright protection. The assessment of this statement varies only
slightly between the different types of user.
Despite relatively little experience with open access and many individual reservations, the overwhelming majority of scientists surveyed think that promoting
the publication and use of scientific studies in open access is a good idea. Heredifferences between the scientific disciplines play a more subordinate role. In all,
82 % of all respondents argue for support (cf. Table 4.10).

82 % of all respondents
argue for support

Table 4.10:
Approval of promotion and use of scientific studies in open access(in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

Yes

80.7

88.2

83.8

73.6

81.9

No

19.3

11.8

16.2

26.4

18.1

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

228

238

302

216

984

Number (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 44
Question 25: In principle, do you think that the publication of scientific studies in open access should be
encouraged or not?

Table 4.11:
Preferred measures for supporting open access (in percent)Engineering
Sciences

Total

69.7

69.9

73.1

73.7

67.1

68.0

70.6

44.7

35.2

23.1

25.8

41.6

Research scientists should be asked to maketheir own work available on the Internet

70.1

69.7

74.1

71.2

71.5

Author contracts should allow free publication on
the Internet

67.4

65.3

70.2

70.6

68.4

Incentives for publishers to make their
publications available on the Internet free ofcharge

87.3

86.4

86.4

84.2

86.2

Set up free, centralised, discipline-specificarchives on the Internet

80.9

71.9

73.4

66.0

73.2

Funding should be directed at competitivenesswith conventional journals

65.5

86.3

75.7

69.9

75.0

Total (n)

183

208

250

157

798

Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Encourage debate about open access inuniversities and research institutes

74.0

78.9

Improve advice and information in the area ofopen access for research scientists

74.1

Improve the provision of training courses andpublishing techniques for research scientists

Basis: 806 respondents think that open access should be encouraged (filter after Question 25)
No response: 8
Question 26: Which of these measures for supporting open access do you agree with?
(Answer category 1= 'strongly agree' to 5 = 'strongly disagree'; categories 1 and 2 combined).

51

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

To determine what form of specific support the respondents felt would be most
reasonable was measured using a set of eight statements.
Grouped under these categories and differentiated by scientific discipline, Table
4.11 presents the approval ratings of respondents for the different statements.
In first place among the recommendations, and without any significant differences between the scientific disciplines, was a proposal made by around 86 % of
all respondents to offer incentives to "established” publishing bodies to makethe articles they publish conventionally also available free of charge on theinternet. In second place was a recommendation to set up centralised, open
access discipline-specific archives on the internet, where suitable research could
be stored and downloaded. The highest approval rating for this idea came fromthe humanities scholars and social scientists and the natural scientists. In third
place, and proposed mainly by humanities scholars and social scientists and life
scientists, was a recommendation to promote the discussion of open access inuniversities and research institutes; natural and engineering scientists were lessenthusiastic about this statement.

52

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: COST ASPECTS

5 Scientific publishing: cost aspects
The subscription costs of scientific journals have risen sharply in the last few
years. The literature written about the "journals crisis” also reflects on whether
and how a purely electronic publication can reduce production costs andwhether the business models discussed under the heading of open access canrelieve the procurement budgets of libraries in particular 1. Against the background of these discussions, the researchers in the study were asked to state
whether, and if applicable to what extent, they had already had to contribute to
the costs of publishing their work. They were also asked whether authors would
be prepared to subsidise the publication of their research results out of theirresearch budgets, in order to make these publications available for free to aninterested readership. Finally, they were asked to rate various alternatives forfinancing open access publications.

5.1

Author fees for science publications

Around 43 % of all respondents have had to contribute once or more than once
to the costs of publishing their work in scientific journals. Just over half of the
1,000 respondents (cf. Table 5.01) indicated that they had not so far had to pay
any author fees. However, the differentiation between the individual scientificdisciplines varies considerably.

