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Guidelines

Guidelines for the publication server OPUShtw of the University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics Berlin


Description of the service: aims and content criteria of OPUShtw

The OPUShtw publication server provides all members of HTW Berlin the technical and organisational platform for the simple and direct publication of scientific documents in digital form.

In accordance with the principles of open access, which the HTW Berlin promotes in its open access policy, OPUShtw facilitates communication within the scientific community and supports free access to scientific information without technical and legal barriers.

This service, operated by the university library and hosted by the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV), collects, archives, stores, catalogues and makes documents available online on a long-term basis.

Using persistent identifiers (URNs), they are indexed in national and international library catalogues, search engines for scientific texts. This ensures that the documents are archived and can be retrieved in the long term.

For the operation and development of OPUShtw, recommendations and standards from national and international initiatives such as the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI), the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) or the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative serve as a guide.


Legal Framework

In order to publish on the OPUShtw publication server, it is necessary to accept the legal terms and conditions by agreeing to the license agreement. By doing so, you grant HTW Berlin the permanent, non-exclusive right of use (§ 31 para. 2 UrhG) to the content in question, including the use of bibliographic metadata. This entitles the university to make the content publicly available in international data networks in accordance with § 19a UrhG. The authors' copyright remains unaffected.

Authors and editors may publish content that has been published on this publication server elsewhere in printed or electronic form. The material may be published in its entirety, in excerpts or in edited form.

For content that is to be published by a publisher in the future (so-called preprints), authors or editors must check whether the publisher agrees to an earlier publication via OPUShtw. For content that has already been released, authors or editors must ensure that the respective publisher agrees to the secondary publication.

Once published, documents will not be deleted from the publication server. In exceptional cases, public access may be restricted for important legal reasons.

By issuing a Creative Commons licence, the rights holders can transfer certain rights of use to the documents published on OPUShtw to the public.


The electronic document: definition and technical characteristics

For the purposes of these guidelines, the term ‘electronic document’ refers to a document based on text and graphics that can be stored in digital form on a data storage medium and distributed via computer networks.

An electronic document to be published via OPUShtw must fulfil the following criteria:

  • The document is suitable for publication and intended for distribution to the public.
  • It is not a dynamic document. If changes are needed, the revised electronic document is saved as a new version.
  • The document meets the technical parameters set by the university library and the technical provider:
  • it is in PDF, PDF/A, TXT, HTML, HTM, ZIP, DOC, JPG, GIF or TIF format and is free of any technical protection devices and digital rights management methods (DRM).
  • The file size must not exceed 250 MB.
  • The file name may only contain alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z and 0-9), hyphens (-) and underscores (_). Spaces are not allowed.

The documents are described in their form and content by the authors themselves or by an authorised person using an online form and subsequently uploaded to OPUShtw.

Authors and editors are responsible for the quality assurance of electronic documents. Student theses are only published upon recommendation and with the approval of the examiner.


Data Provision

Hosting by the Cooperative Library Network Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV) guarantees that documents uploaded to OPUShtw will be available online for at least five years.

The data will remain available online for an unlimited period of time if possible. As long as OPUS is licenced by HTW Berlin, access to the contents is guaranteed for at least five years. Archiving beyond this period depends on the availability of format, visualisation software and conversion options. Published documents cannot be edited or deleted. Exceptions are formulated in the licence agreements.


Electronic documents that are published and distributed via the publication server

The following categories of electronic documents written by members of the HTW Berlin can be archived and distributed via OPUShtw:

