A  Affiliation statement | Authorship

C   Converis | Creative Commons licenses

D   Data & file formats | Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

E  Embargo | First publication

F  FAIR principles | Funding information | Free licenses

H  University bibliography

I   Impressum | ISBN

L  Licenses

M  Metadata

N   Rights of use

O   Open Access | Open Educational Resources | ORCID

P   Persistent Identifiers | Personal Identification | Mandatory Submission | Postprint | Preprint | Primary Publication

R   Repository

S   Self-archiving

V   VG Wort

Z   Secondary publication

The correct naming of the University of Kassel supports the visibility of your publication. If you use the correct name or ID, your publication can also be found under different search terms (e.g. "University Kassel").

German: Universität Kassel

english: University of Kassel

IDs of the University of Kassel:

• GRID ID grid.5155.4
• ROR https://ror.org/04zc7p361
• Ringgold ID 9178
• German Research Institutions (GERiT) DFG ID 10202
• ISI 0000 0001 1089 1036
• CrossRef Funder ID 501100012687

The "Universität Kassel" (or "University of Kassel") should be cited as the top level of institutional affiliation in each publication. The name of the university should be at the beginning, if possible, taking into account the rules of the publication organ and the respective discipline culture. In addition to the University of Kassel, the precise institutional affiliation may also be indicated (e.g. Faculty, Department, Institute, Center, or other academic units of the University of Kassel). In German and English, the official name is to be used, e.g.

• First name Last name ¹
  • ¹ University of Kassel, FB 02 - Humanities and Cultural Studies, Institute for Romance Studies
• First name Last name ¹
  • ¹ University of Kassel, Faculty of Humanities, Institute for Romance Studies

If there are multiple institutional affiliations, e.g. due to joint appointments or cross-institutional graduate programs, all corresponding institutions must be listed as affiliations. The University of Kassel is listed first if it is the primary affiliation. If the research work was primarily carried out at one of the other institutions, the order can also be reversed.

Social Media

The University of Kassel is present on various social media channels. When posting on social media in connection with research, teaching or transfer at the University, please refer to the corresponding channels of the University of Kassel - for increased visibility of both yourself and the University.

• Twitter: uni_kassel
• Facebook: UniKassel
• Instagram: unikassel

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↗ to the publication guidelines

Who the author of a work is, is defined in the Principles for Ensuring Good Scientific and Artistic / Creative Practice of the University of Kassel (German only):

"Author is anyone who has made a genuine, traceable contribution to the content of a scientific text, data or software publication or artistic / creative work. Such a contribution exists in particular if the scientist or the artist or designer is involved in:

• the development and conception of the project
• the development, collection, acquisition, provision of the data, software, sources,
• the analysis/evaluation or interpretation of the data, sources and the conclusions drawn therefrom, or
• the writing of the manuscript.

So-called "honorary authorship" is excluded; a managerial or supervisory position in itself does not constitute co-authorship."

If more than one author is involved in the creation of a work, this constitutes multiple authorship. This means that any use must be made in agreement with all authors, unless the "shares can be exploited separately" (Section 8 UrhG).

The University of Kassel maintains a Research Information System (Converis) as a central record of its publications and a university bibliography. The purpose of the university bibliography is to present the publications of researchers in their entirety both internally and externally. It serves as a database for reports, evaluations, and bibliometric analyses and is the basis for open access monitoring. The goal is the complete, transparent, and quality-assured recording of publications that have been produced with the participation of scientists at the University of Kassel. With this in mind, all scientists and scholars are to provide complete and timely evidence of their publications in Converis (cf. Executive Board resolution P/829).

A data publication unfolds its full potential if the research data are published in file formats that, on the one hand, permit the most unrestricted subsequent use possible and, on the other hand, are as stable as possible over time. From both points of view, open, non-proprietary file formats are recommended: Open file formats can be read by different programs and are not dependent on any particular software, so that subsequent use is possible in different IT environments (such as operating systems, software licenses, common programs).

In this sense, this overview of suitable file formats (German) recommends specific file formats for data publication.

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is one of the best-known persistent identifiers. Unlike ISBNs, for example, they not only identify a specific object, but also address it permanently. DOIs are usually assigned and maintained, i.e. kept up to date, by publication services for data and text publications.

The UB assigns DOIs for publications in KOBRA, kup and DaKS, but in exceptional cases can also set up DOIs for other services, such as scientific blogs or journals.

If a publication has a DOI, you should always include it if possible. It is always preferable to a web address!

With the claim of permanence and uniqueness comes a responsibility in dealing with DOIs: for example, the digital target behind the DOI must remain unchanged and available after the DOI has been assigned. Withdrawing from an object published with a DOI is therefore an absolute exception; a change to a digital object must always be made as a new version, i.e. a new object with a new DOI. Many repositories, including DaKS, automatically link the versions of a publication with each other and display the version history transparently, so that users are also made aware of the most recent version via the DOI of an earlier version.