Personal contributions
to publication costs
currently vary considerably between scientificdisciplines

While only about 9 % of the humanities scholars and social scientists havepreviously had to contribute to the costs of publishing their work, the percentages were much higher in the other disciplines, with 25 % in the engineeringsciences, 50 % in the natural sciences and 80 % in the life sciences.

> Whereas 3 % of the humanities scholars have had to contribute to publication
costs, this applies to 13 % of social and behavioural scientists.
> In the engineering sciences, 30 % of the researchers in the area of heat energy
technology and process engineering were the most likely to have contributed
to publication costs, compared to 11 % in the area of mechanical engineeringand production engineering (11 %).

Table 5.01:
Contributions made to cost of publishing own scientific work in journals(in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Yes

8.8

79.7

50.3

24.7

42.7

No

91.2

20.3

49.7

75.3

57.3

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

226

251

304

219

1.000

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 28
Question 22: Have you ever had to pay money to publish your own work in a journal - either in open access orconventionally?

1. Cf.: Odlyzko, A.: The Economics of Electronic Journals. in: First Monday 1997.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue2_8/odlyzko/index.html

53

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

> In the natural sciences, author fees are quite common. Approximately 64 %of the geoscientists and 57 % of the physicists have had to contribute to publication costs either once or more than once, compared to just 6 % of themathematicians.
> Respondents in the life sciences were most often asked to contribute to their
publication costs: 82 % of the medical biologists and 75 % of the biologists
have had to subsidise the publication of their work. The lowest percentage –although still at 57 % – was in the agricultural and forestry sciences, horticulture and veterinary medicine.
This analysis also revealed that author fees have to be paid almost exclusively for
publications in conventional journals (cf. Table 5.02). Fees for open access publications were paid by less than 2 % of all respondents.
The amount of fees required from authors in the vast majority of cases was in
the range of up to € 500. Certain respondents in the life sciences did howeverstate that they had had to pay author fees as high as € 4,800.
As shown in Table 5.03, the payment of author fees for open access publications
is currently rare. However, the questionnaire also asked whether researchers werebasically willing to contribute to publication costs out of their own researchbudgets, if publishing their work in this way could make it available free ofcharge to an interested public.
Although around 42 % of the respondents supported paying some of the publication costs out of their research budgets, 58 % rejected the idea. Once again
there were significant differences between individual scientific fields, researchareas and disciplines:> Three-quarters of the 216 respondents from the humanities and social sciences
who replied to the question relating to this topic rejected the idea of authors

Table 5.02:
Subsidies made to cost of publishing scientific work in journals(in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

No payment of subsidies

92.8

22.1

52.2

77.5

60.0

Extra payment only for conventional
journals

7.2

75.3

46.0

21.1

38.5

Extra payment only for open accessjournals

0.4

0.7

Extra payment for both conventional andopen access journals

2.2

1.0

1.4

1.2

0.3

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Count (n)

222

231

289

213

955

Basis: 1,028; No response: 73
Question 22: Have you ever had to pay money to publish your work in a journal - either in open access orconventionally?
Question 23: If you have paid to publish your work - either in conventional or open access journals: pleaseindicate how many articles and approximately how much you had to pay.

54

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: COST ASPECTS

contributing to the costs of open access publications. This may be due to thefact that the overwhelming majority of these respondents had not previously
had to subsidise the costs of their publications in any way 1.
> Life scientists show the most willingness to contribute to open access publication costs. Above all respondents from the area of biology responded
positively to this idea with 64 %. As many as 70 % of researchers in basic
biology and medicine agreed.

