Empowering Scientists with New Journal Publishing Services

KIT’s scientific community has long relied on KIT Scientific Publishing for various publishing needs, including monographs, conference volumes, and used the open access repository, KITopen. AS KSP extends its publishing services to Open Access Journals, scientists can now start a new academic journal or flip their existing journal to the institutional publisher. 

Why Publish with the university’s publisher, KIT Scientific publishing?

Recent reports on open access policy by DFG and Wissenschaftsrat encouraged institutions to take a proactive approach to make Open Access Publishing affordable and accessible to authors globally, and that it should not cost a fortune for the authors in form of Article Processing Charge (APC). As a result, the KIT Library is taking the leading step in offering multi-step consultancy and publishing services to the university’s scientific community. 

• Customized service packages
  In addition, we aim to closely work with the editors to explore different financing models and develop options that would make the journals diamond open access. This means that the journal financing is planned in such a way that authors do not have to bear the high cost of publishing in form of APCs. The financing may involve sponsorships, grants, and donations from third parties.

• Decision-making powers in hands of scientists
  KSP advocates for the autonomous operations of the Editorial Board of an academic journal, free from interference by publishers. The constitution, size, and selection process of a journal should be in the hands of its editorial committee and members, who should self-regulate. The Editorial Board should be led by scholars, with full control over the design and implementation of policies, scope, and aims of their academic journal. 

As we design and tailor our services according to the needs and preferences of the scientists, we invite your participation in the two questionnaires  “To flip or not to flip: Toward Diamond OA Publishing” and “Starting a new Journal: A Checklist”. Your input will not only provide insights into the sentiments of campus on the issue of journal publishing but also help us optimize our services.

We invite the scientific community at KIT to participate.
Your participation will remain anonymous and the answers can in no way be traced back to you. In addition, the results will not be shared with any third party.