Promoting open access in Germany as illustrated by a recent project at the Library of the University of Konstanz


Promoting open access 
in Germany as illustrated 

by a recent project at the Library
of the University of Konstanz 

Abstract 

Anja Kersting and Karlheinz Pappenberger 
Library of the University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany 

Purpose - With the illush'ation of a best practice example for an implementation of open access in a 
scientific institution, the paper will be useful in fostering future open access projects. 
Design/methodology/approach The paper starts with a brief overview of the existing situation 
of open access in Gelmany. The following report describes the results of a best practice example, 
added by the analysis of a survey on the position about open access by the scientists at the University 
of Konstanz. 
Findings - The dissemination of the advantages of open access publishing is fundamental for the 
success of implementing open access in a scientific institution. For the University of Konstanz, it is shown 
that elementmy factors of success are an intensive cooperation with the head of the university and a 
vigorous approach to inform scholars about open access. Also, some more conditions are essential to 
present a persuasive service: The Librm'y of the University of KonstrulZ offers an institutional repository 
as an open access publication platform and hosts open journal systems for open access journals. High-level 
support and consultation for open access publishing at all adminish'ative levels is provided. 
The integration of the local activities into national and international initiatives and projects is pursued for 
example by the joint operation of the information platform open-access.net. 
Originality/value - The paper offers insights in one of the most innovative open access projects in 
Germany. The University of Konstanz belongs to the pioneers of the open access movement 
in Gelmany and is cUlTently mnning a successful open access project. 
Keywords Open systems, Publishing, University libraries, Germany 
Paper type Research paper 

Open access in Germany 
Since the Berlin Declaration on open access to Knowledge in the Sciences and 
Humanities (http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berliniberlindec1aration.html) in 2003, open 
access has gained increasing significance within the academic world. Various 
academic institutions, research funding agencies, as well as a growing number of 
universities, have already signed the Berlin Declaration and are actively promoting 
open access publishing. Thus, in the last four years, open access has become a topic of 
high actuality and relevance in Germany, especially regarding publication policies of 
institutions and funding agencies: Scientific organizations und institutions such as 
various universities, scholarly societies, the German Rectors Conference (HRK) and the 
alliance of the research organizations are supporting open access, and have put 

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106 

forward policies regarding open access publishing, its relevance, and the specific 
impact on the scientific communication. Accordingly, the major German funding 
agency, the German Research Foundation (DFG), encourages scientists to publish their 
results originating from the DFG-grants open access. The publications are either to be 
deposited in discipline-related or institutional electronic archives (repositories) 
following conventional publication, or to be published in a recognized peer-reviewed 
open access journal. A growing number of universities support the open access idea, 
and implement institutional repositories to provide the opportunity of free archiving 
and free access to scientific documents. 

Meanwhile, the advantages of worldwide free and unrestricted access to scientific 
information are beyond controversy. For researchers, using open access maximizes 
their research impact, increases their visibility, and raises their reputation. Users can 
access relevant information on the web at any time and place. In addition, the 
worldwide free access to scientific information is essential in enabling enhanced 
information supply in developing countries. 

The need for information on open access 
Even though many scholars already have a general idea of what open access means, 
there are still large information deficits as identified in a DFG survey (Deutsche 
Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2005) in 2005. In this survey, more than a 1,000 scientists 
were asked about open access publications. The survey results show that the major 
problem in implementing open access is the lack of knowledge in the scientific 
community. 

Similar experiences have been made at the University of Konstanz. Some scholars 
had already realized the opportunities of open access publishing many years ago, and 
since the cooperation between the Library of the University of Konstanz and its 
scientists is traditionally very close, an intensive open access discussion began and the 
library's engagement in the open access field gained momentum. While convinced 
scholars mainly saw the publishing advantages of open access, for the library the 
consequences of rising journal subscription costs with decreasingly limited budgets 
led to a consequent pursuit of the open access idea. In 2004, the library began to put out 
information about open access issues on its homepage. Another concrete activity was 
the institutional BioMedCentral membership to support open access publications of 
Konstanz scientists. During that time, the awareness of the importance of open access 
regarding the entire infOlmation supply steadily grew. The library also realized the 
complexity and subject-specific diversity of the open access issue. The knowledge of 
scientists concerning open access varied significantly; informing them all adequately 
turned out to be a challenge. While in 2004, many scientists were not aware of the 
chances, possibilities, and the details of the publishing process in open access, 
discussions at the university showed a basically open and positive attitude towards it, 
once the researchers became better informed and saw the relevance for their specific 
field of interest. 

