Open access uptake in Germany 2010–2018

Adoption in a diverse research landscape

Bibliographic Data

ID21442935
AuthorsAnne Hobert (0000-0003-2429-2995, Niedersächsische Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, corresponding author), Najko Jahn (0000-0001-5105-1463, Niedersächsische Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen), Philipp Mayr (0000-0002-6656-1658, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences), Birgit Schmidt (0000-0001-8036-5859, Niedersächsische Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen), Niels Taubert (0000-0002-2357-2648, Bielefeld University)
Year2021
Volume126
Issue12
Pages9751-9777
Publication date2021-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScientometrics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0138-9130 • E-ISSN: 1588-2861
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11192-021-04002-0
OpenAlexW3164869913
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited48

This study investigates the development of open access (OA) to journal articles from authors affiliated with German universities and non-university research institutions in the period 2010–2018. Beyond determining the overall share of openly available articles, a systematic classification of distinct categories of OA publishing allowed us to identify different patterns of adoption of OA. Taking into account the particularities of the German research landscape, variations in terms of productivity, OA uptake and approaches to OA are examined at the meso-level and possible explanations are discussed. The development of the OA uptake is analysed for the different research sectors in Germany (universities, non-university research institutes of the Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association, and government research agencies). Combining several data sources (incl. Web of Science, Unpaywall, an authority file of standardised German affiliation information, the ISSN-Gold-OA 3.0 list, and OpenDOAR), the study confirms the growth of the OA share mirroring the international trend reported in related studies. We found that 45% of all considered articles during the observed period were openly available at the time of analysis. Our findings show that subject-specific repositories are the most prevalent type of OA. However, the percentages for publication in fully OA journals and OA via institutional repositories show similarly steep increases. Enabling data-driven decision-making regarding the implementation of OA in Germany at the institutional level, the results of this study furthermore can serve as a baseline to assess the impact recent transformative agreements with major publishers will likely have on scholarly communication

Geography · German · Library science · Mirroring · Political science · Public relations · Publishing · Scholarly communication · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Transformative learning · Computer Science · Law · Research Data Management Practices · Scientific Computing and Data Management · scientometrics and bibliometrics research

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access