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What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) stands for free and unlimited dissemination of academic literature. A published contribution may be read free of charge by anyone on the Internet.

The principles of Open Access are recommended by the University's Executive Board, the German Rector's Conference and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Many research funding organisations such as the DFG also support Open Access publications. The electronic publications are easier to research, accessible and can be used directly from your computer.

There are two routes to Open Access, green OA or gold OA. Green OA is supported at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) by the publication server OPUS FAU. Monographs, research reports and articles are archived and made freely accessible on an institutional server. OPUS FAU offers this service with reliable organisational and technical standards free of charge to all FAU members.

Gold OA, i.e. not (self-)archiving or secondary publication in repositories but primary publication in quality-assured Open Access journals, is supported at FAU through the fund 'Open Access Publishing', which covers the author's costs and offers reduced publication fees based on institutional memberships. For more information, please visit this FAU information page: https://ub.fau.de/schreiben-publizieren/open-access/.

Open Access publications that were published via the gold route may of course also be published on OPUS FAU. The articles financed through the fund 'Open Access Publishing' will, for instance, be presented in a collection of their own.

A commercial publication also does not completely exclude the option of publishing your work Open Access: Most publishers allow delayed archiving in OPUS FAU. You can look up the conditions of commercial publishers in the SHERPA/RoMEO list (Rights Metadata for Open Archiving): https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/.

Please direct any general questions regarding Open Access to:

Dipl. Wirt.-Inf. Markus Putnings

Head of Open Access
University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg
Science and Technology Branch Library
Erwin-Rommel-Str. 60
91058 Erlangen

Phone: +49 (0)9131 85 27835
Fax: +49 (0)9131 85-27843

E-Mail: Markus.Putnings(at)fau.de
URL: http://www.ub.fau.de/

What are the advantages of a publication in OPUS FAU?
  • Dissemination
    Electronic publication is available from all over the world at any time and accessible free of charge. Online publication according to the principles of Open Access is therefore recommended by FAU as well the German Research Foundation and the German Rector's Conference.

  • Proof of publication
    Your publication may be found quickly and easily via Internet search. Also it will be listed in the OPACplus catalogue of the University Library, the catalogue of the Bavarian Library Association, scientific search engines such as BASE and in national and international databases. You can also use the integrated research options in OPUS.

  • Archiving and long-term availability
    Your electronic publication will be permanently saved on OPUS as a PDF file. We register a Uniform Resource Name (URN) for your publication with the German National Library. Your publication will be permanently available under this address, meaning it can be cited without problems. Furthermore, doctoral and postdoctoral theses are forwarded to the German National Library's archive server and digitally preserved there.

  • Saving money and time
    The service is free of charge for you. Your document will be published online immediately after a brief check by University Library staff and can be cited from then on.

  • High citation rate
    Several studies have shown that Open Access publications are now cited with approximately the same frequency as publications that appeared in print. Studies on the subject of impact analysis may be found under 'The Open Citation Project - Reference Linking and Citation Analysis for Open Archives' (opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html).

  • OpenAIRE-Compliance
    Open Access publication is mandatory in most EU projects (cf. https://ub.fau.de/en/writing-publishing/open-access/open-access-policies-of-research-funding-organisations/#collapse_2). Open Access publications linked to an EU project must therefore be indicated in OpenAIRE. You can deposit your work in OpenAIRE automatically by publishing in OPUS FAU. Please enter your EU-Project number / Contract (GA) number for this.

Our guidelines

Goals and content criteria of OPUS FAU

Description of service

The publication server OPUS FAU offers all FAU members the organisational and technical framework to electronically publish scientific documents. As part of the University Library's service, scientific documents are provided online for teaching and research in line with quality standards. With this service, the University Library supports free access to scientific information as defined by Open Access. All documents made available on OPUS FAU are open access; an explanation of open access is available here.

The services offered for the publication of electronic documents on OPUS FAU include storage, cataloguing and archiving of scientific documents published by members of FAU. This applies to entirely electronic publications as well as electronic versions of printed documents.

The electronic documents are assigned permanent addresses (URNs) and are made accessible through national and international library catalogues, search engines and other reference tools. The German National Library performs the digital preservation of doctoral and postdoctoral theses.

Legal framework

Rights and obligations of the contractual parties

By agreeing to the guidelines and signing the publication contract, the author grants the operator of the publication server licence for the following:

  • the permanent right to store electronically, especially in databases

  • the non-exclusive permanent right of use (Section 31 (2) German Copyright Act, UrhG) for the purpose of making the document available to the public in international data networks

  • the permanent right to convert the document for the purposes of digital preservation or visualisation while preserving the content (the document as originally archived is preserved)

  • the right to amend and/or complete the metadata provided by the author or editor where necessary

  • the right to give unlimited access to metadata and to make it usable

  • the right to disclose the document and the corresponding metadata to the German National Library as well as to document servers with the same aforementioned rights that fulfil geographical and technical requirements; in addition, for dissertations, see here.

The authors and editors shall bear all responsibility for the content of the documents. FAU shall assume no liability for the content of the provided publications and linked external sites.
The author or editor shall guarantee that the document does not violate legal regulations, official decrees or the rights of any other third parties.
The author or editor shall be obligated to determine and, where necessary, obtain the approval of any copyright or exploitation right holders. If the author or editor learns of the existence or development of legal barriers, they shall inform the University Library without delay.

Copyright remains with the author. The University Library is merely granted non-exclusive right of use. This means that publication on OPUS FAU does not preclude further publication of the documents in journals or monographs as well as on other servers. According to the recommendations of the German Science Council regarding the provision of digital information by university libraries, all FAU researchers are advised to reserve the right to self-archive on OPUS FAU when entering into publishing contracts and to additionally publish the documents they authored - possibly after a retention period - on the publication server.

The metadata of the documents published on the publication server may be stored and made available to third parties by anyone, if necessary in accumulated or selected form.