A DOI (like an ISBN) is an indication of the quality of the underlying publication process, insofar as physical integrity and availability/addressability are ensured. Its presence is unrelated to the quality of the addressed content.

DOIs are also an important tool in linking publications with each other, e.g. articles with the associated research data (cf. Independent Data Publication), or primary publications with secondary publications.

If a publication cannot or may not yet be made accessible for certain reasons, it can still be published with a so-called embargo. This means that publication has formally taken place, i.e. the file has been uploaded and the metadata is available, but access to the file is not possible until the end of the embargo or embargo period.

Publication with embargo is usually necessary if the publisher does not allow a secondary publication until a specified time has elapsed, or if a thesis is to be made accessible only after a time delay because, for example, parts of it are still in the review process (especially cumulative theses) or immediate publication would stand in the way of a planned patent application. In the case of theses, the application for embargo is regulated in the doctoral regulations (2021), § 16, para. 9.

First publication or primary publication is the term used when a document is published for the first time in this form. The place of publication is irrelevant. Publisher publications, for example, are just as much first publications as dissertations or other qualification papers that are published on KOBRA. Other documents can also be "first published" on KOBRA, such as annual reports, slides, posters, working papers, preprints, etc.

If a text that has already appeared in a publisher/journal is published in parallel or subsequently, e.g. on KOBRA, this is a secondary publication.

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FAIR is an acronym for Findable - Accessible - Interoperable - Re-usable. It refers to a set of technical and organizational principles and measures designed to ensure the optimal preparation of data for people and machines.

More details on these principles can be found on the web pages of the Research Data Service.

Third-party funding bodies such as the DFG and the EU Commission generally require that their funding (Funding Acknowledgement) be mentioned in publications. It is essential to observe this requirement - by doing so, you make the impact of the funding visible and secure the future of third-party funding.

• Also provide the funding information (consistently) when reporting in Converis.
• Publications in KOBRA should also be provided with funding information accordingly.

Free licences are legal instruments that allow authors to share, modify and distribute their works while retaining certain rights. These licences promote the free exchange of knowledge by granting users clear rights. Rights of use are granted through clear and legally binding licence conditions.

Creative Commons licences (CC licences) are a widespread form of free licences. They offer an easy way for authors to licence their works by defining different combinations of usage rights. CC licences range from allowing free use with attribution to restricting use to non-commercial or unmodified use. These licences are a valuable tool to promote the exchange of knowledge, art and innovation in the global community.

In the spirit of open access, we generally recommend licences that are as free as possible, but a restriction may be appropriate in certain circumstances. Details on the possible variants of CC licences, their advantages and disadvantages can be found under Choice of licence.

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. An ISBN uniquely identifies a book, i.e. each ISBN may only be assigned once. Conversely, however, not every book has an ISBN: ISBN registration is voluntary and subject to a fee and is primarily used by the trade.

An ISBN is therefore not a sign of quality in terms of content. Whether a book has an ISBN or not has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the book.

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Metadata is descriptive data. This includes, for example, the information in a citation, such as author, title, publisher and publication date.

The richer the metadata for a publication, the better it can be found by search engines, which automatically retrieve this metadata. This applies to both text publications and data publications. For example, if the University of Kassel is clearly and correctly named in the metadata of a publication (see affiliation statement), this publication can easily be found in a search query for the University of Kassel. The same applies to the naming of the persons involved in the metadata. Good metadata is therefore the basis for good visibility of a publication.

Under German law, moral rights and exploitation rights are inalienable. The granting of rights of use, on the other hand, is subject to contractual freedom - they can be granted to third parties and thus simple or even exclusive use can be permitted.

If you publish on kup or KOBRA, for example, you grant the operators non-exclusive rights of use. These can be granted multiple times, so a work can be distributed in additional forms and through additional channels.

In publishing, exclusive rights of use are usually granted. In this case, the rights are often transferred comprehensively , e.g. "all exclusive rights of use, unrestricted in terms of territory and content, in all known and unknown types of use for the duration of the statutory copyright". Such contracts exclude you as author from further use of your own work or put you on an equal footing with "normal" users. In the case of further use - even of parts of the work such as images and graphics - you are accordingly dependent on the publisher's concession or on legal restrictions.

In the case of Open Access publications, non-exclusive rights of use are also granted - to the publisher and to the public (open licenses). As an author, you retain the greatest possible autonomy in the further use of your content, such as a secondary publication, translation, new editions, subsequent use of images and diagrams, etc., without requiring the publisher's consent.

Open Access refers to scientific literature that is free of charge and publicly available online and may be used in any legal way, including reading, storing, copying, distributing, printing, searching, and referencing.