Less willingness to contribute to publication
costs in the humanities
and social sciences and in
the engineering sciences> Slightly fewer of the natural scientists were willing to contribute to the costsof freely accessible publications. However, the most sceptical were themathematicians, 89 % of whom rejected this type of contribution.
> Finally, 65 % of the engineering scientists surveyed rejected the idea of financing the costs of publishing journal articles from their own research budgets
in order to make them available to interested readers free of charge.
Researchers in the area of mechanical and production engineering expressed
the most reservation to the idea (77 %).
If a comparison is made between the more or less normal practice in the different scientific disciplines of contributing to publication costs and the willingness
to use their own research budgets for open access publication, some parallels
emerge (cf. Table 5.04). In essence, it appears that the less frequently respondents had been asked to pay author fees for publications, the less willing they
were to contribute financially to open access. Despite this synchronicity, a few
differences can be observed in the survey results:> Although so far only 7 % of the humanities scholars and social scientists have
had to contribute financially to the cost of publishing their journal articles,
nearly a quarter were ready to do so if it meant that their work could beaccessed for free over the internet.

Table 5.03:
Author fees paid for conventional publications or for open access publications(arithmetic mean of percentage value)
Humanities
and Social Sciences
Conv.

OA

Life
Sciences
Conv.

NaturalSciences

OA

EngineeringSciences

Total

Conv.

OA

Conv.

OA

Conv.

OA

Up to € 250 per jl. article

81.1

24.0

37.8

20.0

53.3

66.7

35.1

21.4

Between € 251 and € 500

8.3

37.8

16.7

34.0

60.0

30.1

33.3

34.2

35.7

Between € 501 and € 1,000

8.4

24.2

50.0

20.5

20.0

8.6

20.2

28.6

Between €1,001 and € 2,000

2.2

12.3

16.7

7.3

5.9

9.3

7.1

1.7

16.7

0.5

2.1

1.2

7.1

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

16

179

6

136

5

48

3

379

14

More than € 2,000
Total
Count (n)Basis: 393 respondents had paid to publish their own work (filter after Question/Sub-question 22)
No response: 0
Question 23: If you have paid to publish your work - either in conventional or open access journals: please indicate how many articles andapproximately how much you had to pay.

1. Cf. above Table 5.02

55

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

Table 5.04:
Willingness to finance journal articles out of own research budget(in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Not willing

75.0

36.9

58.3

64.7

58.1

Up to € 250 per journal article

22.2

36.9

29.0

28.4

29.3

Between € 251 and € 500 per article

2.3

19.1

9.7

6.5

9.7

Between € 501 and € 1,000 per article

0.5

0.5

2.2

5.0

2.4

Between € 1,001 and € 2,000 per article

1.7

0.3

0.5

More than € 2,000 per article

0.4

0.3

0.2

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

216

241

290

215

962

Total
Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 66
Question 21: Would you as the author be prepared to finance journal articles out of your research budget, if thesewere then made available to an interested public free of charge?

> Life scientists have had to contribute most frequently to financing the publication of their work and also constitute the highest proportion of those
respondents who were willing to use resources from their own research budgets to pay for free access to their journal publications (63 %). However, thewillingness of the life scientists to pay author fees for conventional publications is greater than that of paying to finance articles in open access.
> The situation in the natural sciences is similar, where 48 % of the respondents
have previously contributed to the costs of publishing an article in a conventional publication, but only 42 % of whom are ready to pay to publish articles
in an open access publication.
> Finally, 36 % of the engineering scientists would be prepared to pay author
fees for a publication in open access, although only 23 % of them had alreadypaid author fees for conventional publications.

5.2

Funding models

In section 5.1 it was shown that 42 % of all respondents are prepared to enable
the publication of their work in open access through contributions from theirresearch budgets 1. However, if other sources of funding were available, not surprisingly most respondents would prefer the costs to be transferred to third parties, for example their institutions of employment or funding organisations(cf. Table 5.05).
At over 72 %, the vast majority of respondents argued in favour of the costs ofpublishing in open access journals being taken over by scientific funding organisations. Funding bodies provide open access journals with financial support, sothat researchers can publish in them without incurring additional costs. This

1. Cf. above Table 5.04

56

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: COST ASPECTS

statement received the highest approval rating in all scientific disciplines. The
DFG has already taken this route through the publication grant, the use of which
is discussed in more detail in the next section.

