The relevance of free access to research results and scientific publications online has become clear not least during the Corona Pandemic. Although some publishers have activated access to their journals and databases during the lock-down phase of the pandemic, a large proportion of their offerings are now back behind a paywall and only accessible to members of financially strong universities.

At the beginning of April this year, we called on members of the University of Kassel in our blog to contribute to the supply of literature by exercising their secondary publication right (so-called "green open access") and by posting a copy of their own articles in journals and anthologies on the institutional repository KOBRA.

The response was positive, but also showed us where the hurdles lie: On the one hand in the legal area ("Am I allowed to put the article / the presentation / my data online at all?") and on the other hand in the technical area ("How do I put my contribution on KOBRA?").

On the occasion of this year's Open Access Week 2020 from 19 to 25 October, we are therefore offering an all-round service for secondary publication. Under the principle "You provide the text - we do the rest" - we check which of your publications may be made available online on KOBRA and support you in posting them.

This service includes
Checking the rights to your publications against the publishing contract or general publishing guidelines
Digitization (scanning) of your publication, if it is only available in printed form
If desired: Send a request to the publisher on your behalf in case of uncertainties
Support for setting up your publication on the KOBRA server

What we need:

• Your literature list
• for electronic publications: The link to the article
• for printed publications: Preferably the file, alternatively the book/journal
• If available, the publishing contract

We offer this service for all requests that reach us during Open Access Week. Send us your documents by e-mail between 19 and 23 October: Projekt-Kobra@bibliothek.uni-kassel.de

By posting your publication on KOBRA you are not only contributing to the sharing of knowledge in the spirit of the Open Access movement. The worldwide digital free access increases the visibility of research results, they can be received more widely and can be better reused.
KOBRA guarantees long-term archiving and ensures permanent findability by assigning a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). The visibility of KOBRA content is increased by the searchability in the catalog portal KARLA, via scientific search engines (OAIster, BASE) and of course via commercial search services such as Google, MSN or Bing. Your publications remain accessible even if the journal ceases publication, the book is out of print or your hard disk crashes.

Of course, you can share your research results even faster if you publish directly in open access journals. If you have general questions about publishing in open access journals or would like to find out more about financing options, the University Library's Open Access Officer, Dr. Tobias Pohlmann, will be happy to advise you (openaccess@bibliothek.uni-kassel.de) - even outside the Open Access Action Week.