Policies

1. Objectives and content criteria for the publication server of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

The OPUS online publication system is the central service for Bauhaus-Universität Weimar academic publications.

With the OPUS publication server, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar offers all of the university's authors the opportunity to publish electronically generated scientific documents free of charge. For the purpose of these guidelines, university authors are defined as staff members, students, and recipients of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar grants. This service offered by the University Library makes scholarly documents available worldwide on the Internet for research and teaching purposes and is permanently archived by the library. The documents are accessible via library catalogues and WWW search engines.
The OPUS publication server is an institutional repository for the publication of academic papers in open access and thus facilitates rapid, worldwide communication within the scientific community. In keeping with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities of 22 October 2003, this guarantees and promotes open and barrier-free access to scientific information.

The services offered by the University Library include the storage, cataloguing, and archiving of electronic scholarly documents published by university authors. This applies to both exclusively electronic publications as well as electronic versions of printed documents.

The electronic documents receive citable persistent identifiers in the form of URN addresses, which guarantee permanent access to resources with the help of the German National Library Resolving Mechanism (DNB). Access is provided via national and international library catalogues, search engines, OAI service providers, and other reference tools. Compulsory submission to the German National Library (DNB) ensures long-term archiving of the submitted scientific documents.

The operation and further development of the publication server follow the recommendations and standardisation of national and international initiatives such as the German Initiative for Network Information (DINI), the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI).


2. Regulatory framework

Publishing on the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar publication server requires the author to transfer the rights to make the document publicly accessible on the Internet. In addition, the author is free to modify the complete work before or after its publication if necessary, or to publish extracts of it in other printed or electronic form.

Authors grant the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library the right to store their documents, to make them publicly accessible in data networks and, if necessary, to convert them into other data formats. This right also applies to the German National Library and Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (LIS).

In the case of dissertations and habilitations, the author confirms that the PhD or habilitation procedure has been completed and that the electronic version corresponds to the approved original version in form and content. Urheberrechtsgesetz (UrhG) (German copyright legislation) applies without restriction to documents offered in electronic form via data networks. The following applies in particular: The author expressly confirms and warrants that this publication is free of third party rights and does not violate applicable law. Specifically, that applicable copyright law has been observed and the author is the owner or holder of all rights to this work and the owner or holder of all rights, licenses, or copyrights necessary for its publication.

The operator agrees to support authors in their publication projects, archive the documents, and keep the documents permanently available at a reasonable cost. The authors or editors are solely responsible for the content of the documents.

The authors' copyrights remain protected. By granting a Creative Commons license, certain rights of use can be transferred to the general public. Publication on the publication server of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library does not preclude further publication of the documents in journals or monographs or on other servers. According to the recommendations of the Science Council on Digital Information Services by University Libraries, all academics and scientists are required to reserve the right to self-archiving in the Institutional Repository when concluding publishing contracts and to additionally publish the documents they have written on the publication server - possibly after a vesting period.

OPUS enables a second publication where legally possible. Many academic publishers allow authors to make their published works freely available as second publications on an institutional publication server. On the publication server, scholarly documents are made available by the authors in this respect. The SHERPA/RoMEO list contains the terms and conditions of a large number of publishers.

The authors and publishers are obliged to clarify any copyrights and third-party use rights or to obtain their consent. If the author becomes aware of the existence or emergence of legal obstacles, he/she is required to inform the University Library immediately. The University Library is not liable for damages resulting from the violation of copyright and use rights, insofar as no intentional or grossly negligent fault can be proven.


3. Open access

The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar supports the call for open access to scholarly publications as set forth in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities of 22 October 2003. In the spirit of this declaration and in order to remove barriers to the free circulation of ideas and the dissemination of scientific findings, the operator encourages authors to grant a Creative Commons license in conformity with the principle of open access. In such cases, authors' rights are protected by the obligation to cite the author's name. In the event that the original document is distributed, the Uniform Resource Name (URN) should be used to ensure that the network resource is uniquely identified.

In the event that the unaltered document is redistributed, the Uniform Resource Name (URN) should be used to ensure that the network resource is clearly identified.