Already published documents shall not be deleted from the server. However, the University Library shall have the right to exclude published documents from publication if this would be in violation of third-party rights, provisions of these guidelines and/or the publication contract.

The electronic document

General information on the electronic document

The term electronic document as used in these guidelines shall be defined as a text- and graphics-based document that is stored in digital form on a storage medium and disseminated via computer networks. It can also mean a document that contains audio or video sequences.
An electronic document to be published via OPUS FAU shall fulfil the following requirements:

  • It is intended for public dissemination.

  • It is not a dynamic document. If amendments are necessary, the electronic document is stored as a new version.

If the electronic document is a publication (such as a preprint, newspaper or journal article, or book) it will primarily be released in PDF (portable document format) or PDF/A. Further accepted file formats include: DOC(X), XLS(X), ZIP, AVI, MP3 and MP4.

The documents are described formally and in terms of content by the authors and published on OPUS FAU.

Long-term digital preservation

The operator guarantees all original data will be preserved and made available for at least 5 years. However, it is planned that all data will be made available for an unlimited period of time in co-operation with the German National Library. This is known as long-term digital preservation.
Digital preservation is dependent on the availability of the format, the viewing software as well as conversion options; the German National Library already performs the digital preservation of doctoral and postdoctoral theses. The final published documents sent to the German national library via the OAI interface may not be amended or deleted.

Indexing of electronic documents

All documents are indexed in terms of content by the authors themselves. This should be accomplished using standardised keywords, freely defined keywords and classification systems.

Categories of documents collected by OPUS FAU

The following categories of electronic documents are stored on and disseminated through OPUS FAU:

  • Current publications as well as copies of already published documents by FAU members with scientific content

  • Series of publications from FAU

  • Publications and series of publications such as collected editions, congress volumes, research reports, journals (e-journals) or series published by FAU members

  • Documents that must be published according to examination regulations

  • Final papers by FAU students such as Bachelor's and Master's theses, if publication is recommended by the supervisors or another member of teaching staff and if they were graded as 'sehr gut' (excellent) Proof of this shall be submitted by the author.

Documents that have not undergone one of FAU's internal quality assurance processes, do not meet the requirements for final papers and theses given above and have not been reviewed by the Academic Advisory Board (see http://www.university-press.fau.de/pdf/ordnung-wiss-beirat.pdf) may only be stored if they have undergone a recognised academic quality assurance process (e.g. peer review) or are addenda (research data, videos, images, etc.) to or predecessors (preprint, working paper, etc.) of documents that have undergone such processes.

Special technical features of the publication server

  • This publication server is based on OPUS 4. The OPUS documentation can be found at http://opus4.kobv.de/.

  • The electronic documents are assigned individual, permanent addresses (URNs) which allow direct access to the documents.

  • The electronic documents are searchable via OPUS FAU, library catalogues, search engines and OAI service providers (e.g. OAIster).

  • For indexing, storage and archiving of the electronic documents as well as the exchange of metadata, international standards such as the guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) are used.

  • The hosting provider KOBV (http://www.kobv.de/opus4/) guarantees the security and protection of data for OPUS FAU. Furthermore, KOBV guarantees the use of regular storage and backup routines to secure data.

    • The process consists of incremental (daily), cumulative (weekly) and full (monthly) backups.

    • Backups are carried out on separate tapes.

    • KOBV backs up the data on a daily basis on magnetic tapes in a tape library.

    • The tapes are kept in the tape library which is located in a separate room in the KOBV computer centre with extra security measures.

  • KOBV guarantees that OPUS FAU is available on all working days and shall ensure that the systems are restored as soon as possible in the case of system failure.

  • KOBV provides appropriate advanced notification of any downtime due to maintenance; this information is passed on by the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Organisational provisions

  • The publication server is operated by the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg. The hosting provider KOBV (http://www.kobv.de/opus4/) is only responsible for the technical operation of OPUS FAU and for archiving the documents on it. The University Library therefore releases KOBV from any third-party claims made regarding infringement of rights based on the operation and the content of OPUS FAU.

  • Electronic publication is free of charge for FAU members and generally also intended for them.

  • Submission of electronic documents for dissemination through the document server is usually carried out using an online form.

  • Additional work necessary for publication such as preparation of the electronic documents or conversion into other formats is supervised or carried out by University Library staff according to prior agreement.

  • All questions regarding the publication server are to be directed at the OPUS team at the University Library.

Which documents does OPUS FAU collect?

The publication server OPUS (Online Publication Server) FAU lists, as comprehensively as possible, all qualified scientific publications authored by FAU members (students, lectures, researchers) according to the guidelines.

In addition to current publications, older publications shall also be included at a later point. These include:

  • Monographs (partial or complete), series, conference transcripts and electronic versions of works released by publishers (post-prints).

  • Journal articles, essays from collected editions, full editions of journals, congress reports, reports, pre-prints, working papers, reviews, images, films, audio documents.

  • Doctoral and postdoctoral theses and particularly good final examination papers, e.g. Diplom, Magister, Bachelor's, and Master's theses but not written assignments or seminar papers. Please note the criteria for quality assurance according to the above guidelines.

Documents of short-term importance such as course catalogues, announcements, invitations, etc., cannot be included.

A complete description of the possible document types on OPUS FAU is available here.

Contacts at OPUS FAU

Gerlint Straub
Tel.: 09131/85-29377
Fax: 09131/85-29309
ub-opus(at)fau.de

Kim Patrick Weiß
Phone: +49 (0)9131 85 29377
Fax: +49 (0)9131 85 29309
ub-opus(at)fau.de

Thesis and Dissertations Office
Main Library, Room 2.018
Universitätsstr. 4
91054 Erlangen
Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Postal address:

Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg
Dissertationen- und Pflichtstelle
Universitätsstraße 4
91054 Erlangen

Tips on browsing and searching in OPUS FAU

Search

In simple search, several search words are automatically connected with 'and'. For a more focused search, it is advisable to connect several search words using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT.