The objective of the library was to inform scientists as precisely and concentrated 
as possible about the open access topic. With the awareness of the complexity and 
subject-specific diversity, the idea of a nationwide open access information platform 
developed. 



Establishing the information platform on open access 
A lot of widespread information was accessible on the web, but clearly structured 
infol1nation with a general overlook for scientists as well as for librarians and similar 
infrastructure providers was lacking. 

Why should similar infonnation be held and administrated at different places 
coexistently? The directors of the university libraries in Konstanz and Bielefeld 
initiated the founding of a nationwide information platform on open access. Together 107 
with the University of Goettingen and the Free University of Berlin, they asked the 
DFG for support for this project. Fortunately, the support was granted and since 2006 
the platform has been funded by the DFG to support scientists and research 
institutions in the implementation of open access practices. 

Open-access.net is an online information platform on open access issues jointly 
operated by the Universities of Bielefeld, Goettingen, Konstanz and the Free University 
of Berlin, who belong to the pioneers of the open access movement in Germany. The 
platform provides infonnation about the growing scientific and political significance of 
open access issues. Open-access.net is the. first online platform providing information on 
open access in German language. It offers information on publishing strategies, costs, 
and legal aspects, and lists open access journals and other publishing possibilities for 
different research areas. This subject-specific information is of great practical relevance, 
such that the specific information needs in individual research areas can be fulfilled. 
Additionally, it presents convincing arguments for the use of open access not only for 
researchers, but also for research institutions, universities, professional associations, 
libraries and publishing houses. The official start of the platfonn was announced at the 
"German e-Science-Conference" in Baden-Baden in May 2007. 

As of today, the platform is already well accepted and well known among people 
dealing with open access. To guarantee the abundance, quality, and sustainability of 
the content, as well as to reach a high media resonance, a cooperative network was 
established: The platform is supported by the German Rectors' Conference, the 
Volkswagen Foundation and the German Initiative for Networked Information 
(DINI e.V.). At the same time, several research institutions, such as the Helmholtz 
Association, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and the Max Planck Society have added 
information about their own open access policies to the content of the platform and are 
promoting the platform as the main source of information on open access. An academic 
advisory council regularly evaluates the platfonn to meet the needs of the researcher 
community. Two scholarly societies - the German Psychological Association and the 
Gennan Linguistic Association - underline their support with their labels on 
open-access.net; cooperations with other scientific societies are in preparation. In a next 
step, the platform is going to be translated into English and internationalized even 
more. The aim is to establish an internationally recognized powerful and continuous 
information platform on open access. 

The implementation of open access at the University of Konstanz 
For the engagement of the library of the University of Konstanz on open access, the 
information platform was an important starting point. Whenever talking to 
researchers, profound knowledge is a key element for promoting open access. So, the 
platform is both a service for everybody interested in open access in Germany and an 
important foundation of the open access policy at the University of Konstanz. 



108 

Besides the launch and the operation of the platform, the University of Konstanz is 
very active in promoting and implementing open access inside the University. 

In the beginning of open access discussion in Konstanz, the golden road was not 
really the "golden road" for Konstanz. There were only a few pioneers who published 
in the small number of existing open access journals, so the "golden" road for the 
library in Konstanz first beC<lme the green road archiving in the institutional repository 
as described in the next section. 

Meanwhile, the situation has changed to some extent. As the amount on open access 
journals has increased, the number of researchers at the University of Konstanz 
publishing in open access journals has also increased. Recently, when promoting open 
access in Konstanz, many examples of researchers at the university publishing open 
access can be demonstrated. Meanwhile, there are two researchers listed in the 
worldwide top 100 category of BioMed Central authors. 

Besides encouraging authors to publish in open access journals, the library also 
supports scientists who want to launch new open access journals. The library hosts "Open 
Journal Systems," a software for open access journals and also offers counselling and 
technical support. Two open access journals have already launched: "Survey Research 
Methods" (http://w4.ub.uni-konstanz.de/srm) and "ISBS-Conference Proceedings 
Archive" (http://w4.ub.uni-konstanz.de/cpa). Both journals were set up in 2007. 

Establishing the green road in Konstanz: The institutional repository KOPS 
The Library of the University of Konstanz was one of the first libraries in Germany 
which dealt intensively with open access, and also one of the first to establish an 
institutional repository. Since 1999, the "Konstanz Online-Publication-System (KOPS)" 
is offered as a full-text-server on which publications are made freely accessible on the 
internet. Recently, KOPS is well established at the university and contains over 4,000 
documents, mainly secondary publications of peer-reviewed documents. At the 
moment, around 300 new articles are put into KOPS each month, and the number of 
cooperating scholars and departments is increasing. In August 2007, KOPS became the 
first German repository with the new "DINI-Zertifikat 2007", a certificate for quality 
standards of repositories assigned by the DINI e.V. 

