gms | German Medical Science

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FAQ regarding the portal German Medical Science

FAQ regarding Open Access Publishing

 

FAQ regarding the portal German Medical Science

Why publish in the portal German Medical Science?
Open Access: All the research results published in the portal German Medical Science are available worldwide and free of charge. Further details under our Open Access Charta.
Transfer only of the necessary rights for the open access publishing online: The portal German Medical Science does not require the author to transfer the copyright - You, as originator of the scientific accomplishment, still dispose of all the rights on your work. The portal German Medical Science only reserves the right to store in databases. You may publish the research results on the homepage of the institute, make as many copies as you want, forward your manuscript to colleagues - as you wish. The only condition is that the journal or the respective congress publication within the portal German Medical Science is correctly cited as the first publishment of this article.
No size restriction: The portal German Medical Science knows no restrictions in size or in the number of references at all.
New Media: Discover the appreciation of the new media for your research results and complement your articles e.g. with high-resolution pictures, extensive charts, sounds, films or research databases.
Free storage on BfArM's highly available and highly secure server
Quick publication
Let the portal German Medical Science advertise for your article!
Highly-qualified articles are sent to research groups that are active in the same field free-of-charge (in development).
Peer review process in the journals of the portal German Medical Science
The review process of the originals is to make sure that only scientific, highest-quality and innovative articles are published that furnish the readers with new and interesting information. The process is based on a form of peer review in which the submitted manuscript is presented to experts for review. The experts are well-known on the field in question. The expert remains anonymous for the author and vice versa in most cases.
How are online articles cited?
In principle, online articles are cited exactly like other journal articles.
After the author's data and title, the valid form of the reference is cited in the respective article with journal, volume and article number; e.g. GMS Ger Med Sci. 2005;3:Doc02. Cite the authors and title as required for your purposes and add this part of the reference. Since each article in the portal German Medical Science gets the persistent identifiers DOI and URN, the respective DOI and/or URN should be included in the reference.
Example: Kayser O, Osmonov D, Harde J, Girolami G, Wedel T, Schäfer P. Less invasive causal treatment of ejaculatory duct obstruction by balloon dilation: a case report, literature review and suggestion of a CT- or MRI-guided intervention. GMS Ger Med Sci. 2012;10:Doc06. DOI: 10.3205/000157
Are publications in the portal German Medical Science also available in print?
Die Veröffentlichung eines Artikels in GMS German Medical Science ist kostenfrei.
Will my manuscript be treated confidentially?
Of course. Only the editorial staff and the reviewer of the chosen congress or journal have access to your manuscript in an individualized and protected procedure. The manuscript is safely stored on a highly secure server.
Data Protection in the portal German Medical Science
See this informationen.

 

FAQ regarding Open Access Publishing

Are open access and the review of articles within a peer review process compatible with each other?
Absolutely. Indeed, the mission of the portal German Medical Science is open access publishing of articles that have successfully passed through the peer review. Peer review is not media-dependent and as an important evaluation procedure of scientific expert literature, it is just as necessary for online publications as for printed ones.
Are open access and printed publications compatible?
Absolutely. Open access means free online access for interested readers but at the same time printed versions may be sold for a fee. Moreover, open access neither rules out printouts by the users nor printed archives for back-ups or permanent storage.
Is open access compatible with high scientific standards and higher quality?
Why not? Summed up you could say that exactly those factors that are decisive for the scientific quality in the case of traditional printed publications are also efficient for the type of scientific literature published by the portal German Medical Science and that they take effect. The standards according to which manuscripts are evaluated of the jounals in the portal German Medical Science are the standards of the field to which the special expert journal belongs: They are both independent from the media chosenand independent from the fact whether fees are imposed for access to the publication or not. The quality of the publication is fully dependent upon the standards of the corresponding scientific field itself, but not of if the archive allows open access to them.
The quality of a scientific expert journal is dependent upon the responsible persons there, i.e. on the editors, on the members of the advisory committee and on experts that work on the reviews. On the contrary, this quality has consequences on the quality of the articles which are submitted by the authors for publication.
Open access-journals may make use of the same quality assurance mechanisms as the traditionally printed journals. Decisive is, who is involved with which criterion/standards in the process of publication and publishing - whereby the media itself (print vs. online) and the costs (chargeable vs. freely accessible) are unimportant.
I want to make a publication available open access ("green road of open access"). Where can I find information about the legal situation?
If you are looking for information about the legal situation regarding open access publication of a particular publication that has already been published, we recommend the SHERPA/RoMEO website. There you can find detailled information about the open access policies of many publishers. Furthermore, this site about self archiving within the Information Platform Open Access might be of interest.
If you are the author of an article published within GMS, you are allowed to publish it within other open access websites, i.e. within the institutional repository of your institution, according to our open access policy and the terms of use as stated by the Creative Commons license of each article. When doing so, we kindly ask you that you please make sure to cite the primary publication with GMS appropriately. An independent source about GMS' open access policy is the SERPA/RoMEO entry of GMS.