AND: All the search words must be part of the document.

OR: Only one of the search words entered must be part of the document. This function expands the search area and is recommended when there are several terms for one subject.

Example: Lorry OR truck

NOT: This function has an exclusive effect and can be used to narrow down the number of hits: documents that contain one of the search words may not contain the other.

Example: Lorry NOT truck

The Boolean operators also work for advanced search. Here they can be used to combine different search words within one search field. For example, the following search for all documents of the author 'Mustermann' from 2002 up to and including 2003:

Example: Author: Mustermann
Year: 2002 OR 2003

Wildcards

If you are unsure how a search term is spelled or if you want to expand your search, you can use * and ? as wildcards.

* replaces any number of characters, ? replaces one.

Example: 'Lib*' finds 'librarian', 'library' as well as 'liberal'.
'Ma?er' finds 'Mayer' and 'Maier' as well as 'Mager' and 'Maler'.

You can use double quotation marks (") to carry out a phrase search.

Browsing

The publications are sorted into categories. For instance, you can have the latest documents, publications of a department or the documents in a series of publications displayed.

The possible categories are:

  • Institutes
  • Document types (e.g. essays, monographs)
  • Series
  • Collections (e.g. as part of DFG Alliance or national licences)
  • Subject classifications
Citing electronic publications, URN

Publications on OPUS FAU are equivalent to conventional publications and thus also citable. Certain standards should be observed when citing, e.g. ISO 690. Further information on this subject is available on the Open Access server SciDok.

Example: Fritzsche, Eva Susanne Confidence in elementary school students: A measure for self-concept? [online] Erlangen-Nürnberg, Univ., Diss., 2012 http://www.opus.ub.uni-erlangen.de/opus/volltexte/2012/3407/ [cited 22 July 2012]

Demir, Resit; Schmid, Axel; Hohenberger, Werner; Agaimy, Abbas Angiolipomatous mesenchymal hamartoma (angiolipomatosis) of the sigmoid mesocolon [online] Int. J. Clin. Exp. Pathol. 2011; 4(2): 210-214 http://www.opus.ub.uni-erlangen.de/opus/volltexte/2012/3181/ [cited 22 July 2012]

URN

All documents are assigned a Uniform Resource Name (URN).

The purpose of the URN is to make your publication permanently identifiable and findable. The URL designates the (physical) storage location of the resource. The URN does not designate the location at which the data is stored but an entry at the URN resolver of the German National Library, where the URN and the corresponding (current) URL are stored. Advantage: the URN stays valid even if the physical storage location should change (e.g. due to a change of server). State the URN when citing your work.

Unfortunately, URNs cannot be used directly in web browsers yet. They need to be translated into URLs first. The resolving service of the German National Library performs this service: https://nbn-resolving.org/. Prefix the URN with this in order to access the document.

Example: URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:29-opus-31810
Is entered as: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:29-opus-31810

The publication process

The University Library offers you the option to publish your documents as entirely electronic publications on OPUS. The documents entered into OPUS should conform to the standards for scientific papers regarding content and formatting. Please observe our guidelines in this regard.

Your publication will be primarily released in PDF (portable document format). Further accepted file formatsare amongst others DOC(X), XLS(X), ZIP, AVI, MP3 and MP4.

Under Publish, you can register and upload your documents. The information provided by you and the full text are uploaded to OPUS temporary storage. Please fill out the form with all the information required for the formal and content-related description of the document. After a formal review by University Library staff, your electronic publication is uploaded to the OPUS server and thus made publicly accessible.

Additionally a publication contract must be signed and submitted for each publication. With this contract, you confirm

  • that the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg is granted licence to store the document, to make it publicly accessible in data networks and, where necessary, to convert it into other file formats,

  • that the publication of the document does not violate any third-party rights.

Additionally you can choose a CC licence during the publication process, determining to what extent third parties may reuse your publication. You must hold the appropriate rights for this, so you have to check if you have transferred exclusive rights e. g. to a publisher. Visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en for more information on CC licences. Please note that with regard to non-commercial use, your choice may restrict the visibility of your document, since this provision affects search engine providers and resource discovery systems.

After publication, your electronic document will be listed in the University Library catalogue, OPACplus and the catalogue of the Bavarian Library Association. All published documents are freely accessible on the Internet and cannot be made accessible to a specific group of persons.

All documents are indexed in terms of content by the authors themselves. This should be accomplished using standardised keywords, freely defined keywords and classification systems.

Layout requirements

Format templates for OPUS publication are currently not provided. The formatting of the documents submitted to OPUS should conform to the standards of scientific work.

Technical requirements

Your publication should be submitted as an archivable PDF file. In order to allow for digital preservation, the files may not be password- or copy-protected. Files of a size up to 30 MB may be uploaded. For exceptions, for instance in the case of illustrated books with high resolution or contractual requirements from publishers which require copy protection, please contact us in advance.

Details

  • OPUS currently supports e.g. the following file formats: PDF, DOC(X), XLS(X), ZIP, AVI, MP3 and MP4.

  • The size of the file should be as small as possible. The system only accepts uploads of files of up to 30 MB size. If you need to publish larger files after consulting with us, skip the publication process when uploading the document and send us the document on a CD or DVD, or upload and share through FAUbox.

  • For the file name, we recommend a simple title without spaces or special characters such as underscores. Example: Diss.pdf

  • The document may not be copy protected or have other restricted access settings. This is a requirement by the German National Library in order to ensure digital preservation is possible. Moreover, no provision is made for restricting access to the documents through OPUS itself, for example to certain IP ranges.

  • If your work contains programmes, files, video sequences, audio documents or similar on a CD enclosure, they must be prepared for publication as a compressed zip file and uploaded as well.