In the beginning of the activities to promote open access and fill the institutional 
repository, the director of the library visited several university departments and 
explained the problems resulting from increased journal subscription costs, and 
presented open access as one Way to solve this journal crisis. Besides making the 
scientists aware of the crisis and the opportunities of open access publishing, several 
scientists were convinced to put their already-published papers into the institutional 
repository, and some were also willing to publish in open access journals. These 
activities showed that the biggest problem regarding the implementation of open 
access is the lack of knowledge about it. Another problem that occurred in this context 
was the amount of work it takes to put all of a scientist's publications in KOPS.1t only 
takes about five minutes to put one publication into the repository, but even though 
this is acceptable for the current publications, no chair or department is really willing 
to invest a huge amount of time in putting hundreds of old publications into 
a repository. The idea was to offer a "no-worries-service" from the library. Chances to 
realize this service with the libraries' resources at that time were low. Fortunately, 
a grant submitted to the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts regarding personnel 



resources for the expansion of the institutional repository was successful, so two new 
staff members were appointed. One position was created to meet and inform scientists 
and departments about open access and the institutional repository and to offer a range 
of different types of events depending upon the demand, the second position ... 

Filling the repository 
With this pilot project supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts it was 109 
possible to establish an intense information and publication service, so a rapid increase of 
documents in the institutional repository was reached. In a first step, the open access team 
informs the scientists about open access in especially ananged meetings. The attempt is to 
talk to those scientists first who are already interested in the topic. For example, a request 
about a copyright question on self-archiving in the physics department initiated a meeting 
with several researchers, and resulted in a fruitful discussion about open access and the 
willingness of all attending researchers to put their publications into the repository. 

The second step is to offer a full service: the researchers just give their approval and 
a CD with their publications and all other work is done by the library. Three 
well-trained students register the PDF's in KOPS, where they stay in a temporary area 
until one of the two librarians working on KOPS do the further steps. This way, easy 
work like registering the documents in KOPS or scanning older documents is done by 
students, but everything is checked and catalogued by librarians to ensure the quality 
standards. The project showed that it is quite easy to convince researchers to put their 
publications in KOPS, when the expense for them is very low. Some of the researchers 
from the physics department, for example, had more than 200 publications, and even 
though they were willing to put them in KOPS without the offered service of the 
library, it would probably have taken years to publish all their documents in KOPS. In 
a third step, the library tries to establish sustainable structures in the departments for 
future publications. New publications are registered in KOPS by the researchers or 
their staff. To foster this practice, the library regularly gives courses on the registration 
of documents in KOPS, which are especially meant for staff like secretaries or student 
staff who are assigned to do these registrations. The open access team also offers 
single insh'uctions, and can always be contacted when problems occur or help is 
needed. Many secretaries were thankful to personally know a contact person they 
could call in case help was needed. Since legal questions seem to be an obstacle to the 
scientists, the library also offers to check the legal requirements. 

The percentage of scientists which can be convinced to register their publications in 
KOPS is approximately 90 per cent after personal dialogues and 50 per cent resulting 
from group meetings. These are only the rates of scientists who provided their articles 
after the meetings without any further enquiries of the library. 

The first results of these efforts already show in the increased numbers of 
documents in KOPS. When the project started in November 2006, KOPS contained 
about 1,700 documents registered there in almost eight years. By December 2007, there 
are more than 4,000 documents in KOPS, and there are still a lot of documents already 
given to the library which are waiting to be registered (Figure 1). 

It was possible not only to increase the quantity of documents but also the quality. 
Until 2006, dissertations and bachelor/master thesis were about 67.2 per cent of the 
KOPS content. By 2007, 82.2 per cent of the newly registered documents were 
secondary publications of peer-reviewed papers (Kersting, 2007). 



110 

Figure 1. 
Number of documents in 
the institutional repository 

Number of documents (cumulated) 
4,000 

~ J 
3,000 

1,) 2,500 

~ 2,000 
;Z; 1,500 

1,000 

500 ~ ~ 
o 
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 

Year 

Until the end of the project in mid-2009, the intention is to organize meetings in all 
departments of the university, to intensively inform them about open access, the 
institutional repository, and the offered services. It is also intended to register at least 
all of the more recent publications of all scientists of the University of Konstanz in the 
repository by then. 

