1. Goals and contents

2. Legal framework

3. The electronic document

4. Organisational rules

5. Rules for archiving

6. Technical specifics

7. Open Access

1. Goals and contents 

The publication server offers all members and affiliates of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences the organisational and technical framework for the prompt electronic publication and long-term storage of scientific documents. The service promotes open and technically and legally barrier-free access to specialist information in the sense of Open Access.
The content of the service is managed and administered by the University Library of the University of Applied Sciences and the technical side is hosted by the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV). To ensure citability, all documents are given a Uniform Resource Name (URN), which is stored together with the document on the publication server of the Brandenburg University of Technology and in the archive server of the German National Library (DNB), which guarantee permanent access to the resources. Access is provided via search engines, OAI service providers and other reference tools. Long-term archiving of the submitted theses, articles and other original documents is guaranteed.

2. Legal framework conditions

The author grants the operator of the publication server the following rights of use

• the right to electronic storage, in particular in databases

• the right to convert for the purpose of long-term archiving or visualisation,
  with due regard to the preservation of the content (the original archiving remains intact)

• the right to report and transfer to a long-term archiving body

• the right to make the metadata, in particular abstract and table of contents
  to make them accessible and usable to anyone without restriction.

The operator undertakes to support the authors in their publication projects, to archive the documents and to keep them permanently available at reasonable expense. The authors and editors are solely responsible for the content of the documents.

The authors or the editors of the publication are obliged to clarify any copyrights and exploitation rights of third parties that may be affected or to obtain their consent. If the author becomes aware of the existence or development of legal obstacles, he/she shall inform the TH Brandenburg University Library immediately. The University Library of the TH Brandenburg is not liable for damages resulting from the violation of copyrights and exploitation rights, provided that there is no evidence of intentional or grossly negligent fault.

The copyrights of the authors shall be preserved. By granting a Creative Commons licence, certain rights of use can be transferred to the general public. Publication on the publication server of the TH Brandenburg does not preclude further publication of the documents in specialist journals or monographs or on other servers. In accordance with the recommendations of the German Council of Science and Humanities on digital information provision by university libraries, all academics at the TH Brandenburg are requested to reserve the right of self-archiving on the publication server of the TH Brandenburg when concluding publishing agreements and to publish the documents they have written on the publication server in addition - possibly after a retention period (especially in the case of theses, which may contain data to be protected) (see www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/4935-01.html p. 26 (Greifswald 13 July 2001)).

The metadata of the documents published in the publication server may be retrieved by all via the OAI interface, stored and made available to third parties - if necessary in enriched form or in selection. In the case of initial electronic publication on the publication server, a link to the frontdoor of the resource must be provided in the form of the URL or URN.

Documents that have already been published will not be deleted from the server. In the case of secondary publications and preprints, online access may be restricted in exceptional cases if there is an important legal reason. Preprints can also be withdrawn by the authors or editors for reasons of content. However, the documents remain in the archive.

3. The electronic document

For the purposes of these Guidelines, the term "electronic document" means a document based on text and graphics, stored in digital form on a data carrier and distributed via computer networks. The publication of multimedia documents containing audio and video sequences is also possible.

An electronic document to be published via the publication server fulfils the following conditions:

• It is intended for distribution to the public.

• It is not a dynamic document. If changes are necessary, the modified electronic document is saved as a new version.

• It complies with the technical parameters specified by the university library.

The distribution of electronic documents can be restricted spatially - for example to the campus of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences. Nationally and internationally defined standards and interfaces such as Dublin Core Metadata Standard, the guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) are used for the formal and content indexing of the electronic documents. The metadata is assigned by the submitter by entering it in an online registration form and is checked, corrected and, if necessary, supplemented by the university library.

4. Organisational regulations 

The publication server of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences is operated in terms of content by the university library and technically by the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV).

Electronic publication is free of charge for members and affiliates of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences and their institutions.

The submission of electronic documents for distribution via the publication server is usually done via an upload form on the publication server.

The contact for all questions concerning the publication server is the university library of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences.

Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences
University Library
Cliff Buschhart
Magdeburger Str. 50
14770 Brandenburg an der Havel

cliff.buschhart@th-brandenburg.de

Tel.: 03381 355-161

https://bibliothek.th-brandenburg.de 

5. Rules for archiving 

The following electronic documents are stored and distributed via the publication server:

In terms of the collective mandate of the publication server of the TH Brandenburg, the following types of electronic documents are stored, whereby the application of recognised scientific quality assurance procedures (e.g. peer review) and the adherence to good scientific practice (see also guidelines for ensuring good scientific practice of the German Research Foundation (DFG)) are assumed:

• Publications of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences with scientific content

• Publications and publication series edited by members of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences such as collective works, congress volumes, research reports

• Theses by students of the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, such as diploma, bachelor and master theses, if the publication was approved by the supervisor or another member of the teaching staff.

• Open Access secondary publications of articles and publications that have already appeared, so-called postprints, or preprints of scientific publications that are still to be published elsewhere.

In the case of student theses, quality assurance of the content is the responsibility of the supervisor of the thesis, who then also recommends it to the library for publication. In the case of publication series, conference proceedings, etc., the publisher is responsible for quality assurance.

Changing / deleting documents: In order to guarantee the authenticity of the documents, documents comparable to printed publications cannot be changed or deleted. If the author wishes to make a correction in the case of voluntary publications, the changed document must be re-submitted. This corresponds to the process of a new edition in printed publications. The individual versions can be linked to each other.

6. Technical features of the publication server

The publication server is operated on the basis of the OPUS 4 software. OPUS is documented under

https://www.opus-repository.org/userdoc/.

The documents are provided with permanent and individual persistent identifiers in the form of URN addresses, which allow immediate access to the documents.

The preferred presentation format is currently PDF

The electronic documents are searchable in local, regional and national catalogues, search engines and at OAI service providers (e.g. OAIster). A search in the bibliographic metadata and in the full text is available on the pages of the publication server.

The OPUS server uses a web analysis tool PIwik for statistical evaluations.

The hosting operator KOBV guarantees the necessary data security and data protection for the publication server of the TH Brandenburg. In addition, the KOBV ensures regular storage and backup routines to protect the data stored.

A procedure of incremental (daily), cumulative (weekly) and full (monthly) data backups is used.

The data is backed up on different tapes in each case.

The data is backed up daily at the hosting provider KOBV on magnetic cassettes which are located in a tape robot.

The data backup cassettes remain in the tape robot, which is located in a separate, specially secured room in the KOBV computer centre.

The KOBV guarantees the full availability of the publication server of the TH Brandenburg on all working days and ensures the fastest possible restoration of the application system in case of possible system failures.

Maintenance-related system failures will be announced by the hosting provider KOBV in good time; the corresponding information will be passed on by the TH Brandenburg University Library.

The operators of the publication server guarantee an archiving period of at least 5 years for the documents brought in. Long-term archiving is guaranteed for documents in XML. The archiving period for other formats depends on the availability of the format, the viewing software and the conversion options.

7. Open access

By publishing your documents on the publication server, you support Open Access activities, promote fast and free access to information and publicly funded research results, thus improving the supply of information.

These policies are based on the guidelines of the Open Access Repository of the TH Wildau, the online publication system of the Technische Hochschule Wildau.