  • In case of any technical difficulties in uploading your documents, please fill out the rest of the form as far as possible and send your files via e-mail to ub-opus(at)fau.de.

Please submit text documents as PDF/A files if possible

Documents are usually published on OPUS in PDF format. In order to ensure digital preservation, the document must be saved in the standardised PDF/A format. PDF/A is an international standard that was developed especially for archiving documents. By storing documents in PDF/A format, the file's readability is ensured even when it is opened on computers on which the used fonts are not installed. In this format, all fonts and images used in the document are embedded and the metadata are stored in a standardised format.

Tips for creating PDF/A files

Information on the PDF/A format is available in the online version of 'PDF/A in a Nutshell 2.0' by the PDF Association: https://www.pdfa.org/resource/pdfa-in-a-nutshell-2-0/.

Many word processors nowadays allow for conversion into PDF/A format; alternatively there are many tools available on the Internet.

Example: In Word 2010, click Save as... and after choosing the PDF file format, click on Options and select ISO 19005-1 compatibility (PDF/A).

In LibreOffice (version 3.4 and up), open the Export dialog via the menu File / Export as PDF and select the option PDF/A-1a under the General tab.

Regulations for doctoral theses (new doctoral regulations since 20 February 2019)

All details regarding the new procedures are available on FAU's information pages: (https://www.fau.de/graduiertenzentrum/promotion/). According to RPromO §15, all doctoral students must publish their doctoral thesis after the oral doctoral examination and submit mandatory copies to the University Library. Doctoral students can do this as an upload in electronic form on OPUS FAU or by handing in paper copies:

Upload in OPUS FAU:

Please determine copyright and licences before the electronic publication process to ensure that no third-party rights conflict with the publication. If you wish to publish your work in advance or after OPUS FAU publication with a commercial publisher, the commercial publisher must have agreed to the electronic open access publication on OPUS FAU under the chosen (e.g. Creative Commons) license.

In the case of a cumulative dissertation according to § 10 subparagraph 3 in conjunction with the respective FPromO there is the following procedure. If the articles/papers are already accepted for publication by the publisher, in print, or if they are already published in electronic journals, they are exempted from the publication obligation according to sentence 1. This means that these publications do not necessarily have to be uploaded in full text to OPUS FAU, but the complete bibliographic information including DOI must be provided. However, if all license rights are clarified or concordant, the publication of the complete publication(s) is still recommended.

Paper form (commercial publisher):

If you don‘t publish on OPUS FAU, you may submit

  • six copies, if the complete dissertation is published by a commercial publisher as a book with ISBN. The publisher also needs to confirm a minimum circulation of 150 copies in case of need or

  • six copies if the complete dissertation is published by FAU (FAU University Press),

to the Doctoral theses service Main Library.

Procedure

On the Publish page, upload the PDF or PDF/A file to private temporary storage on OPUS.

Your work will be checked by Library staff according to Library guidelines and quality standards before it is published on the OPUS server and made permanently accessible to the public. Amendments are no longer possible at this point.

The publication format for your electronic thesis on OPUS is PDF (Portable Document Format) or ideally PDF/A. In order to allow for digital preservation, the files may not be password- or copy-protected.

Files of a size up to 30 MB may be uploaded. For exceptions, for instance in the case of illustrated books with high resolution or contractual requirements from publishers which require copy protection, please contact us in advance.

For the file name, we recommend a simple title without spaces or special characters such as underscores. Example: HansSchneiderDissertation.

After uploading your file and providing the bibliographical data, please send a personally signed printout of the publication contract via email, post or fax to Doctoral thesis service Main Library. You can also submit the contract in person during our office hours.

Doctoral theses service Main Library
Old building, Room 2.018
Universitätsstr. 4
91054 Erlangen,
Phone: 09131/85-29377
Fax: 09131/85-29309
E-mail: ub-opus(at)fau.de

Office hours:
Monday-Friday 08.30 am - 12.00 am
and by appointment

With this contract, you grant the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg the right to store your document, make it electronically accessible to the public worldwide and, where necessary, to convert it into other file formats or create physical copies.

This right shall also apply to the German National Library, to other institutional and subject repositories and, if required, to special collections libraries and specialist information services for science.
It shall also apply to defined repositories of commercial operators, such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT), with which the University Library has a contractual relationship; the OPUS FAU publication contract allows this, even if the author has chosen a non-commercial Creative Commons license. However, the commercial operators are obliged to indicate the license chosen by the author identically.
Furthermore, you affirm that you have cleared all copyrights and that no third-party rights present a barrier to the electronic publication of your work. If you want to publish your work with a publisher in addition, the publisher must have agreed to the electronic publication of your work through the University Library. For doctoral theses, please ensure that the Doctoral Affairs Committee has approved the publication and that the electronic version is identical to the approved version in format and content.

As soon as the Thesis and Dissertations Office has received the publication contract, your work is uploaded to the main archive. In order to guarantee the authenticity of the documents, no options for amending or deleting documents is provided for after this point, comparable to print publications.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT)

With ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT), our University Library contract with ProQuest provides indexing & abstracting in a renowned subject database, and a print distribution service for all OPUS FAU dissertation publications available in digital-only format.

FAU doctoral students are eligible for a royalty from these based on sales and use of their dissertation, provided they contact disspub@proquest.com and set up an account. Royalty rates are currently set at 10% of net income. It is also possible to have the dissertation removed from PQDT at any time should the above services not be desired. In such cases, please inform disspub@proquest.com and put ub-opus@fau.de in copy.

As an additional benefit, ProQuest makes archival quality print copies available to you to purchase at a discounted price. Order your copy at https://dissexpress.proquest.com/search.html by searching for it (note, there may be some delay between OPUS FAU publication and indexing in PQDT). Verify that you are the author before check-out to receive discounted pricing. FAQ and instructions available at https://support.proquest.com/articledetail?id=kA23r0000007E8zCAE.

