Social Science Open Access Repository

Cooperation Models

The models that have evolved in the course of our collaboration with publishers have a clear twofold objective: first, to make valuable content available to the scientific community, and second, to support publishers and their distribution business in a targeted way by fulfilling certain marketing functions. At the same time, the models offer all participants the possibility of testing open access and observing its possible impact on the sales of the print editions.

Selective Access Model: Selective access refers to the making available to the public of excerpts from a title – that is, the provision of access to individual contributions to edited volumes or to individual journal articles. This model is thought to have a powerful teaser effect for the promotion of the complete work. For that reason, many publishers decide to make one or several contributions to highly topical edited volumes available in open access simultaneously with, or even prior to, the publication of the print edition. However, this model is also used to present older edited volumes or journal issues to the scientific community once again in a targeted way.

Delayed Access Model: Under the delayed access model, published works are made freely accessible to the public online (“secondary publication”) after an embargo period. The length of the embargo period is specified by the publishers. The benchmark proposed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) is one year. The delayed access model is often chosen by publishers once the costs of publishing the work have been recovered through sales and making the publication available online free of charge also appears to be desirable from the publishers’ perspective. The individual models can, of course, be combined with each other. Experience has shown that the selective access model also has an important teaser function in combination with the delayed access model, for example when individual contributions to an older edited volume are available in open access.

Out-of-Print Works Model: The making available of out-of-print works is a special form of delayed access. At no cost to the publisher, these works can be made accessible to the scientific community once again – and online into the bargain. The publications made available in open access under this model are mainly complete monographs or collections of older journal volumes.

Retrodigitisation Model: The objective of this model is to digitise content that is not yet digitally available in exchange for an open access licence. It is especially suitable for classical works and older journal volumes, especially when more recent volumes of the journal in question have already been made available via SSOAR, because then an extensive collection of journal volumes can be offered in open access to the scientific community.

Open Access Direct Model: This model entails simultaneously publishing the print and open access editions. Simultaneous publication may refer to individual contributions to an edited volume or – the primary intention of this model – to entire monographs.

Staff Publications Model: SSOAR supports research institutions in making the publications of their employees accessible to the public in a repository (“secondary publication”) in order to comply with funding criteria with regard to the promotion of open access at the recipient institution.