Frequently asked questions about JLUdocs

Content

General Information Where can I get support for questions about JLUdocs? Do I need to register to use JLUdocs? How long do the documents remain available online? Are the documents published in JLUdocs citable? Is there a remuneration option for authors via the VG WORT royalty? Are there access statistics for my published document? Publishing Who is allowed to publish documents in JLUdocs? What types of publications can be published in JLUdocs? What are the advantages of publishing in JLUdocs? In which file format should my document be submitted? What will be checked before publishing? What do I have to consider when publishing my dissertation? What do I have to consider when publishing a cumulative dissertation? How do I apply for a blocking note for the publication of my dissertation? What do I have to consider when publishing my habilitation? What do I have to consider when publishing my master’s, bachelor’s, state examination or student thesis? How can related text publications and research data publications be linked in JLUpub? Can documents published in JLUdocs be modified or deleted? How do I publish a new, revised version of my document? How can I enter special characters in the fields during submission? Legal aspects What is a publishing contract? What legal aspects do I have to consider? May I additionally publish my document elsewhere? May I publish already published documents in JLUdocs? What do I have to consider if I have used images, graphics, maps or other possibly copyrighted elements in my document? What are CC licenses? Can documents published in JLUdocs be printed and copied?

General Information

Where can I get support for questions about JLUdocs?

In these FAQs you will find a lot of information about JLUdocs and the publishing of documents. If you have further questions that are not answered here, please contact us at or by phone at 0641/99-14041 or -14021

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Do I need to register to use JLUdocs?

You do not need to register to search in JLUdocs. To publish a document, members of JLU Gießen log in with their HRZ User ID. External users, e.g. doctoral students who are no longer working at JLU, can register with a valid email address.

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How long do the documents remain available online?

JLUpub guarantees to keep the published content available for an unlimited period of time within the scope of organisational and technical possibilities.

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Are the documents published in JLUdocs citable?

All documents are permanently and reliably addressable and are therefore citable. In order to refer to a document, in addition to the usual information (author, title, etc.), the DOI of the document should be given.

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Is there a remuneration option for authors via the VG WORT royalty?

At VG WORT there are two different royalties for texts on the Internet, the regular distribution and the special distribution. Since the publications in JLUdocs do not have counting marks you can only register with VG WORT for the special distribution.

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Are there access statistics for my published document?

The usage statistics record the number of accesses to the metadata page and to the associated files for each document.
In addition, overall statistics can be retrieved up for all communities and collections.
The statistics are adjusted for robot accesses, as far as this is technically possible.

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Publishing

Who is allowed to publish documents in JLUdocs?

Members and affiliates of Justus Liebig University can publish their scientific publications in JLUdocs.

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What types of publications can be published in JLUdocs?

  • Publications with scholarly content, e.g. Journal articles (including pre- and postprints), monographs, edited volumes, research reports, working papers, series, annual reports, journals, conference papers and posters

  • Open Access parallel publications of previously published documents in the sense of the Green Road to Open Access

  • Publications that must be made public in connection with examination regulations (dissertations and habilitations)

  • Student theses (e.g. Bachelor’s, Master’s, state examination and seminar papers), if the publication is at the student’s own request and with a recommendation of the supervising professor.

  • Documents of relevance to the university and its history

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What are the advantages of publishing in JLUdocs?

  • Publishing free of charge

  • Worldwide free accessibility of the document (Open Access)

  • Bibliographical reference in JUSTfind as well as in supraregional catalogs (e.g. WorldCat) and search engines (e.g. Google Scholar, BASE)

  • Long-term archiving with a permanently stable and citable internet address

  • Cost savings in the publication of dissertations through reduction in the number of printed copies

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In which file format should my document be submitted?

Publish your document as a PDF or PDF/A file. If possible, generate a PDF document in the PDF/A-1b:2005 standard, which simplifies optimal long-term archiving. Please make sure that all security settings, e.g. password protection, are disabled. This gives us the opportunity to convert documents published in JLUdocs to improved data formats at a later date and thus make them available for the long term.