Important points to observe regarding content

The title page and the second page must comply with the rules set forth in the appendix of the General Doctoral Regulations (https://www.doc.zuv.fau.de//L1/Promotion_und_Habilitation/Rahmenpromotionsordnung/konsolidierte_Fassungen/RPromO_20130121_idF_20211201.pdf). Please also observe the further specifications in the General Doctoral Regulations and FAU's guidelines for safeguarding good academic practice.

The provisions of the General Doctoral Regulations notwithstanding, the author's CV does not need to be published. Since the thesis will be permanently accessible to the global public, this may be waived for privacy reasons. Please remove the CV from your publications before publishing in these cases. The CV cannot be deleted later on. The same applies to other sensitive personal data, such as the name of the birthplace on the title page of the dissertation. Please omit these personal information like the birthplace in the version to be published. However, the thesis must still be marked as coming from FAU.

Contact:

Theses and Dissertations Office, Main Library
Universitätsstr. 4
91054 Erlangen,
Old building, Room 2.018
Phone: +49 (0)9131 85 29377
Fax +49 (0)9131 85 29309
E-mail: ub-opus(at)fau.de

Office hours:
Monday-Friday 8:30 am -12 am

Consultations by prior appointment

Publication agreement and blocking notice (Embargo)

Publication agreement

The publication contract governs the legal relationship between you as an author and FAU, with the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg (Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg) acting on its behalf. You can find the contract here: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_DE_2022-10.pdf. The complete English translation: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_EN_2022-10.pdf. The translation is only for your information - please never sign the English translation, but the German version. Only the German version is the official version.

Your document may only be published (i.e. made accessible on OPUS) after the signed contract has been received by the University Library.

With this contract, you grant the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg the right to store your document, make it electronically accessible to the public worldwide and, where necessary, to convert it into other file formats or create physical copies.

This right shall also apply to the German National Library and, where necessary, to special collections libraries and scientific information services. Furthermore, you affirm that you have cleared all copyrights and that no third-party rights present a barrier to the electronic publication of your work. If you want to publish your work with a publisher in addition, the publisher must have agreed to the electronic publication of your work through the University Library. For doctoral theses, please ensure that the Doctoral Affairs Committee has approved the publication and that the electronic version is identical to the approved version in format and content.

Blocking notice (Embargo)

If a delayed publication of the dissertation is necessary, e. g. due to a patent application procedure, the doctoral candidate and the supervisor can apply for a blocking notice for a period of one year from the responsible doctoral body. This can be extended once for another year. Please fill out the blocking notice form and hand it in, together with the signature of your supervisor, for further processing at your responsible Office of Doctoral Affairs. If you have received a scan of the completely signed form from your Office of Doctoral Affairs, please send it together with the publication contract as an e-mail attachment to ub-opus@fau.de and upload the electronic version of your dissertation to OPUS FAU at the same time. Please remember to enter the one-year embargo yourself in the OPUS FAU publication form under “Date of online publication (embargo date)"; the University Library will check this entry with the embargo notice form.

An extension to the blocking notice (for a maximum of one additional year) can be requested through the same form. Please submit the request for an extension of the first embargo period at least 30 days before the end of that embargo period. In order to be processed in time, the approved request form for the extended embargo must be submitted to the University Library at least 14 days before the initial embargo ends. A retroactive extension to the blocking notice is not possible once the blocking period has ended.

Please find the blocking notice form here: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Sperrvermerk.pdf

When filling this form please use the PDF form fields the blocking notice form offers. This will make further processing of the form easier for us.

Please find an English language version to help with filling out the German form here: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/blocking_notice.pdf

If you need legal advice, you may contact our in-house legal counsel Petra Heermann during her office hours Wednesday/Thursday 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. at +49 (0)9131 85-2 93 94 (and -2 39 20) or send an e-mail to Petra.Heermann@fau.de.

Regulations for pre- and post-prints

Publication or pre- and post-prints is legally possible and desirable in many cases. Several studies have shown that Open Access secondary publications increase citation frequency. Studies on the subject of impact analysis may be found under 'The Open Citation Project - Reference Linking and Citation Analysis for Open Archives' (opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html).

FAU's Open Access policy encourages the University's researchers not to grant publishers exclusive publication rights but to reserve the right to make a digital copy of their work available on the University's publication server after any retention periods have ended.

More information on the respective retention periods of various publishers can, for instance, be found on the SHERPA/RoMEO list. Please also pay attention to the information on the publication process on OPUS FAU and its technical requirements.

Changing/deleting documents

In order to guarantee the authenticity of the documents, they may not be amended or deleted, similar to print publications. If authors who have voluntarily published their work should desire a correction, they must re-publish the document. This is equivalent to the procedure of a new edition in print publishing. The individual versions can be linked.

VG Wort

Authors can register documents they publish in FAU OPUS for dividends with the registry portal T.O.M from VG WORT https://tom.vgwort.de/portal/index. You will need to register with T.O.M. for this. Please see the website for more information and the terms and conditions for dividends.

When you register your document, you will need to provide the URL http://www.kobv.de as the domain. The direct link to the document or the OPUS FAU website http://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fau/home will not be accepted by the system. If VG Wort performs a check to confirm your entitlement, deliver the exact path to your document.

Payment counters are not supported in OPUS FAU.

General information on the publication forms

Describe the document you want to publish on OPUS according to the categories given. Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required (mandatory fields). Please provide as detailed and complete information as possible. At the end of the form you can use the field 'Comments' for further information that did not fit into any of the categories provided.

Here are the German special characters for you to copy and paste in case you do not have a German keyboard: ä ö ü ß Ä Ö Ü.

Document types on OPUS FAU

Working paper

The document type Working paper stands for a preliminary scientific or technical paper published in a series by an institution (also research paper, research memorandum, discussion paper).

