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heiDOK – FAQ

General information

 

Publishing documents

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What is heiDOK?

heiDOK is the institutional repository of Heidelberg University Library. It enables members and affiliates of Heidelberg University to publish electronic documents on the Internet, making them available worldwide without access restrictions according to the principles of Open Access. heiDOK is intended primarily for university publications, which are of long-term significance. An important criterion is to guarantee their citability.

What rights and obligations do authors have if they publish on heiDOK?

After uploading, the document authors entitle Heidelberg University Library in a license agreement to publish their document in accordance with the heiDOK policy. As they give the University library only a single right, another publication of the document in a journal, a book or on other servers is still possible.

According to the recommendations of the Scientific Council all academics are asked to secure such a single right in contracts with publishers and to publish their documents – if necessary, after an embargo period – in addition on a full text server.

For more information, see Jur. Issues.

Is there a way of changing or deleting documents? How long will heiDOK documents be available online?

The possibility to delete documents is not given. If the author wishes to make a correction, he must re-submit the modified document. This corresponds to the process of a new edition in printed publications. Accordingly, the documents should be available online for an unlimited period of time. The documents are currently available for at least 5 years. Archiving beyond this depends on the availability of the format, viewing software, and conversion options.

Which file formats does heiDOK accept?

At the moment heiDOK accepts the following file formats:

Which is the maximum size of an uploaded file?

The maximum file size is 400 MByte.

Which technology is used for heiDOK?

heiDOK is based on the free system EPrints, which is developed by the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, England. It is one of the world's most widely used systems for the operation of publication servers. As an open source system EPrints is developed jointly by its users.

The heiDOK server is provided and maintained by the University Library of Heidelberg. Daily data backup of the online documents and of the database is carried out in the central backup system of the University of Heidelberg which is organised by the Computer Centre of Heidelberg University.

An automated search using the metadata can be done using an OAI-2.0 interface.

How do I publish a document?

In order to publish documents on heiDOK you first have to register ("Login to heiDOK"). As a registered user you have the possibility to deliver and manage your documents. Please follow the link “Manage deposits” in the upload form.

How is this usage statistics generated?

The counting method follows the internationally recognized COUNTER Code of Practice (Relaese 5). Accordingly hits from search engines and their crawlers, as well as of systems with conventional search engine query behaviour will not be considered.
New statistics are published within the first week of the following month.

Which types of documents can be published?

The following documents can be published on heiDOK:

  1. accepted dissertations and habilitations of Heidelberg University and Heidelberg University of Education
  2. scientific works of  professors, associate professors and lecturers listed in the current course catalogues of Heidelberg University and Heidelberg University of Education
  3. Bachelor thesis, Master's thesis  and scientific papers of members and affiliates of Heidelberg University and Heidelberg University of Education. For the thesis a publication recommendation of the first supervisor is required.

Heidelberg University Library reserves the right to refuse a publication.

Do I have to prepare my document before publication?

Please convert your document to one of the following formats before submitting it to heiDOK:

At the moment we consider PDF to be the best format. The University Library reserves the right to convert documents into another file format, e.g. because of technical reasons.

Is it possible not to allow the functions "select or copy text" in the delivered PDF documents? Is it permitted to provide documents with technical access and copy protection (DRM)?

For the long-term availability of the documents published on heiDOK it is necessary to deliver unprotected documents, i.e. documents may not be encrypted or password-protected. Printouts and copies must be allowed.

If a data migration is necessary, access or password protected documents are an obstacle for the processing software and make long-term preservation impossible.

We therefore recommend the use of PDF / A as ISO standard for the respective document format, that is designed for long-term archiving, according to the requirements of the German National Library

If my dissertation is related to a patent application, can it be published only once an embargo period is over?

If your dissertation is related to a patent application, you may request the University Library to not immediately make the printed and the electronic version of the dissertation available.

In this case you can upload the electronic version of the dissertation onto the heiDOK repository. Please enter a note in the field „ Comments and Suggestions (only visible to library staff) “, to the effect that a patent has been applied for and that the dissertation may only be published after the release date mentioned.

In addition to this, please submit a completed and signed copy of the form of embargo notice because of a patent application to the Dissertationsstelle. It is possible to extend the embargo after consultation. Further information can be obtained from the .

Is it also possible to request an embargo due to publication of a journal article?

If you want to publish your dissertation in a journal and the publisher requires you to delay publication of your dissertation (e.g. for 6 or 12 months), then please enter a request, with reason, in the field „ Comments and Suggestions (only visible to library staff) “, when uploading the document onto heiDOK. The maximum delay is 12 months.

In addition to this, please submit a completed and signed copy of the form of embargo notice because of publication in a journal to the Dissertationsstelle. It is possible to extend the embargo after consultation. Further information can be obtained from the .

How can I view documents?

The documents published in heiDOK documents are available in different storage and presentation formats:

PDF: You can print out documents with Acrobat Reader.

Postscript: You can print out documents with Ghostview or Gv, respectively.

Can documents be printed or copied?

Documents that are published on heiDOK can be copied to local computers and printed out in compliance with copyright regulations (see Copyright Act, particularly § 53 German Copyright Act). In addition, authors have the option to choose open content licenses such as Creative Commons licenses for the regulation of rights of use in the spirit of open access.

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