Table 5.05:
Preferred funding models to ensure free access to scientific journal articles(in percent, multiple references allowed)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

Authors pay a fee - out of their research budget

9.0

24.6

15.2

8.3

14.6

Institutions of employment pay membership fees to open access
operators - all employees can then publish there free of charge

39.4

55.7

46.5

36.8

45.0

Scientific funding bodies or similar provide open access journals
with financial support, so that researchers can publish in them
free of charge.

71.5

75.2

75.3

64.9

72.1

Count (n)

227

233

285

209

954

Basis: 1,028; No response: 74
Question 24: Several funding models are currently under discussion in connection with options for making scientific journal articles available to users freeof charge. Which of the following models would you prefer? (Answer category 1= 'strongly approve' to 5 = 'strongly disapprove'; categories 1 and 2
combined).

57

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

6 Publication funding by the DFG
6.1

Revision of the publication grant policy

In 2001 the DFG revised its guidelines for publication funding. Funding for publication of project results can now be applied for directly within the scope of theactual project. This publication grant, which amounts to a maximum of € 750
a year, can be saved over the duration of a long-term project and supplemented
by reallocating funds from other project titles. The project leader can choose theform of publication at will 1.
Approximately 60 % of all respondents were aware of the revised policy.
However, only 43 % of the engineering scientists surveyed (cf. Table 6.01) were
aware of the publication grant, compared to over 60 % in the other scientificdisciplines.
Knowledge of the new guidelines also varies within the individual scientificdisciplines.
Six out of ten
respondents are familiar
with the revised publication grant policy> 68 % of the humanities scholars and 60 % of the social and behaviouralscientists indicated that they knew about the amendment.
> In the life sciences 71 % of the biologists had heard of the new regulations.
Researchers in the area of medicine were the least well informed, at 61 %.
> In the natural sciences, it is mainly representatives in the research areas ofphysics and geosciences, each with 74 %, who had heard of the modified
guidelines, while knowledge was lowest amongst chemists, at 60 %.
> In the engineering sciences, knowledge of the new policy varies considerably
between research areas: 63 % of the materials scientists and 50 % of themechanical and production engineers, but only 39 % of heat energy technology and process engineers and 35 % of electrical engineers, system engineers
and computer scientists had heard of the amendment.

Table 6.01:
Awareness of DFG policy of publication funding of December 2001
(in percent)Yes

Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

Total

63.9

66.0

64.7

43.4

60.2

No

36.1

34.0

35.3

56.2

39.8

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

233

247

303

221

1.004

Count (n)Basis: 1,028; No response: 24
Question 27: Are you aware of this policy?

1. Cf. DFG "Research Grants" form 1.02 -II3 (section 5.1)

58

PUBLICATION FUNDING BY THE DFG

6.2

Application for and use of the publication grantApproximately 97 % of the researchers who had heard that the publication grant
had been introduced provided information about applying for it. According tothis, 46 % of these researchers have already applied for funds to publish theirresearch results within the context of a project.
Although just over half of the humanities scholars and social scientists and life
scientists who knew about the policy had also applied for a publication grant,
only 31 % of the engineering scientists and about 43 % of the natural scientists
had done so.
Figure 6.1 shows the percentage of scientists who had either applied, or not
applied, for a publication grant, and the percentage of publication grants awarded or denied, by individual scientific discipline.
Of those who were awarded a publication grant, approximately three-quarters
opted to save the funds during the duration of the project (cf. Table 6.02). Of
these, 57 % have not yet used the publication funds they received, a further
18 % have saved at least some of the funds, and the remaining 26 % have alreadyspent the funds.
The differences between the scientific disciplines in terms of actual use of the
publication grant are clear. Almost three-quarters of the humanities scholars andsocial scientists, about half of the life and natural scientists, and 40 % of theengineering scientists (cf. Table 6.03) save these funds for use at a later date. The
connection with the forms of publication favoured by each discipline is evident.
Thus 85 % of the humanities scholars and social scientists stated that they had
used or intended to use the publication grant to print monographs; in the otherscientific disciplines this form of publication plays a much smaller role. In comparison, 85 % of the life scientists, 73 % of the natural scientists and 67 % of theengineering scientists use the grant to cover the costs of publishing their workin conventional journals, which play a much less important role in the humanities and social sciences.
Finally, approximately 17 % of the 66 natural scientists who responded said thatthey used the publication grant to publish their research results in open access