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What will be checked before publishing?

The submitters themselves are responsible for checking the content. All submitted documents are additionally formally checked by the university library, for example whether the metadata are conclusive and whether the submitted files can be opened. If there are problems, you will receive a message and the opportunity to correct them.

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What do I have to consider when publishing my dissertation?

According to the Doctoral Regulations of the university, doctoral students are obliged to publish their dissertation. The publication of your dissertation is regulated in the Richtlinien für Promotionsordnungen, 3. Änderungsbeschluss of 30.08.2021 (in German only).

You are obligated to publish the dissertation in the final version approved by the examining body responsible for the dissertation according to the respective doctoral regulations.

After publication, the dissertation cannot be deleted, withdrawn, corrected or changed.

Remove personal data, such as the curriculum vitae from your PDF.

In addition to the electronic publication, you must submit 2 printed copies to the Gießen University Library. The printed copies must be identical to the PDF in content and layout. The printed copies must be printed on non-ageing, wood-free and acid-free paper, bound in a durable binding and marked as a JLU dissertation. Transparent foils should not be used as cover sheets. A durable binding, e.g. adhesive binding, must be chosen instead of a ring binding. We accept the printed copies in the formats DIN A4 and A5, printed on one side and on both sides. Please observe the specifications of your examination office.

Deliver the printed copies to:
Giessen University Library
Dept. Dissertations
Otto-Behaghel-Str. 8
35394 Giessen

After a formal review by the university library, your dissertation will be published in JLUdocs. You will receive a notification by e-mail.

We will send a confirmation that your dissertation has been submitted to your responsible dean’s office or examination office.

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What do I have to consider when publishing a cumulative dissertation?

In the case of a cumulative dissertation, the articles included have already been published in journals or similar. Many publishers allow a secondary publication as part of a dissertation. However, before you publish a cumulative dissertation on JLUpub, you must check your contracts or, if necessary, ask the publisher whether a secondary publication of the articles as part of the cumulative dissertation, especially an online publication, is permitted.

The TU Berlin has researched the applicable regulations for many publishers and compiled them in an overview.

If you have published your article Open Access under a Creative-Commons-licence, you did not transfer the copyright to the publisher and thus, you can continue to use your work as you like.

If the publisher does not permit a secondary publication as part of your dissertation, you can remove the relevant article from the PDF for online publication and cite the removed article with an accurate bibliographic citation (preferably with a DOI).

Note that in any case the source of the first publication must be given correctly and in full, including the link or DOI of the publisher’s version.

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How do I apply for a blocking note for the publication of my dissertation?

In justified individual cases, a dissertation can be published with a blocking note (embargo), if a patent application or a publication in a journal would be made more difficult or impossible due to the fact that the dissertation would be made publicly available. Please note that a publication of the dissertation in JLUpub does not prevent the publication of an article at a later date in many journals. Before applying for a blocking note, this must therefore be checked with the journal in question and an actual reason for impeding publication must be demonstrated.
The doctoral candidate must apply for the embargo with this form (in German only) to the responsible doctoral examination body, i.e. usually a representative of the examination board. The application to the doctoral examination board should be accompanied by a letter stating the reasons for the application and the specified blocking period.
The approved application must be forwarded to the University Library, Abt. Dissertationen.
In addition, register your dissertation for publication in JLUdocs, enter in the field “Embargo period” the date on which your dissertation should be published and submit the 2 printed copies to the University Library.
The metadata for the dissertation will be published promptly, the PDF will be made accessible after the embargo period has expired.
Detailed information on the blocking note can be found in our Info sheet.

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What do I have to consider when publishing my habilitation?

If the publication of your habilitation is required by your habilitation regulations, the same conditions apply here as for the publication of a dissertation.

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What do I have to consider when publishing my master’s, bachelor’s, state examination or student thesis?

The publication of student theses requires the the approval/recommendation of the professor in charge by e-mail.
After we have received the approval/recommendation by email, your work will be published in JLUdocs. You will receive a notification by email.