Bachelor's thesis

The document type Bachelor's thesis is the lowest level of final paper. Please note the quality specifications in our guidelines.

Conference object

The document type conference object includes all types of documents connected with a conference. (Conference reports and paper, conference lectures, proceedings as well as other conference contributions such as abstracts and posters).

Article

The document type Article includes documents that were published as articles, leading articles, editorials, indexes, directories or as part of the editorial section in a scientific journal or periodical.

Report

The document type Report includes text material that does not fit into any other category, e.g. reports, external research reports, messages, statistical reports, final project reports, technical documentation and manuals.

Image

The document type Image is for visual representations. Examples are images and photographs of objects, paintings, prints, drawings, other pictures and graphics, diagrams, cards and notes. This document type can be used for digital and physical objects.

Book

The document type Book is for classic monographic works.

Part of a Book

The document type Part of a book represents documents that were created as part of a monographic work, such as chapters or contributions to collected editions.

Doctoral Thesis

The document type Doctoral Thesis describes the thesis which is submitted to achieve a doctoral degree.

Moving Image

The document type Moving image means a series of visual representations that convey the impression of movement when shown in sequence. Examples include animations, films, TV programmes, videos or visual representations in a simulation.

Habilitation

The document type Habilitation is a postdoctoral thesis submitted for Habilitation which qualifies the individual to teach.

Course material

The document type course material means teaching materials in the wider sense, e.g. recordings of lectures in moving image or audio format, exercise material, preparatory and examination materials. For actual lectures, see the document type Lecture.
Teaching materials are generally not accepted for OPUS FAU unless the entirety of the submitted teaching materials constitutes a qualified scientific work.

Master's thesis

The document type Master's thesis means the intermediate level of final paper. Please note the quality specifications in our guidelines.

Preprint

The document type Preprint includes preliminary scientific or technical papers that are not to be published in an institution's series but in a scientific journal or as part of a book.

Review

The document type Review includes reviews of books and articles, or summaries of a work that were not written by its author.

Sound

The document type Sound means a resource that is mainly for listening purposes, such as music files, audio CDs, voice or sound recordings. No difference is made between sounds, noises and music.

Issue

The document type Issue stands for a complete issue of a journal in the conventional sense.

Lecture

The document type Lecture includes university speeches, lectures and inaugural lectures. Such materials are generally not accepted for OPUS FAU unless the entirety of the submitted lecture texts constitutes a qualified scientific work.

Other

The document type Other is intended for any documents that do not fit any of the categories listed. Please note the quality specifications in our guidelines.


The descriptions of the document types were mostly taken from OPUS documentation and partly adapted (Source: OPUS 4 Manual, version 4.2.1 (dated: 01 March 2012)).

The elements of the publication form

Submitter (required field)

Please enter your contact details in case of any questions. This information is only stored internally.

Author(s) (required field)

Please list all of the text's authors in the order which was used in the publication. Authors are the person(s) responsible for the intellectual content, e.g. authors of text documents, and artists, photographers or illustrators for graphic documents.

If you are uploading an essay published in a journal with the authors listed as 'Meier, Martin/Müller, Martina/Schulze, Sabrina', please use this order, even if you are Sabrina Schulze.

Please list the e-mail addresses and ORCIDS of the authors where possible. You will find comprehensive information about ORCIDs and other author identifiers on https://ub.fau.de/en/writing-publishing/author-and-institutional-identifiers/.

Institutes

Please select the author's/authors' institution. By clicking on the 'detailed' button, you can choose from a more detailed listing within a faculty. If you cannot assign your title to a specific organization, special group or institute, please select your faculty or institution. You may add more institutes by clicking on the button 'Add one more institute'.

Language (required field)

Please enter the language of your document. In case of multilingual texts, please select the dominant or, if there is no dominant language, the more international language (usually English).

Title(s) (required field)

Please enter the title and, where applicable, the subtitle of your document in the format "Title. Subtitle". Example: Working Knowledge. Arbeit gestalten in der Innovationsgesellschaft

For online publications in particular, it is useful to enter the title in other languages as well to increase your publication's searchability. You may add more titles (or delete them) by clicking on the appropriate button.

Publisher and/or other participating persons

Definition: Additional person(s) to those listed as author(s) or creator(s). They made a significant intellectual contribution to the resource which is secondary in relation to that of the author(s) or creator(s) (e.g. co-author, editor, translator, illustrator, conference manager, moderator, sponsor, organiser, etc.).

Please enter the function of the participating person(s) (e.g. reviewer, translator, illustrator, editor, etc.) after the surname, e.g. Meier, editor; Schmidt, illustrator; ...

You may add more persons (or delete them) by clicking on the according button.

Note: not a required but a desirable element if several persons with different functions were involved in the creation of a document.

Publishing institution/conference data

If the work was not published by a person but by an institution or as part of a congress, please enter the institution or conference data in this field.

Example: 'XY Foundation' / For conferences: name of conference, number, year, place

Definition: The organisation(s) responsible for the intellectual content of the document. Organisations (referred to in librarian terminology as Körperschaften, meaning 'corporate bodies') are usually responsible for the intellectual content when the document has been authored by a collective of authors or if no personal author is listed (e.g. examination regulations or similar).

First reviewer/supervisor, date of oral examination, institution awarding the degree

These details are only required for final papers (doctoral and postdoctoral theses, Bachelor's thesis/Master's thesis/final paper). The institution awarding the degree does not have to be identical with the publishing institution.

Year of publication

Please enter the year of the document's publication.

Peer-reviewed journals often make articles available on the publisher's website before the actual journal is published. In this case, please enter the year of publication of the journal and enter the online publication date in the field 'Possible date of online publication'.

Date of online publication

Please enter the date from which the document may be published on OPUS FAU. If your text has never been published anywhere before, please enter today's date.

