Section outline

  • Overview

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  • Rights and licences

    In order to publish an Open Access publication, all parties must take into account the legal situation.

    • Fact sheet "Copyright at higher education institutions" URL

    • Creative Commons

      Creative commons is the most widespread licence form when it comes to making content freely available. The great advantage of creative commons (cc) is that the licence form can be combined from four elements and thus it is up to the user to determine what is allowed and what is not allowed with one's own publication. The CC-BY licence is recommended (among others by the SNSF). Further information can be found in the links below.

      Publishing publications with a CC licence

      Have you clarified the copyrights of all components of the work? Are all third-party contributions marked as such and correctly cited? Do all authors agree with the chosen licence?
      These questions need to be clarified before you can publish with a creative commons licence.

      Using railway tracks to decide which creative commons licence is suitable.

      Links

    • Use of the work

      Personal copyrights protect intellectual property. They are indispensable and non-transferable. The rights to use a work can be transferred to third parties, but this must be regulated by contract. There are two types of transfer of use:

      • Exclusive right to use a work = third parties (e.g. publishers) are granted the exclusive right to use the work. The authors waive their own rights of use.
      • Authorisation to use a work = permits the use of a work subject to temporal and spatial restrictions.

      Publishers often claim the exclusive right to use the work. In doing so, authors are not allowed to pass on their own articles or books or share them with their scientific community. With an additional clause in the publishing contract authors can retain part of their own rights, for example in order to comply with Open Access requirements.

      Support
      • Contract-Addendum of SPARC
      • Info page on OA legal issues
      • Papago
        The Papago tool was developed by the Universities of Fribourg and Lausanne and helps members of Swiss universities find out more about their rights and obligations in regard to OA publications. 
      • Open Access Check Tool (OACT)
        Made by the EPFL, the tool supports the Swiss academic community in deciding where and how to publish their articles.

    • Rights and duties of UAS members

      Article 18 of the employment regulations of the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden states that employees grant the university the rights to use their products. This provision refers to all

      • Compulsory works (example: teaching slides created as part of the teaching activity)
      • Occasional works (arise within the framework of employment)
      • Voluntary works (arise in connection with employment)

      This does not apply to recreational works that have no relation to the work. If you want to publish your work, you must obtain permission from the university.

      Responsibilities for the recovery of rights of use
      • Prorectorate for Teaching / Theses
      • Administrative Rectorate for Central Services Works
      • Research management for scientific staff

      The final decision-making authority lies with the university management.

    • Legal advice

      Are you unsure whether you are allowed to second-publish one of your publications? Would you like to (partially) retain your Author's rights for your next publication? Or would you like to publish Open Access? The Competence Center of digital Law (CCdigitallaw) offers an extensive knowledge base and maintains the DMLawTool, which offers possible solutions to legal problems. Students and members of Swiss universities receive advice free of charge for small and simple cases.

      If you have any questions, please contact the library.

  • Read & Publish Agreements

    swissuniversities and the consortium of Swiss university libraries negotiate so-called read-and-publish agreements with academic publishers. These agreements not only secure access to the licensed journals, but also include the option to publish under Open Access conditions.

    • Here is an overview of the agreements that have been realised:

    • Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

      The Swiss National Sicence Foundation SNSF uses its grants to support scientific publications that are directly accessible without restriction and free of charge (Gold Open Access). Any costs incurred in the form of publication fees or processing charges can be applied for via the SNSF's Open Access platform (mySNF). Hybrid Open Access is excluded from financial support.

      NEW: Publication fees are now processed via the ChronosHub platform. The User Guide explains how the workflow works.

    • Journal Checker Tool URL

      Which publishing options are supported by your funder’s OA policy?

  • Quality control and predatory publishing

    The argument that open access journals and books are not of the same quality as conventionally published works is one that comes up again and again. In reality, the opposite is usually the case. Since the entire scientific community has access to the publications, the journals and publishers rely on a good reputation and therefore often work more transparently than traditional institutions. However, especially with new journals or publishers that are not established, there is often uncertainty about their quality. Predatory publishing refers to journals and publishers that publish articles without quality control in exchange for higher sums of money.

    • Quality control

      Before submitting an article to a journal you are not familiar with, check the quality and scientific work of the editorial board with the following steps. If you are unsure, feel free to contact the library.

      Links

    • Predatory publishing

      So-called "predatory publishers" pretend to publish high-quality scientific publications for a (usually high) publication fee. Despite the fees paid, the articles are published without editorial revision or peer review process. Often all submissions are published, according to the "pay and get published" method.

      How can such a magazine be recognised? Basically, the same checklist as above applies, with some additions:

      • Duration of the announced peer review process
      • Control of the Editorial Board
        • Do the members exist?
        • If so, do these members mention their involvement with the journal in their CV or on their website?
      • Is the journal indexed in Web of Science, Scopus or DOAJ? (Attention: newly founded journals may still be in the evaluation process, which can take several months).
      • Impact Factor on the Web of Science database

      The criteria mentioned are often only meaningful together. In the link collection you will find helpful pages that will assist you in checking journals.

    • Link collection Page
    • Coffee Lecture about Predatory Publishers (by EPFL) URL

  • Publication database

    • Note

      The publication database is out of order due to technical problems and therefor cannot be updated. A new solution, a repository, is being implemented an will be online by the end of 2024.

      Please contact the library team if you have questions or publications to report.

    • Link to the website URL

    • The UAS Grisons publication database is maintained by the library with the help of the literature management programme Citavi. Via a Citavi-TYPO3 interface, the contents of the database are published as publication lists on the UAS Grisons website and are constantly updated. The aim is to keep track of all publications and presentations by UASG staff as well as the theses of the various degree programmes. Whenever possible and permitted, the publications recorded in the publication database are enriched with an abstract and a link to the online document.