Remove personal data such as address and student number from your PDF.

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In the online form for publishing your document you will find the field “Link to research data”. In this field you can enter DOIs or URLs to your already published research data.

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Can documents published in JLUdocs be modified or deleted?

For reasons of scientific citability and authenticity, it is not possible to change or delete documents once they have been published. If changes are necessary, the modified document will be saved as a new version/edition. However, JLU Giessen is entitled to block access to the documents if there are concrete indications that the rights of third parties have been violated.

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How do I publish a new, revised version of my document?

If you have revised, updated or made other corrections to your already published document, you can submit a new version/edition for publication. All previously published versions remain accessible and are displayed in the document’s item view under “Version History”. The entries of the older versions receive a note and link to the most recent version of your document.
Instructions for publishing a new version can be found in our info text Publishing in JLUdocs.

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How can I enter special characters in the fields during submission?

You can simply copy special characters from your document into the “title” or “abstract” fields. If you have problems doing this, you will find a large selection of characters at https://epub.uni-regensburg.de/help/utf8.html and at https://graphemica.com/. Select the character, copy and paste it into the field.

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What is a publishing contract?

The publishing contract for JLUpub regulates the legal relationship between the copyright holder and the Justus Liebig University (JLU) Giessen in the case of the electronic publication of documents and research data. At the end of the registration process for publishing a document in JLUdocs, you must agree to this publishing agreement by ticking it.

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When submitting a document for publication, please check, that no rights of third parties (e.g. a publisher) are infringed.

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May I additionally publish my document elsewhere?

By agreeing to the publication contract, you grant JLU Giessen only a simple right of use. This gives you complete freedom in dealing with your document, so there is nothing to prevent you from publication elsewhere.

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May I publish already published documents in JLUdocs?

This depends on the copyright regulations of the respective publishers, which you can find in your publishing agreement or in the SHERPA/RoMEO database. There you can also find out which article version (postprint, preprint or publisher’s PDF) you are allowed to publish with the publisher’s consent and which embargoes you may have to observe.
For information: the standard contracts of numerous publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer etc.) now allow the possibility of parallel online publication. Conditions are usually that it is not exactly the version offered by the publisher and that the publication is referenced on the publisher’s site.
Conclusion: Parallel online publication (also as a postprint) is legally unproblematic. As an author in the scientific field, exercise your rights under the Copyright Act, your rights vis-à-vis the publisher and thus the extended publication options, and take advantage of the opportunities offered by open access publication in JLUpub.

As a service, we also offer you the option of simply sending us a list of your publications, which we will check for possible secondary publications. After a positive review, all we need from you is a signed publication contract and the corresponding full texts. We will then take care of the publishing for you.

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What do I have to consider if I have used images, graphics, maps or other possibly copyrighted elements in my document?

If you reproduce images, graphics, maps, etc. in your document, you must be the author of these elements, or obtain the rights to use them. Please note the following: The use of third-party and protected parts of works is permitted according to § 51 UrhG, if the so-called purpose of citation is fulfilled, i.e. if an intellectual engagement with the content takes place. This means that there must be an internal relationship between the original work and the quotation, in that the quotation serves to support one’s own point of view or that one’s own text deals with the quotation. If you wish to use images for illustrative purposes, either obtain the right of use or use images that are available under CC licenses.

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What are CC licenses?

The Creative Commons licenses make it possible to implement open access with the help of standardized licensing agreements. Creative Commons licenses build on the copyright regulations; however, they allow a more extensive use of the works than is usually provided for by copyright law.
This infographic will help you decide which CC licence is the right one for your work.

It is not recommended to assign a CC license to a cumulative dissertation or a cumulative habilitation thesis. In individual cases assigning a CC license might be permitted (e.g. for articles in open access journals).

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Can documents published in JLUdocs be printed and copied?

Published documents can be copied on local computers and printed in compliance with the copyright (see UrhG, especially § 53 UrhG). In addition, authors have the option of granting Creative Commons licenses to shape the legally permissible usage options in the sense of Open Access.

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