This field is also relevant, however, if you want to publish your text on OPUS FAU but it has already been published with another publisher. Often publishers allow Open Access publication on a university publication server after a certain retention period has been observed. For more information, consult the SHERPA/RoMEO List. In such cases, please enter the earliest date from which we may publish your document in this field.

Title and subtitle of the containing work/journal

Please enter the title and, where applicable, the subtitle of the journal or collected edition in the format "Title. Subtitle".

Volume/year, journal

This information is only needed for articles in journals and complete journal issues. The required details can be found on the cover or in the publisher details. If your essay was published in a journal that is not numbered according to year or issue, you can leave the field empty.

Length/size

Please enter the page count including enclosures or the file size. Entries for essays as follows: "First page - last page". Enclosures are, for instance, cards or CDs. If you have no page count, you should enter the file size in KB or MB.

Publication series

Please enter in which publication series the volume was published if the series is not published within FAU or if you cannot find the title of the series in the series drop-down menu. Please enter the volume number of the series after the title of the series.

Example: Name of series ; 3

Circulation

Please enter the circulation. If the submission in question is a first edition, this field may be skipped.

Example: "2nd edition" or "3rd, fully revised edition"

Place of publication

Please enter the name of the city where your document's publisher is located. For online publications that are to see their original publication on OPUS, please enter 'Erlangen'.

ISSN/ISBN of the document

Please enter the ISSN or ISBN if applicable.

EU-Project number

Only for EU project publications. Please enter your EU-Project number / Contract (GA) number to deposit your work also in OpenAIRE.

Abstract(s)

Definition: A summary of the resource's content for document-like resources or a description of the content for graphic resources. It may be copied and pasted into the field from the document. If no description of contents has been written, the introduction, summary, table of contents or similar may also be entered.

If you enter a brief summary of your text, this will allow others to research your literature more easily. In databases and scientific search engines, the abstract field is usually also searched even when the full text of the document is not searched. This means that your text can be searched more easily if you enter an informative summary.

You can add further abstracts by clicking the button 'Add one more abstract'.

Controlled keywords, free keywords

Here you can enter terms that describe the content of your publication. We recommend using several meaningful terms in German and English.

Classifications

The following general and specialist classifications are currently available:

general: DDC classes (mandatory field) and Regensburger Verbundklassifikation (RVK)

specialist: CCS classification for computer science, MSC classification for mathematics and PACS classification for physics.

Licences

You can decide under which conditions you want to make your publication accessible to the public. Please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en for further information on the individual licences. You must hold the appropriate rights for the usage of licences, so you have to check if you have transferred exclusive rights e. g. to a publisher.

Approval of the guidelines and publication contract

Please approve of our guidelines and send a personally signed printout of the publication contract via email, post or fax to Doctoral thesis service Main Library. You may also submit the contract in person during our office hours or fax it:

Doctoral thesis service Main Library
Old building, Room 2.018
Universitätsstr. 4
91054 Erlangen
Phone: 09131/85-29377
Fax: 09131/85-29309
E-mail: ub-opus(at)fau.de

Office hours:
Monday - Friday 08.30 a.m. - 12.00 p.m.

With this contract, you grant the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg the right to store your document, make it electronically accessible to the public worldwide and, where necessary, to convert it into other file formats or create physical copies.

This right shall also apply to the German National Library and, where necessary, to special collections libraries. Furthermore, you affirm that you have cleared all copyrights and that no third-party rights present a barrier to the electronic publication of your work. If you want to publish your work with a publisher in addition, the publisher must have agreed to the electronic publication of your work through the University Library. For doctoral theses, please ensure that the Doctoral Affairs Committee has approved the publication and that the electronic version is identical to the approved version in format and content.

Copyright law protects the creator in their intellectual and personal relationship to the work and the usage of the work. The full legal text is available at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/index.html.

A commercial publication also does not completely exclude the option of publishing your work Open Access: Most publishers allow delayed archiving in OPUS FAU. You can look up the conditions of commercial publishers in the SHERPA/RoMEO list (Rights Metadata for Open Archiving): https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/.

Usage rights

Non-exclusive usage rights: The non-exclusive right of use entitles the holder to use the work in the specified manner without excluding use through other parties.

Exclusive usage rights: Exclusive right of use entitles the holder use of the work in the specified manner under exclusion of all other persons and to grant usage rights to others. The creator's right of use may be reserved.

The German Copyright Act (Urherberrechtsgesetz, UrHG) applies without restriction to documents that are offered in electronic form via data networks. Please note:

Individual reproductions, e.g. copies and printouts, may only be created for private and other personal use (Section 53, Copyright Act). The production and dissemination of further reproductions is only permitted with the copyright holders express approval.

The user is personally responsible for the observation of legal regulations and may be held liable in case of violations.

If you need legal advice, you may contact our in-house counsel Petra Heermann during her office hours Wednesday/Thursday 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. at +49 (0)9131 85-2 93 94 (and -2 39 20) or send an e-mail to Petra.Heermann@fau.de.

The publication contract governs the legal relationship between you as an author and FAU, with the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg (Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg) acting on its behalf. You can find the contract here: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_DE_2022-10.pdf. The complete English translation: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_EN_2022-10.pdf. The translation is only for your information - please never sign the English translation, but the German version. Only the German version is the official version.

Your document may only be published (i.e. made accessible on OPUS) after the signed contract has been received by the University Library.

With this contract, you grant the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg the right to store your document, make it electronically accessible to the public worldwide and, where necessary, to convert it into other file formats or create physical copies.

This right shall also apply to the German National Library, to other institutional and subject repositories and, if required, to special collections libraries and specialist information services for science. In addition, for dissertations, see here. Furthermore, you affirm that you have cleared all copyrights and that no third-party rights present a barrier to the electronic publication of your work. If you want to publish your work with a publisher in addition, the publisher must have agreed to the electronic publication of your work through the University Library. For doctoral theses, please ensure that the Doctoral Affairs Committee has approved the publication and that the electronic version is identical to the approved version in format and content.