High potential in open access acceptance among the researchers in 
Konstanz - the Konstanz Survey on supply of information 2007 
In 2007, the library of the University of Konstanz conducted a survey including all 
university researchers (professors, postdocs and PhD-students), and inquired about 
their actual and estimated behaviour using literature and information. The response rate 
was 34.3 per cent or 501 researchers. Interestingly, the data revealed that there is a broad 
basic knowledge about open access in the different departments. About 60.9 per cent of 
the researchers stated that they use open access journals for information supply in their 
research areas. It was not surprising that this percentage was higher in the natural 
sciences (up to 75.4 per cent) than in the arts (50.0-56.8 per cent) and the social sciences 
(50.0·55.2 per cent). Overall, in all but one department more than half of the researchers 
reported reading open access publications. In the law department, only 30.3 per cent 
stated this; however, it is important to consider that there are not any well-known 
German language law open access journals (Hatscher et al., 2007) (Figure 2). 

Still more convincing is the result that 69.4 per cent of all researchers use literature 
archived in repositories, and that there are no pronounced differences between the 
departments. Among the frequent users of repositories, the authors found the most use 
by the departments of history (77.3 per cent), sociology (76.5 per cent), and linguistics 
(76.0 per cent). 

While there is a broad acceptance in using open access journals and repositories for 
their own research purposes, open access seems to be lacking behind in researchers' 
willingness to publish their own empirical results: only 12.4 per cent of all researchers 
at the University of Konstanz had already published in open access journals and only 
17.5 per cent in the institutional repository KOPS. Here, one can see considerable 
differences among the departments. In psychology, more than a quarter of the 
researchers have already published in open access, whereas in economics or linguistics 
no one is aware of someone who has already published in open access. The same result 



0.0% 
Physics 

Sports 
Psychology 

Biology 
Computer and Infonnation Science 

Literature Science, Art and Media Studies 
. Chemistry 

Mathematics and Statistics 
Linguistics 

Politics and Management 
HistolY 

Sociology 
Economics 
Philosophy 

Law 
All 

Source: Hatscher et al. (2007, p. 37) 

20.0% 40.0% 

30.3% 

60.0% 80.0% 
75 % 

71.4% 
71.4% 
71.3% 

64.0% 
5( 8% 
564% 
563% 

55. % 
55. % 

54.5Vo 
52.90 

50.0% 
50.0% 

60.9% 

100.0% 

can be found for publications in KOPS. In literature and philosophy, for example, less 
than 5 per cent of the researchers had previously published in KOPS (Figure 3). 

The survey results support the notion, however, that the research community in 
Konstanz is interested in acquiring a better knowledge about the open access 
publishing possibilities: more than a third (34.l per cent) of all researchers expressed 
the need for specific assistance in archiving documents in KOPS and founding open 
access journals or similar publication forms. Nearly, half of all researchers are 
interested both in general information on open access and in functional training on the 
archiving documents in KOPS (Figure 4). 

It is interesting that the demand for information on open access is higher the lower 
the usage of open access journals as reader or author, but that there is also an overall 
high level demand for information on open access (48.1 per cent of all researchers) 
(Figure 5). 

What can be gleaned from these results? Open access is highly used and widely 
accepted by researchers, when it comes to retrieving information for scientific purposes. 
What lacks at the moment is the active contribution to open access by the individual 
researchers themselves. Experience shows that this might be due to a lack of information 
about open access publishing possibilities and its advantages, about the existence and 

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 

Psychology 26.2% 
Computer and Information Science 20.0% 

Mathematics and Statistics 18.8% 
Literature Science, Art and Media Studies 18.6% 

Biology 161% 
Sociology 1 1.8% 

Physics ..r---IO.8% 
Politics and Management 10.3% 

Chemistry 10.3% 
Philosophy 8.3% 

Law 5.9% 
History 4.5% 

Economics 0.0% 
Linguistics 0.0% 

Sports 0.0% 
Alll;;;;;~12~.4~o/.~0 ________ ~ ________ ~ ________ ~ 

Source: Hiitscher et al. (2007, p. 38) 

111 

Figw'e 2. 
Percentage of researchers 

who already use open 
access jomnals, 

differenced by department 

Figw'e 3. 
Percentage of researchers 

who already have 
published in open access 
journals, differenced by 

department 

 



112 

Figure 4. 
Percentage of desired 
support in the area of open 
access by researchers 

Figure 5. 
Percentage of demand for 
information on open 
access differenced by 
department 

the handling of the institutional repository KOPS, or due to the researchers' 
unwillingness to put in additional effort after having published the original paper. 
By providing specifically relevant information to the researchers and offering additional 
services, the authors have been able to significantly increase the amount of researchers 
contributing their publications to KOPS. 