  • Official bulletins: The document type ‘Official Bulletins’ refers to the statutes, ordinances and legal announcements of HTW Berlin.
  • Part of a Periodical: The document type part of a periodical refers to a section (volume, issue, volume) of a periodical and typically contains several contributions (articles).
  • Bachelor thesis: The document type bachelor thesis refers to the lowest level of a final thesis (usually after three years of study). Bachelor theses are only published on the recommendation of a supervisor and only if the thesis is graded ‘2.0’ or higher.
  • Contribution to a Periodical The document type contribution to a periodical refers to an article in a newspaper, a weekly magazine or another non-scientific periodical.
  • Report: The document type Report refers to text-based material that cannot be categorised elsewhere, such as reports, external research reports, internal reports, communications, statistical reports, project completion reports, technical documentation and instructions.
  • Book: The document type book is intended for classic monographic works.
  • Diploma thesis: The document type diploma thesis refers to the intermediate level of a final thesis. The diploma thesis is a final thesis from before the start of the Bologna Process for academic degrees at the same level as the current master's degree.
  • Doctoral thesis: The document type dissertation refers to the highest level of a thesis, which is equivalent to or higher than a dissertation, but does not follow the Bologna Framework. It also includes habilitation theses.
  • E-Tutorial: The E-Tutorial is a type of document that provides instructions for independent learning on specific topics.
  • Habilitation: For the definition of the document type Habilitation, see doctoral thesis.
  • Conference Proceeding: The document type Conference Proceedings includes all types of documents associated with a conference, including conference papers, conference reports, conference lectures, contributions to conference proceedings, conference contributions, abstracts, volumes of conference contributions, and conference posters.
  • Course Material: The document type Course Material refers to teaching materials in the broadest sense, for example lecture recordings as moving image or sound documents, exercise material, preparation or even exam material. For lecture texts themselves, on the other hand, the document type ‘Lecture’ is used.
  • Master's thesis: The document type Master's thesis refers to the intermediate level of a thesis and also refers to theses written before the start of the Bologna Process for academic degrees at the same level of the current Master's degree (Magister, university diploma, state examination). Master's theses are only published on the recommendation of a supervisor and only if they are graded at least ‘2.0’.
  • Preprint: The document type preprint includes preliminary scientific or technical papers that do not appear in an institutional series but are intended for publication in a scientific journal or as part of a book.
  • Other: The document type ‘Other’ is intended for anything that does not fit into any of the existing document types.
  • Study thesis: The document type study thesis refers to text-based work that is created as part of a course of study (term papers, seminar papers, research and project reports) and is not classified as a final thesis.
  • Part of a Book: The document type ‘Part of a book’ is used for documents that were created as part of a book, such as chapters or articles in anthologies.
  • Lecture: The document type lecture contains university speeches, lectures and inaugural lectures.
  • Article: The document type article includes documents that have been published as articles, editorials, editorial, index, table of contents or editorial section in a scientific journal or scientific periodical (postprint).
  • The description of the document types was largely taken from the OPUS manual for version 4.7.1, which can be found at the following address: https://www.opus-repository.org/userdoc/index.html.

    Final theses of students at HTW Berlin

    Students' final theses can be published internally and archived long-term on the university's publication server. These are subject to separate specifications for publication.


    Metadata

    Bibliographic metadata is collected when content is archived and published on the publication server.

    They are indexed in national and international library catalogues, search engines and other reference tools (including the German National Library, BASE and Google Scholar).

    When collecting metadata, personal data in particular, the data protection notices of HTW Berlin and the OPUShtw publication server are observed. Among other details, content is provided with the following metadata:

  • Persistent identifiers, e.g. URN or DOI,
  • Abstracts: in German or English,
  • Keywords: free keywords in German and/or English (according to OGND).

  • Metadata for the content stored on the OPUS publication server is freely accessible on the internet and can be viewed, saved and made available to third parties. It is based on the following metadata standards: the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI), the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.


    Organisational rules and information

    The publication server is operated by the university library of HTW Berlin and hosted and developed by KOBV. In addition, the KOBV ensures regular storage and backup routines to secure the stored data. The OPUShtw publication server is operated on the basis of the current version of the OPUS software, which is documented at https://www.kobv.de/services/hosting/opus/. Electronic publication is only possible for members of the HTW Berlin and is free of charge. The submission of electronic documents for distribution via the publication server is done via the online form.


    As of 17 December 2024



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