Guidelines EPub

  1. Objectives and functions
  2. Copyright and collection goals
  3. Requirements for electronic documents
  4. Types of documents and persons eligible for publication
  5. Long-term availability and security
  6. Cataloguing regulations
  7. Organisational regulations
  8. Legal disclaimer

1. Objectives and functions

EPub Bayreuth serves as the document and publication server of the University of Bayreuth and provides staff members of the University with the organisational and technical framework for the electronic publication of scholarly documents and administrative documents of long-term relevance. In addition to the first time publication of electronic documents, EPub Bayreuth strongly supports the publication of electronic versions of printed documents. In terms of content, EPub Bayreuth's structure mirrors the organisation of the University. Only staff members of the University may register publications after logging in.

EPub Bayreuth provides a global availability of full texts free of charge to the public in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. Long-term archiving is a target. The permanent findability as well as the quotability of documents is secured by the use of individual and permanent addresses.

The data is maintained and administered by the University Library as well as indexed through search engines and databases. Furthermore, monographic publications are entered into the catalogue of the University Library, into B3Kat, the union catalogue of the BVB and the KOBV, and into WorldCat.

Together with ERef Bayreuth, the key tool for producing the University's bibliography, EPub Bayreuth forms a unit for electronic publication at the University of Bayreuth. Therefore, EPub Bayreuth supports and promotes the University's Open Access Strategy.

2. Copyright and collection goals

By publishing on the EPub Bayreuth server, the author's copyright is not influenced in any way. An additional publication of the document in scholarly journals or monographs as well as on other servers is permitted. According to the recommendations of the German Council of Science and Humanities, all authors are asked to secure additional rights of use when signing a publisher's contract. The use of Creative Commons Licenses is strongly recommended to authors. The person publishing the electronic documents is responsible for compliance with the copyright law and exploitation right of third parties. The University of Bayreuth is not liable for damages resulting from violations of copyright laws and exploitation rights, as long as there is no verifiable premeditated or grossly negligent fault present. In case of a violation of (copyright) laws, the documents will be immediately withdrawn from EPub Bayreuth.

The majority of publishers allow their authors to deposit their work in an institutional repository or on the author's homepage. The SHERPA/RoMEO list shows the publishers' policies concerning self-archiving. Please contact your publisher with further questions. In order to ensure the keeping of temporary blocking periods between the first publication by a publisher and the Open Access publication of a document, it is possible to enter a so-called embargo period for EPub Bayreuth. Public access to the full text will be automatically provided after the embargo period is over.

The collection goals of EPub Bayreuth cover the storage and archiving of all scholarly documents published by staff members of the University of Bayreuth as well as administrative documents of long-term relevance. Electronic documents include documents exclusively published in electronic form as well as electronic versions of printed documents. There is no time limit for the storage of documents. The authors assign the right to store the publication and the authors' abstracts to the University of Bayreuth as well as their public release in data networks and, if necessary, on other storage media. Included is the right to transfer the publication to the German National Library, the Bavarian State Library and, if necessary, to Special Subject Collection libraries and to additional subject-relevant or region-relevant document servers. Remuneration will not be provided. The commercial use of the publication by the University of Bayreuth is ruled out. The refund of expenses or the legally mandatory collection of charges do not constitute a commercial use.

3. Requirements for electronic documents

For the purpose of these guidelines, the phrase "electronic document" is to be taken to mean a document that may include text or graphics, that is stored in digital form on a data medium and that is distributed through computer networks. The extension of the phrase to include multi-media documents, containing audio and video sequences, as well as the inclusion of research data, is planned for the future. An electronic document published on EPub Bayreuth has to meet the following requirements:

  • Its public release public is intended.
  • The document is complete. In case of necessary alterations, the altered document has to be stored as a new version.
  • It conforms to the technical parameters prescribed by the Bayreuth University Library. The platform independent readability of the document format used is paramount (e.g. pdf format).

4.Types of documents and persons eligible for publication

References for the following types of scholarly publications and administrative documents of long-term relevance may be added to EPub Bayreuth:

  • Monographs (complete or chapters, volumes of series)
  • complete issues of a journal
  • articles in journals or newspapers
  • conference reports, conference items
  • reports, preprints, reviews
  • Working papers, project reports, research reports, evaluations
  • Bayreuth theses that are necessary for the award of a degree (PhD thesis, habilitation, bachelor thesis, master thesis, diploma, admission thesis; no course assignments). The publication of the theses has to be recommended by a Professor at the University of Bayreuth (Exceptions: PhD theses and habilitations).
The archiving and management of electronic documents is restricted to staff members of the University of Bayreuth who have to complete the log in process with their personal user id (provided by the IT Service Centre).

