In its Mission Statement, the Technische Universität Berlin commits to research and teaching that is based on social, ethical and humanist grounds. It is against this background that research and teaching in the natural, planning and engineering sciences are inextricably linked with the humanities and social sciences. It is particularly important to TU Berlin that research findings are sustainably disseminated, accessible and visible.
In order to achieve this, TU Berlin supports the research political request for Open Access to scholarly knowledge as laid out in the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”.
TU Berlin's Executive Board and Academic Senate strongly recommend that the university's members publish their research results Open Access. In keeping with the Berlin Declaration, the following guidelines have been adopted:
TU Berlin encourages all university members to transfer non-exclusive rights of use when signing a copyright transfer agreement. If this is not possible, it is recommended to reserve the right to self-archive the publication in the TU Berlin repository.
The 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities is one of the foundation stones of the international Open Access movement. It calls for Open Access to scholarly information. This includes written publications as well as research data, images and multimedia objects. TU Berlin signed the declaration in August 2016.
CC BY is an open license distributed by the non-profit organization Creative Commons. The license permits every person to copy, distribute and adapt a work, provided that the creator is appropriately credited and that modifications are indicated. With this license, works can be published Open Access in line with the principles of the Berlin Declaration.
Closed Access means that a work can only be accessed on payment of a fee. In academia these fees have traditionally been paid by libraries, for example by signing license agreements. Closed Access means that all rights of use are transferred to the publisher. Not even authors can re-use their works without obtaining the publisher’s permission. Self-archiving options are thus limited.
Creative Commons licenses (CC licenses) are open licenses developed by the non-profit organization Creative Commons. There are six CC licenses available, providing authors with various options depending on the extent to which they want to give the general public the right to make use of their work. All CC licenses require attribution, meaning that for each use authors must be credited appropriately.
A open license is a standardized license agreement. With an open license creators can grant the public certain rights of use that go beyond those provided by copyright law. For software open licenses such as the BSD license, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and the Apache license are well established. For texts, images, music and videos Creative Commons licenses are the most common.
Rights of use determine how copyrighted works can be used by authors, publishers and third parties. Authors transfer either non-exclusive or exclusive rights of use. A non-exclusive right of use entitles you to use the work in accordance with the license agreement. An exclusive right of use, on the other hand, entitles only the rightsholder(s) to use the work. No other parties are permitted to use the work. For example, for authors who have granted others exclusive rights of use in a Copyright Transfer Agreement self-archiving options are limited.
Open Access means that works can be archived reliably, accessed freely and used legally. Examples of re-use include storage, digital teaching, publication on social media platforms and text and data mining. The term applies to publicly funded scholarly publications, research data and digital cultural heritage.
A Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) determines the rights and obligations of authors and publishers. Agreements on the transfer of rights of use are a key component. In a CTA with closed access conditions, authors grant the publisher exclusive rights of use. After signing such a CTA they can no longer make use of their work without obtaining the publisher's permission. Under Open Access conditions, however, authors transfer non-exclusive rights of use to the publisher. Authors thus retain the right to self-archive.
Through self-archiving works that were published under closed access conditions can be made Open Access. Works are self-archived in a repository, either on the same day as the publication or after a set period of time (embargo). Uploading work on personal websites or similar does not count as self-archiving, as it does not guarantee important features such as long-term accessibility and citability.
The Secondary Exploitation Right outlined in section 38, paragraph 4 of the German Copyright Law governs self-archiving. Under certain conditions authors may make their works publicly available and thus ensure Open Access. This right applies even if self-archiving is not permitted in the copyright transfer agreement.