FAQ & Recommendations for Scientists

Think, before you submit


Unfortunatly nowadays a lot of so called predatory publishers are publishing journals that
do not meet the high quality standard needed for a DESY publication. We strongly advise you not
to publish with such publishers. It is however not easy to decide which journals you can trust.
We advise you to follow the three steps mentioned in
https://thinkchecksubmit.org/

  • Think before you publish

  • Check and if in doubt contact your
    library. We will gladly advise

  • Submit (after you have obtained the signed permission form (See publication)

NB: Since the information about predatory publishers change very fast and a lot of publishers
and journals are known to be predatory, there exists no reliable (complete) "white" or "black" list.
For more information contact us directly

Publish Gold (e.g. DESY Publication) or Green OA



  • Always put fulltexts into PUBDB (too)

  • ArXiv or Websites is NOT sufficient ( … but use ZMS-plugin for Websites)

  • When applying for grants include OA funding


Retain your rights



  • Publisher needs only „non-exclusive rights to publish“
  • CC-BY for best re-usability

Consider publishing Software via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/) (and make a record in PUBDB)


Data publication:



  • Small Data Sets (e.g. ~MB) via PUBDB

  • Media Data Sets (e.g. ~GB) via e.g. Zenodo (and Metadata in PUBDB)

  • Large Data Sets (e.g. ~TB - ~PB): Contact IT & Library