DEAL-contracts with publishers: what´s new for researchers?

Abstract

The German Rectors' Conference was commissioned by the Alliance of German Science Organisations to initiate the DEAL project in order to conclude nationwide licence agreements for the entire portfolio of electronic journals (e-journals) of major science publishers. DEAL negotiates on behalf of almost all German academic institutions such as universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutions, state and regional libraries. The aims of project DEAL are: A) The DEAL institutions have permanent full-text access to the entire title portfolio (e-journals) of the selected publishers. B) All publications by authors from German institutions are automatically made open access (CC-BY, incl. peer review). C) Appropriate pricing according to a simple, future-oriented calculation model based on the volume of publications. The second contract of project DEAL, the contract with the publisher Springer Nature, was signed on 8 January 2020. This contract differs only in a few details from the contract with the publisher Wiley, which was signed on 15 January 2019. The administrative/technical implementation with Wiley has been completed so that authors can publish Open Access under DEAL conditions. The implementation with Springer Nature will be realised within the coming months. The poster summarises the major changes for authors when publishing in Springer Nature and in Wiley journals, provides guidance on how to use the Wiley web-based "Author Dashboard" and explains how the national DEAL agreements differ from the previous "hybrid" publishing in closed access journals.