General

University of Basel authors receive discounts on publication fees from the following publishers or the publication costs are covered in full by agreements with the publishers.  Before submitting a manuscript, please find out about the financing of publication fees for your journals. If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@clutterunibas.ch.

The affiliation with the University of Basel is usually recognised by the @unibas email address, via the IP range of the university, or the University of Basel must be selected during the submission process.

Explanation of the Article Quota Status column

For some publishers, the number of articles supported is limited. Once the quota has been exhausted, funding must be organised independently, or the green open access route (at https://universe-intern.unibas.ch/) should be followed instead of the publisher’s open access option. For most publishers, the acceptance date is the authoritative date for verification.

• unlimited: there is no limit to the number of articles that can be published open access by University of Basel authors.
• open: the number of articles that can be published open access by University of Basel authors is limited. As soon as the quota is reached, "closed" will be displayed here. If possible, a time estimate (in brackets) will be made as to when the article quota will be sufficient.
• closed: the limited article quota has been reached. As a rule, a new quota will be available the following year.

Those who wish to publish their paper in an academic Open Access journal often pay publication fees, so-called Article Processing Charges, to cover the costs of editorial processes, marketing and quality control. With the emergence of Open Access publication models, dubious journals are also entering the publication market. So-called "predatory journals" demand publication fees for editorial services that are not provided or are provided with low quality. These unethical business practices not only damage the academic publication landscape and Open Access, but are also not without consequences for the reputation of the authors.

When looking for a suitable journal in which to publish, it is worth paying more attention, particularly when journals are not known and the following aspects are noticed:

Correspondence

• Request for submission by email when contact details are unclear and a submission system is missing
• Email exchanges with generalised salutation and automatically-generated emails

Journal

• Title begins with International, Global, World, American, European, Advanced Journal of… and/or is very similar to a well-known journal
• The website and articles contain advertisements and are poorly laid out
• Misleading or non-existent reference numbers: ISSN (link ISSN: portal.issn.org) is not entered, own impact factor, founding date and number of issues are unknown
• No archiving of previously-published issues
• The editorial board is not related to the subject, is not listed or its members cannot be found or can be found with different affiliations

Publishing

• A quick publication process could indicate deficient quality control and a lack of peer review procedures
• Missing licences and user agreements
• Non-transparent publication costs

If in doubt, it should be checked if the journal

• is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• is referenced in relevant specialist databases
• publisher is a member of the "Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association" (OASPA) or the "Committee on Publication Ethics" (COPE)
• has had a complaint made against it in Cabells Predatory Reports (only within the computer network of the University of Basel)

If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@unibas.ch

What to do, if a full-text article is not accessible?

The University Library Basel recommends the following steps to researchers and students: a search for the full-text article using academic search engines, a search using browser extensions for Open Access, requesting information from researchers. You can find further information here.

If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@clutterunibas.ch