Table 6.02:
Use of grants from the publication fund (in percent)
Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Life
Sciences

NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

Already spent

16.9

32.4

27.8

24.0

25.6

Some already spent - some saved

9.9

14.9

22.2

36.0

17.8

Not yet spent

73.2

52.7

50.0

40.0

56.6

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

71

74

72

25

242

Number (n)Basis: 249 respondents have received a grant from the publication fund (filter from Question 28)
No response: 7
Question 29: Have you already spent the grant you received from the publication fund or have you saved themoney?

59

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

journals. Across all scientific disciplines nearly 8 % of the respondents indicatedthat they have used the DFG funds to publish scientific work in open access journals.

Figure 6-1:
Application and approval of a publication grant (in percent)
100%
80%

47.2

48.8

54.1

56.9

68.9

60%
2.8

4.3

50.0

20%

3.3

3.2

40%

2.2
46.9

42.6

39.9

28.9

0%
Humanities andSocial Sciences

Life
Sciences

Engineering
Sciences

NaturalSciences

AllPublication grant was approved
Publication grant was not approved
No publication grant applied forBasis: 604 (filter from Question 27)
No response: 20
Question 27: Have you applied for a publication grant since 2001?

Table 6.03:
How publication funds from the DFG were used(in percent, multiple references allowed)
Life
Sciences

Printing costs for publishing in monograph(s) /edited volume(s)

85.3

10.3

12.1

19.0

34.5

Publication costs in conventional commercial
journals

16.2

85.3

72.7

66.7

58.7

Costs for technical work for publishing inconventional journals

13.2

29.4

30.3

23.8

24.2

Publication costs in open access journals

1.5

5.9

16.7

4.8

7.6

Other purposes

2.9

2.9

1.5

14.3

3.6

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

68

68

66

21

223

Total

Count(n)Natural Engineering
Sciences Sciences

Total

Humanities
and Social
Sciences

Basis: 249 respondents had received a grant from the publication fund (filter from Question 28)
No response: 26
Question 30: For what purpose have you used the grant or, if you have not yet spent the money or have saved
some of it, what do you intend to use it for?

60

FUNDING OF OPEN ACCESS BY THE DFG

7 Funding of open access by the DFG
Although the number of actual open access publications across all scientific disciplines is still very low (cf. Figure 4.2), almost two-thirds of all respondents werein favour of the DFG giving greater financial support to open access publications(cf. Figure 7-1). Young researchers in the life, natural and engineering sciences
are more in favour of funding open access than their established colleagues,
while in the humanities the situation is precisely the reverse 1. Obviously, this situation is influenced by the fact that in the humanities and social sciences there
are as yet only very few open access journals of renown through which young
researchers can be sure of boosting their visibility and thereby their career opportunities. On the other hand, the importance of the habilitation or the "secondbook” may arguably explain those reservations towards the open access concept.
Open access is mainly discussed in the context of journal publications and islikely to be championed by researchers in the fields in which the "journals culture" is the dominant communication channel.
Finally, it should be noted that researchers who use open access journals more
frequently are also more strongly in favour of open access publications being
promoted by the DFG. In the group of researchers who use open access journals
frequently, the approval rate is 80 %, and amongst those who use them rarely,
69 %. However, approval for greater support of open access publication by the
DFG is still 58 %, even in the group of those who do not know of any open
access journals (cf. Figure 7-2).

Figure 7-1:
Approval for greater promotion of publications in open access by the DFG(in percent)
100%

80%

34.4

30.0

35.5

44.3

35.8

60%
No
Yes

40%
65.6

70.0

Humanities andSocial Sciences

Life
Sciences

64.5

55.7

64.2

20%

0%
NaturalSciences

Engineering
Sciences

All

Basis: 1.028; No response: 56
Question 31: In your view, should the DFG promote open access publications more strongly?