By choosing a CC licence during the publication process, you can easily set legally binding conditions regarding the use and further use of your publication. You must hold the appropriate rights for the usage of CC licences, so you have to check if you have transferred exclusive rights e. g. to a publisher. If you need legal advice, you may contact our in-house counsel Petra Heermann during her office hours Wednesday/Thursday 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. at +49 (0)9131 85-2 93 94 (and -2 39 20) or send an e-mail to Petra.Heermann@fau.de.

Source: https://www.e-learning.tu-darmstadt.de/media/elc/__relaunch/02_services_angebote/rechtsfragen_1/creative_commons_1/cc-lizenzen_ueberblick_ueberarb08022018_ZumDownload.png

Please note that with regard to non-commercial use, your choice may restrict the visibility of your document, since this provisions affects search engine providers and resource discovery systems.

Please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en for further information on the individual licences.

By not choosing a CC licence, the German Copyright Act (UrhG) and of course the signed publication contract applies. With this contract, you grant the University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg the right to make your document electronically accessible to the public worldwide. Any user may gratuitously use, download, save and print the contents for private, non-commercial use in accordance with the German Copyright Act (e. g. printing is only allowed for small numbers or parts, cf. § 53 UrhG). For further rights and obligations of the contractual parties visit https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_DE_2022-10.pdf. The complete English translation can be found here: https://ub.fau.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Vertrag_EN_2022-10.pdf

Documentation

This document server is based on the repository software OPUS4 OPUS is documented here: https://www.opus-repository.org/.

Publisher's information

Information according to Section 5, German Broadcast Media Act (Telemediengesetz)* and Section 55, Interstate Broadcasting Agreement (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag)**

* German Broadcast Media Act from 26 February 2007 (BGBl I p.179).
** Interstate Agreement for Broadcasting (RStV) from 31 August 1991 in the version of Art. 1 of the 10th Interstate Agreement on the Amendment of Interstate Broadcasting Agreements from 19 December 2007 (cf. GBl. 2008, p. 237)

University Library Erlangen-Nürnberg
Universitätsstraße 4, 91054 Erlangen
Postal address: Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91051 Erlangen
Phone: + 49 (0)9131 85 22151
Fax: + 49 (0)9131 85 29309
E-mail: ub-direktion(at)fau.de

The University Library is a central institution of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. It is legally represented by the director of the University Library, Ms Konstanze Söllner.
Value-added tax registration number according to Section 27, Value Added Tax Act (Umsatzsteuergsetz): DE 132507686

Online editorial office:
Co-ordination: Ingrid Schenker
Creation of websites: Gisela Glaeser, Brigitte Preller, Karin Denzler
E-mail: ub-webmaster(at)fau.de

Exclusion of liability

The operator has compiled and verified all information provided with great care. However, we cannot assume liability or furnish a guarantee that the data is correct, complete or up-to-date, or regarding the quality or constant availability of the information provided. We will not be liable for any damages arising from computer viruses or the installation and use of software when accessing or downloading data from this website.

Websites credited to an author reflect the opinions and insights of that author. The operator expressly reserves the right to change, amend or delete individual web pages, services or the entire website without prior notice or to interrupt or terminate the publication.

Links and references (disclaimer)

The operator is only responsible for the original content provided in accordance with the applicable laws. This original content is to be distinguished from links to the websites of other operators. Through these references marked as 'external links', the operator enables visitors to access 'third-party content'.

The operator is not responsible for this third-party content as the operator does not initiate the data transmission, does not choose the recipient of the information and does not select or have any influence on the information transmitted. The methods used to provide access and link to this third-party information also do not involve any automatic short-term storage, resulting in a full exclusion of any liability for third-party content on the operator's part.

When links to these websites were first incorporated, however, the authors of the relevant websites or the operator's editors reviewed the external content to ascertain whether it would possibly entail liability under civil or criminal law. Should the operator become aware or be made aware by others that the content of a website linked from this site could constitute a civil or criminal law violation, then the link will be immediately removed as long as this is technically feasible and within reasonable expectation.

Liability for illegal, inaccurate or incomplete content and for damages resulting from the use or non-use of information provided by third parties shall lie exclusively with the respective operators of the linked sites.

Data protection and technical resources

All data submitted to the operator in various online forms are used exclusively for business-related and technical purposes. No personal data will be passed on to third parties. General information on data protection including details of the FAU data protection officer and data protection officer for the University Library can be found at https://ub.fau.de/en/privacy/

Caching

Please see http://www.kobv.de/impressum and http://www.zib.de/impressum for the legal details of the hosting partner KOBV providing this OPUS 4 platform; on these pages you will find all information regarding the contracted data processing and caching of our OPUS FAU instance (https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fau/), the KOBV portal, the KOBV library guide and other web servers with the domain ".kobv.de". The Apache log files of OPUS 4, for example, are deleted after 4 weeks according to KOBV information.

This platform also refers to FAU pages with the domain ".fau.de" several times. The web server of FAU's pages is run by the Erlangen Regional Computer Centre's web team. Every time a website or a linked object is requested, the following access data is stored:

  • the address (URL) of the website from which the file was requested
  • the name of the requested file
  • the date and time of the request
  • the transferred data volume
  • the access status (file transferred , file not found, etc.)
  • the description of the web browser type/the operating system used
  • the IP address of the requesting computer

The stored data are required exclusively for technical and statistical purposes; they are not compared with other data records or passed on to third parties, even in part.

After analysing access statistics, the logged data are deleted. This analysis is carried out monthly and annually and the data are deleted in the same month of the following year, at the latest. Data can be deleted early at any time.

Cookies

This website uses technically necessary session cookies. The cookies do not contain any personal data.

JavaScript

JavaScript elements, like cookies, are used to manage the display of dynamic information.

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