As the author of a scientific text, you decide when, how, by whom and for what purpose your text can be used.
Creative-Commons (CC) licenses are standardized contracts with which you, as the author, determine how your work can be reused.
The license is valid as long as a work is protected by copyright - up to 70 years after the death of the author.
Once a license has been granted, it cannot be withdrawn. Restrictive licenses can be replaced by more open licenses.
The combination of license terms allow for a number of different CC-BY licenses. With each of these licenses, you have the right to acknowledge authorship.
CC-BY allows unrestricted redistribution and use
CC-BY-NC (non commercial) allows only non-commercial redistribution and use.
CC-BY-ND (no derivativs) only allows redistribution - with the addition of NC only non-commercial redistribution.
Publications are marked with the appropriate icon, the reference to the license and a link, e.g.:
Diese Publikation steht unter der Creative-Lizenz CC-BY 4.0
This work is licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 license.
This work is licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF, like many other funding agencies (cOAlition S), requires that publications resulting from projects it funds (project submission as of January 2023) be published with a CC license.
CC-BY
CC-BY (recommended), more restrictive licenses like CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND are possible
The SNSF has adopted the "Rights Retention Strategy" developed by the cOAlition S. Researchers must indicate a rights retention for the post-review revised version when submitting a journal article with the following passage:
"This research was funded in whole or in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, a CC BY public copyright licence is applied to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission."
Do not sign over the exclusive and unlimited rights to your texts sto your publisher. Insist on a license that allows you to fulfill your obligation to your funder and your university.
We are happy to assist you - feel free to get in touch before you sign your contract.
At the end of 2015, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) commissioned swissuniversities and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to devise a national strategy for Open Access publications. The Open Access Strategy envisions that all publicly funded publications will be freely accessible by 2024.
Further information can be found here.
The University of Bern supports Open Access as described in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities which it signed in 2007, and declares that Open Access is a strategic objective. The Open Access Policy is in line with the Open Access Guidelines of the Rectors' Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW); it does not interfere with the free choice of publication media or with academic freedom. The University has approved the following guidelines:
The University of Bern supports the implementation of these guidelines by operating an institutional repository which allows the University’s researchers to deposit their publications and the corresponding metadata.
Clarifications on practical implementation:
In accordance with the LERU petition and the DORA initiative, Bern University Library supports alternative, non-profit Open Access initiatives.
Bern University Library currently supports the following initiatives:
Bern University Library is a member of:
If you know of an OA initiative that should be supported contact us.
Upcoming events on the topic of Open Access can be found on our main page or under "Services".
On Swisscovery Universität and PH Bern we ingest OA content from the following sources:
These extensions indicate whether an article a user is viewing online is available in OA: OA Button and Unpaywall for Chrome und Firefox, Open Access Helper for Safarii.