1. Cf. Table series: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005). Publikationsstrategien im Wandel . Tabellenband:
http://www.dfg.de/zahlen_und_fakten/ evaluations by scientific discipline and status, in particular Table 25

61

PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

In this context the previous assessments on an overall trend to support open
access should be noted 1. Approximately 75 % of the respondents were in favourof supporting open access journals in such a way as to enable them to competewith conventional scientific journals. These results reveal a great willingness to
support open access publications that is largely irrespective of the amount ofexperience they have with it.
From the statements about the criteria the researchers and academics applied
when choosing a suitable publication for their own work, further details emerge
about organisational and technical aspects that should be taken into account in
the promotion of open access publications:> One of the main aspects determining the choice of certain journals as a placeof publication for one’s own work is the long-term availability of the periodicals in question. This criterion was considered important or very important byover 60 % of all respondents, even in the sometimes "fast-moving” life andnatural sciences. This requirement of being able to find and quote from publications over the long term therefore merits special attention in the case ofelectronic publications.
> The shortest possible interval between the submission and publication ofmanuscripts was considered important by almost 60 % of the respondents.
How far this interval could be reduced in the case of online publications
through the elimination of technical aspects, such as prepress and printing
and a basically open print run for individual issues of a journal, remains to beseen, but might be perceived as an advantage. Also, this should not ignore thecriterion that has significantly higher priority, that of a thorough peer review
process, which is often the reason for lengthy delays in publication.

Figure 7-2:
Approval for greater promotion of publications in open accessby the DFG by existing frequency of use of open access journals(in percent)
100%
20.0
30.2

30.6

80%

42.1

60%
No
Yes
40%

80.0
69.8

69.4
57.9
20%

0%
Often

RarelyNever

Basis: 360 respondents know of open access journals in their research area
(Question 11) and have indicated how often they use these journals

1. Cf. above Table 3.03

62

All

FUNDING OF OPEN ACCESS BY THE DFG> A third aspect lies in the area of publication costs. At least 23 % of the respondents considered this criterion to be important or very important in theirdeliberations when choosing a suitable publisher. The statements reported
above about alternative means of financing open access publications substantiate the importance of this criterion 1.
Respondents were then asked to record any suggestions or comments about
the promotion of open access by the DFG. Altogether 165 respondents responded to this issue. The most frequent comments related to the issue of costs or
expanded on aspects covered in the standard part of the questionnaire: The DFG
should introduce appropriate measures to combat the low level of awareness andimpact factor of open access publications and press for rigorous peer reviewing
in open access archives. A considerable number of comments included the suggestion to set up subject-specific open access archives and make them available
via centralised institutions, for example from the DFG website. However, there
were only few practical suggestions about where such archives could be hosted.
Although formats tend to vary according to approach, many respondents suggested driving forward the standardisation of text and other formats ("specification of a standard format for contributions, possibly including format details”)
in order to facilitate publication in open access. These formats should be centrally available. Additional recommendations that were addressed directly to the
DFG are given below, in no particular order:> The DFG, together with experts from the different subject communities,
should pursue this issue and intervene more actively in the scientific community. At the same time, the German Rectors’ Conference should beapproached in order to actively include the universities in the discussion.
> The DFG should provide facilities for open access publication for the different
research and funding areas in the form of a research archive.
> The DFG should draw up a "positive list” of suitable open access journals. This
list should only include journals that use the highest peer review standards.
The publication costs of any author whose manuscript is accepted for publication there should be borne by the DFG. At the same time, open access journals must be continually evaluated for maintenance of quality standards andtheir respective publication costs.
> The DFG should endeavour to persuade as many publishing houses as
possible to allow authors to place their publications on the internet, as a
general rule, not just in individual cases. A list describing the legal position ofdifferent journals would be helpful 2.
> The DFG should make it a condition of all funding programmes that publications produced within the framework of a DFG-funded project must be
made available for free via open access servers. The DFG should (possibly incooperation with other research organisations) provide open access servers
and guarantee the permanence of these servers and thus the long-term
availability of the publications placed there.