The library efforts have been greatly supported by the head of the university, for 
example, with a letter to all scientists asking to put all publications into the 
institutional repository. 

Demonstrating the impact of open access: the first open access days in 
Konstanz . 
On the 6 and 7 of December 2007, the Library ofthe University of Konstanz organized 
the 1. Open Access Days in Konstanz in cooperation with the open access information 
platfonn. The objective of the event was to inform local scientists as well as other 
individuals responsible for open access at other universities and institutions about 
open access and related topics. The talks dealt with open access journals, repositories, 
and legal aspects. An important issue was how to implement open access in 
institutions and how to fill the repositories. The University of Konstanz is very 

0.0% 

General information on open access 

General infonnation on the archiving 
documents in KOPS 

Functional training on the archiving 
documents in KOPS 

Specific assistance in founding 
open access journals 

Specific assistance in archiving 
documents in KO PS Illi 

Source: Hatscher et al. (2007, p. 46) 

20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0% 

48.4% 

44.9% 

39.8% 

34.1 Yo 

34.1 0 

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0% 
Sports 85.7% 

Sociology 68.8% 
Literature Science, Art and Media 59.1 % 

Psychology 5 .4% 
Biology 54 7% 

Linguistics 53. % 
Politics and Mangement 51.9 0 

History 42.9% 
Law 42.4% 

Philosophy 41. 7% 
Chemistry 41.7% 

Computer and Information Science 41.7% 
Economics 3n.0% 

Physics 34 ~% 
Mathematics and Statistics 31.30 0 

All ~.I% 
Source: Hatscher et al. (2007, p. 47) 



fortunate that the head of the university supports open access eagerly, which was also 
shown in a speech by the head of the university Prof. Brigitte Rockstroh. 

Another very important issue discussed at the open access days was the launch of a 
network of open access representatives. The information platform open-access.net 
plans to establish this network on two levels. The first level will be the working level, 
the second the political. 

On the working level, it is important to connect people dealing with practical 113 
questions of open access. The objective of this network will be to improve 
communication, share experiences, and initiate events for scientists as well as meetings 
and training courses of the representatives. On the political level, the platform plans to 
create a network which works on the more strategic level and meets once or twice a 
year in a "Conference of Open Access Delegates." Members of this conference would be 
institutionally assigned delegates like scientists, directors of universities, libraries, or 
other institutions. This conference will work out strategies, make recommendations 
and decisions, in short give open access a stronger voice. 

The open access days showed very cl~rly that the way open access is promoted 
and supported in Konstanz seems to work out very well, and that the example of 
Konstanz really is a best practice example. 

Conclusion 
The original aim at the University of Konstanz was to foster the golden road of open 
access at the university. The experience of several years showed that achieving this 
aim straightforwardly was not easy. Although there was articulated interest among 
several researchers to publish open access, most researchers remained reluctant. 
With the establishment of the open access platform, it was possible to provide the 
researchers with substantial and subject-specific information on open access, and with 
the institutional repository KOPS, the university was able to implement a simple and 
easy solution for open access. The green way of open access helped to bring the golden 
road of open access nearer to all members of the university. 

References 
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005), Publikationsstrategien im Wandel?, Wiley, Weinheim. 
Hatscher, P., Kersting, A. and Kohl-Frey, O. (2007), "Perspektiven der Literatur- und 

Informationsversorgung. Ergebnisse del' Befragung der Wissenschaftlerinnen und 
Wissenschaftler der Universitat Konstanz 2007", available at: www.ub.uni-konstanz.del 
kops/volltextel2007/3961/ 

Kersting, A. (2007), "Karlheinz Pappenberger: Open Access - Was ist Open Access und wie 
wird es an del' Universitat Konstanz umgesetzt?", available at: www.ub.uni-konstanz.del 
fileadmin/Dateien/OpenAccess/PappenbergecKersting_oa_tage_konstanz07.pdf, slide 15. 

Corresponding author 
Anja Kersting can be contacted at: anja.kersting@uni-konstanz.de 


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	Text1: First publ. in: OCLC Systems & Services 25 (2009), 2, pp. 105-113
	Text2: Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS)
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-87603
URL: http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2009/8760