Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports project „OpenIng“

OpenIng (Open Access und Open Educational Resources in den Ingenieurwissenschaften) comprises of a research part and an implementation part. In the first year of the grant period a nationwide study on open access publication activities in the engineering sciences and a series of workshops to investigate the service requests in the three participating universities will be carried out. In the second year technical and organizational measures will be implemented to create innovative and specialist open access services for the engineering sciences. The new services shall enable researchers to publish their papers fast and easy on an open access basis. OpenIng puts the emphasis on the green way of open access, i.e. the right for secondary publication. Further aims of the joint venture will be the development and practical testing of communication concepts and information materials about open access and the provision of free teaching and learning materials for engineering scientists.

“We start the project OpenIng with a comprehensive inventory and will talk to the scientific communities of all engineering sciences. We want to provide tailored support to their needs and their teaching and publication culture,” explains Gerald Langhanke, consultant for electronic publishing at the TU Darmstadt. “Our aim is making open access for scientific papers and teaching materials as easy as possible”.

The general coordination for OpenIng is carried out by the TU Darmstadt represented by the University and State Library (ULB) and the Center for Educational Development and Technology (HDA). Partners involved are the university libraries of Braunschweig and Stuttgart. OpenIng is embedded in the close collaboration of the libraries of the leading German universities of technology, TU9. All newly developed concepts, materials and services will be distributed among the scientific communities and will support the interdisciplinary cooperation.

The joint project runs within the funding measure “Management Digital Change in Education, Science and Research” according to the “Funding Guideline of Free Information Flow in Science – Open Access” of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

More information about open access and OpenIng at the TU Darmstadt, the TU Braunschweig and the University of Stuttgart.