1. Cf. above Table 5.05
2. A list of publishers’ terms and conditions and methods of secondary publication can be found at
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

63PUBLISHING STRATEGIES IN TRANSFORMATION?

> The DFG could lead the way, for example with a publication of its own (on an
open access basis), with its international partners, such as the US National
Science Foundation, the European Science Foundation, etc.
> The DFG receives a final report for each project, which is already largely in theformat of a publication and is also reviewed by the DFG. It would be useful tomake these reports or parts of them available online to the public for free(e. g. via GEPRIS). This would have the advantage that negative research
results would also be published, something that the existing publication
system cannot adequately afford.
> In connection with the secondary publication of their own work on the internet, it would be useful for researchers if public funding bodies would guarantee them legal support. This could be in the form of a paragraph in the award
letter expressly forbidding that the copyright in a publication be exclusivelytransferred to a publishing house. So far it is practically impossible for individual researchers to persuade publishing houses to limit their usage rights
and thereby provide legal protection for internet distribution of their publications.
> Contracts for publications resulting from projects funded by the DFG should
allow publication both in conventional media and in open access; here it
would have to be ensured that publishers were in agreement with this.

64

REFERENCES

8. References
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences andHumanities.
[Online: http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccessberlin/BerlinDeclaration_dt.pdf.] (downloaded July 2005)
Budapest Open Access Initiative.
[Online: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml.] (downloaded July
2005)
Charles W. Bailey, Jr.: Open Access Bibliography. Liberating Scholarly Literature
with E-Prints and Open Access Journals. Association of Research Libraries:
Washington D.C. [Online: http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/oab.pdf.] (downloaded
July 2005)
Enders, J. & Mugabushaka, A.M. (2004). Wissenschaft und Karriere.
Erfahrungen und Werdegänge ehemaliger Stipendiaten der DFG. Publishedby the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: Bonn [Online:
http://www.dfg.de/zahlen und fakten/] (downloaded 2005)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2004). Jahresbericht. 2004. Aufgaben und
Ergebnisse. [DFG: Bonn] [Online: http://www.dfg.de/jahresbericht] (downloaded July 2005)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2004). Verwendungsrichtlinien fürSachbeihilfe - Publikationsbeihilfe[Online: http://www.dfg.de/forschungsfoerderung/formulare/] (downloaded
July 2005)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005).Publikationsstrategien im Wandel.?
Tabellenband. [Online: http://www.dfg.de/zahlen und fakten/] (downloaded
2005)
Harnad, S. (2004). The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads
to Open Access. [Special Issue]. Serials Review Vol 30(4): Open Access
Hitchcock, S. M. (2002). Perspectives in Electronic Publishing: Experimentswith a New Electronic Journal Model. Doctorate Thesis, January 2002,[Online: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/Jnls-research/thesis/thesistext.pdf.] (downloaded July 2005)
Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (2002). Zur Neuausrichtung des Informationsund Publikationssystems der deutschen Hochschulen. HRK: Bonn. [Online:
http://www.hrk.de/de/beschluesse/109_247.php.] (downloaded in July 2005)
Keller, A. (2003). Electronic journals: Developments in the different branchesof science. Zeitenblicke 2003 (02). [Online: http://www.zeitenblicke.historicum.net/2003/02keller.htm] (downloaded July 2005)
Swan, A. & Brown, S. (2004). Journal Authors Survey 2004. Joint Information
Systems Committee/OSI: London
Wellcome Trust (2003). Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing.
Wellcome Trust: London

65

DFG

ISBN-13:978-3-527-31535-2
978-3-527-31708-0
ISBNISBN-10: 3-527-31708-2