http://othes.univie.ac.at/63246/

Unlimited and free access to scholarly publications is one of the greatest achievements of the open access movement. However, free access does not mean that the production and publication of an open access journal is feasible without costs as well. Meanwhile, a wide variety of financing models for open access journals has developed. One of these models is the charging of publication fees (Article Processing Charges/APCs), which has been discovered as a lucrative source of income mostly by large commercial scholarly publishers. These fees represent a major financial burden for authors, their institutions and research funding agencies. As a consequence, calls grow louder for open access models that represent a fair alternative to this cost-intensive APC-based publishing system. This paper deals with the question of what other possibilities exist for financing open access journals besides publication fees and how alternative open access models can be defined. Based on literature research, possible financing models are described and a definition of �alternative open access journal publishing (OAJP)� is given. In addition, strengths and weaknesses which these models bring with them are outlined. Subsequently, the focus is placed on Austrian OA journals and the role of alternative publishing models in Austria. For this purpose, a survey was conducted in selected journal directories and an analysis of the websites of these identified journals was carried out with a focus on publishing and financing. As a result, an overview of the landscape of Austrian OA journals is available. Furthermore, it is shown that the majority of Austrian OA journals are published by non-commercial organizations and do not charge publication fees, i.e. are alternative journals in the sense of the definition by this thesis. That leads to the conclusion that alternative open access journal publishing is the dominant model in Austria. The results obtained can serve the Austrian open access community as orientation for further initiatives to support non-commercial journal publishers, promote alternative open access models and establish community-led, publisher-independent open access journal infrastructures.