5. Long-term availability and security

The publication will be stored, archived, and protected against manipulation on EPub Bayreuth. Every document published for the first time in electronic format will be provide with a persistent identifier (Uniform Resource Name) according to the urn:nbn scheme of the German National Library in order to provide long-term, globally unique and location-independent referencing, i.e. a permanent findability and quotability. The permanent and free-of-charge availability of the documents is principally intended. In substantiated cases, the distribution may be limited to a certain space (e.g. access only for staff members of the University of Bayreuth). Withdrawn documents are not deleted from the server, but excluded from access by the public. The University of Bayreuth guarantees the quotability of the work, especially the integrity of the intellectual content in case of any conversion of format, and ensures the archiving as far as it is possible at reasonable expenditure in the context of technical development.
The University of Bayreuth may transfer the rights conferred to it to a third party, as far as this third party assumes the University of Bayreuth's task of long-term archiving. On the basis of its long-term archiving task, the University of Bayreuth has the right to convert the files that were turned in into another data format. The University of Bayreuth is not liable for any changes resulting from the conversion.

6. Cataloguing regulations

By using bibliographical and technical metadata according to the Dublin core format, together with the addition of a Dewey Decimal Classification subject group and keywords, each publication can be effectively searched for an a national and international level. Adding one or more abstracts to an item is highly recommended. The data has to be supplied by the authors, respectively by the person publishing the item. In order to ensure a uniform standard of quality, a review of the metadata by the staff of the University Library follows, additions and corrections are carried out if necessary. The documents on EPub Bayreuth are available and searchable through:
OAIster - Search in more than 1100 freely available repositories
BASE - the University of Bielefeld's multi-disciplinary search engine for scholarly internet sources
Gateway Bayern - Union catalogue of the BVB and KOBV (articles are excluded)
Catalogue of the University Library Bayreuth (no articles)
Catalogue of the German National Library
edoc-server of the Humboldt University Berlin - search electronic resources of German academic libraries, archives and repositories
WorldCat (no articles)
Google and Google Scholar
OpenAIRE - research reports concerning FP7 projects funded by the EU

7. Organisational regulations

The content of EPub Bayreuth is administred by the Bayreuth University Library, technical maintenance is provided by the IT Service Centre of the University Bayreuth. First point of contact for all questions concerning EPub Bayreuth is the University Library.

Basic issues:
Stephanie Herzog
Bayreuth University Library
Central Library
Phone: 0921/55-3401
Stephanie.Herzog@uni-bayreuth.de

Für Fragen redaktioneller Art:
Wiltrud Toussaint
Bayreuth University Library
Central Library
Phone: 0921/55-3450 (Mon-Fri 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.)
epub@uni-bayreuth.de

8. Legal disclaimer (German only)

Die veröffentlichten Informationen sind sorgfältig zusammengestellt, erheben aber keinen Anspruch auf Aktualität, sachliche Korrektheit oder Vollständigkeit; eine entsprechende Gewähr wird nicht übernommen. Alle kostenfreien Angebote sind unverbindlich. Der Betreiber behält sich vor, jederzeit ohne vorherige Ankündigung das Angebot oder Teile davon zu verändern, zu ergänzen oder zu löschen. Der Serverbetreiber ist nicht für Inhalte fremder Seiten verantwortlich, die über einen Link erreicht werden. Die veröffentlichten Links werden mit größtmöglicher Sorgfalt recherchiert und zusammengestellt. Der Betreiber hat keinen Einfluss auf die aktuelle und zukünftige Gestaltung und die Inhalte der verlinkten Seiten. Der Betreiber ist nicht für den Inhalt der verknüpften Seiten verantwortlich und macht sich den Inhalt nicht zu eigen. Für illegale, fehlerhafte oder unvollständige Inhalte sowie für Schäden, die durch die Nutzung oder Nichtnutzung der Informationen entstehen, haftet allein der Anbieter der Web-Site, auf die verwiesen wurde. Die Haftung desjenigen, der lediglich auf die Veröffentlichung durch einen Link hinweist, ist ausgeschlossen. Die Urheberrechte der auf diesem Server veröffentlichten Dokumente liegen bei den jeweiligen Autoren. Bei der Gestaltung der Webseiten ist der Betreiber bemüht, entweder selbst erstellte Texte und Grafiken zu nutzen oder auf lizenzfreies Material zurückzugreifen. Alle innerhalb des Internetangebotes genannten und ggf. durch Dritte geschützten Marken- und Warenzeichen unterliegen uneingeschränkt den Bestimmungen des jeweils gültigen Kennzeichenrechts und den Besitzrechten der jeweiligen eingetragenen Eigentümer.