Cooperation Models

The models that emerged during the early stages of cooperation with commercial publishers were clearly shaped by the dual objective of, on the one hand, providing valuable content to the academic community and, on the other, supporting publishers in their sales operations through the fulfillment of specific marketing functions. This win-win situation offered all parties involved the opportunity to experiment with Open Access and observe any effects it might have on the sales of print editions. Over time, new models were added to the existing and ongoing forms of collaboration. These new models focus, on the one hand, on providing access to staff publications from partner institutions under the mandatory secondary publication right that came into effect in 2014, and on the other, on establishing SSOAR as both a publication platform and an archiving infrastructure within the collaborative publishing process of Diamond Open Access.

Model "Selective Access": The "Selective Access" model involves making selected parts of a work available, such as individual contributions to edited volumes or journal articles. This model is seen as an effective promotional tool for marketing the complete work. For this reason, many publishers choose to make one or several contributions from newly released edited volumes available via Open Access either simultaneously with or even prior to the print publication. However, this model is also used to reintroduce older edited volumes or journal issues to the academic community in a targeted way.

Model "Delayed Access": Under the "Delayed Access" model, works are made available via secondary publication after an embargo period, the length of which is determined by the publishers. The German Research Foundation (DFG) recommends a standard embargo period of one year. These models are not mutually exclusive and can be combined. Experience has shown that "Selective Access," when combined with "Delayed Access," can be especially effective in generating interest, for example when individual contributions from an older edited volume are made available through Open Access.

Model "Out-of-Print Works": A special form of "Delayed Access" is the availability of out-of-print titles. These can be made available to the academic community once again in digital form, without incurring any costs for the publisher. This model typically includes complete monographs and older journal issues, which are made available through Open Access.

Model "Retrodigitization": This model aims to digitize content that has not yet been made available in digital form in exchange for an Open Access license. It is particularly well-suited for public domain "classics of sociology" and older journal volumes, especially when newer volumes of the same journal are already available via SSOAR. This allows the academic community access to a comprehensive archive of journal issues.

Model "Open Access Direct": This model refers to the simultaneous publication of both print and Open Access editions. While this may apply to individual contributions in an edited volume, it is primarily intended for the concurrent publication of entire monographs.

Model "Staff Publications": To meet funding requirements and promote Open Access within their own institutions, SSOAR supports research institutions in republishing staff-authored works in a repository. This typically involves cooperation with the institutions’ libraries, which SSOAR assists in identifying legally archivable versions of publications.

Model "Diamond Open Access": Academic, non-commercial, and fully Open Access publications are increasingly produced through collaborative workflows. In this context, repositories like SSOAR play a key role in long-term archiving and in enhancing discoverability through the application of subject-specific metadata and controlled vocabularies.