For documents which are not to be made available in open access, there are freely selectable access level options that restrict the use of the documents to the campus network or special groups of people.

To increase the visibility of the publication server, it is registered with the open access Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

All indexing services, in particular the bibliographic metadata of the documents published on the publication server, may be retrieved and stored by anyone via the OAI interface and made available to third parties in enhanced form or as a selection, if applicable. As far as legally possible, the metadata is published universally under the latest version of the Creative Commons license. In the case of electronic first publication on the publication server, a link to the front end of the resource on the publication server should be provided in the form of the URN or URL when it is re-used.


4. The electronic document

For the purposes of these guidelines, the term "electronic document" is understood to mean a text- and graphics-based document that is stored in digital form on a data medium and distributed via computer networks. It is also possible to publish multimedia documents containing audio and video sequences.
An electronic document to be published via the publication server must meet the following conditions:

  1. It is intended for public dissemination.
  2. It is not a dynamic document. If changes are necessary, the modified electronic document is saved as a new version.
  3. It conforms to the technical parameters specified by the University Library Weimar.

The content and format of the documents are described by the authors themselves via the WWW form and then posted. Once the publication of the documents is finalised, they can no longer be modified or deleted.

Document content is indexed by the author using keywords from the standard keyword file (SWD), freely assignable keywords, and through categorisation in classification systems (e.g. DDC).


5. Rules for archiving electronic documents

Bauhaus-Universität Weimar authors may submit existing publications to the archive in an accepted file format. The content of the archived documents cannot be changed.

The following types of electronic documents are archived:

  1. Publications by authors of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar with scholarly content such as journal articles (including pre- and post-prints), monographs, excerpts from monographs, public lectures, research papers, studies, and publication series.
  2. Publications by employees and students, as well as recipients of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar grants, such as anthologies, electronic journals, and conference reports.
  3. Publication series of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
  4. Documents for which publication is prescribed by examination regulations (doctoral theses and habilitations)
  5. Final theses of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar students (bachelor's, master's and diploma theses) where the publication has been approved by the supervisor or another member of the faculty and the thesis has received at least the grade of "good".
  6. Student research if the publication has been approved by the supervisor or another member of the faculty and the work has received the grade of "very good".
  7. Other works, such as presentations, lectures, and speeches by employees of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Nationally and internationally defined standards and interfaces, such as the Dublin Core Metadata Standard, guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), and the METADISS specifications of the German National Library are used for the formal and content-based indexing of electronic documents. Archivers assign the metadata by entering it into an online registration form, which is then checked, corrected, and potentially supplemented by the library. Standard data are taken from the German National Library's online keyword standard file (SWD) and can be supplemented by freely definable keywords in German and English. Dissertations and habilitations must include an abstract written by the author in at least two languages. Documents are classified through notations assigned by the respective subject-matter experts and a technical group for Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC).


6. Technical features of the publication server

Permanent and individual persistent identifiers are assigned to documents in the form of URN addresses, which allow direct access to the documents.

All documents shall be available online for an indefinite period, and the operators of the publication server guarantee that submitted documents will be archived for at least five years. Archiving beyond this period depends on the availability of the format, viewing software, and conversion options.

Long-term archiving is guarenteed as part of the compulsory submission to the German National Library in accordance with its statutory mandate to ensure permanent archiving and long-term availability.

Currently, the preferred format for presentations is PDF/A.

Electronic documents can be found in local, regional and cross-regional library catalogues, search engines, and through OAI service providers (e.g. OAIster). Bibliographic metadata and full-text searches are available on the publication server's website.

International standards such as the guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) are used for the indexing, archiving, and storage of electronic documents, as well as for metadata exchange.
As a registered OAI data provider, the publication server meets the requirements of OAI-PMH, version 2.0.

Statistics are generated on the number of times documents are accessed and on the use of the publication server.


7. Organisational regulations

The publication server is operated by the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library.
Electronic publication is free of charge for authors of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Electronic documents are generally submitted for dissemination via the publication server by means of an upload form on the publication server.

The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library is the point of contact for all questions concerning the Publication Server.
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library
Contact

Dr. Frank Simon-Ritz
Director of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Library
Weimar, 28 October 2016