The University of Kassel advocates publishing scientific research results according to the principles of Open Access and promotes it through appropriate financial support and infrastructural offerings (policy | website).

Unlike in closed access, you as the author only grant non-exclusive rights of use to the publisher in an open access publication. You thus reserve the greatest possible autonomy in the further use of your content, such as a secondary publication, translation, new editions, subsequent use of images and diagrams, etc., without requiring the publisher's consent.

Open Educational Resources (OER) refer to teaching and learning materials that are published under a free license and are accessible free of charge. Users are granted the right to use, reuse, edit, and redistribute these materials under the specified license rights.

When searching for suitable OER for your university teaching, the OER metasearch OERSI is suitable. You can specify your search query there using certain search filters (e.g. subject area, type of material and license type). When using, editing and redistributing OER, the source including the license reference must be indicated according to the so-called TULLU rule.

By making your OER available in a repository, such as Zenodo, your materials can be permanently found worldwide by assigning persistent identifiers and can be reused and cited according to the licenses you have chosen.

Since autumn 2024, the Service Center Teaching provides an instance of edusharing. Here, members of the University of Kassel can efficiently manage and share learning content, tools, and educational templates. Also regarding other services in the area of digital teaching-learning materials, such as teaching recordings, we refer to the offer of the Service Center Teaching.

A persistent identifier (PID) is an identifier that permanently and reliably refers to a digital object or the digital representation of an analog object, event, person, or similar. It usually consists of digits and/or alphanumeric characters.

The best-known PIDs include DOI (Digital Object Identifier), ORCID, Researcher ID Thomson Reuters, Scopus Author ID) and ISBN, but PIDs for scientific events, instruments, cultural objects and institutions (affiliation statement) are also becoming increasingly established.

The identification of authors in the literature databases is frequently subject to errors. For example, the use of different spellings or abbreviations of the first name can mean that not all publications are correctly assigned to a researcher. This leads to incorrect values when calculating bibliometric key figures.

Use a uniform spelling of your name in different publications so that they can be correctly assigned to you. Even if you have changed your name (e.g., through marriage), third parties often cannot identify which publications are yours.

• The individual Open Researcher and Contributor iD (ORCID iD) enables the system-independent and unique identification of a person and the linking with their publications, research data and other results of the research process. Many other author profiles allow synchronization with the ORCID profile. The University of Kassel strongly recommends that all researchers register and use an ORCID iD.
• A consistent spelling of the name is especially important for umlauts (ä, ö, ü), prefixes (e.g. von, van der, de), conjunctions, multiple first names, relationship names (e.g. Mac, Ibn, Abu) or double names!
• Well maintained author profiles in databases like Scopus, Web of Science/Publons and Google Scholar support the correct calculation of your personal bibliometric indicators. Importing publication metadata into the Research Information System is also greatly facilitated by well-maintained author profiles.
• Your ORCID profile can optionally interact with your Web of Science Researcher Profile and Reviewer Recognition Service in various ways, such as for logging in to the Web of Science platform or for importing and exporting entries from one system to another.
• If you have an existing ORCID profile, you can import your publication data from Scopus (and other sources) to your ORCID profile.

If you do not publish a work via a publisher, but make it accessible via your own homepage or the website of your institution, you are responsible for the "mandatory deposit" to the state library. According to the Hessian Library Act as well as the Ordinance on the Delivery of Media Works from the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts (HMWK) or by the Law Regarding the German National Library (DNBG) and the Legal Deposit Regulation (PflAV), the publications must be delivered to the state libraries in electronic - and if available also in printed - form. In case of a publication via KOBRA, the University Library will take care of the deposit for you, if desired also for the corresponding print editions.

A postprint is an article that has already been reviewed and accepted for publication, regardless of whether it has actually been published. Accordingly, a postprint contains the content of the publisher's version, but is not automatically identical to it, but differs from it in terms of layout and pagination.

In terms of secondary publication, the post-print version corresponds to the "Accepted Version" or the "Author's Accepted Manuscript" (AAM).

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A preprint or pre-publication is the manuscript version of a paper that has been or is to be submitted to a journal (or for an edited volume) for publication. It is a non-peer-reviewed scientific paper, i.e. its quality has not yet been evaluated by peers or its publication has not yet been recommended.
Sometimes preprints are published explicitly for the purpose of review (open peer review).

In terms of secondary publication, the preprint version is roughly equivalent to the "submitted version", i.e. the version submitted to the publisher.

A repository is an online platform for storing and publishing digital objects.

Depending on the type of digital objects, a rough distinction can be made between

• Text repositories, also known as publication servers, for text publications; example: KOBRA
• Research data repositories or data repositories, for data sets; example: DaKS
• Software repositories for code, often with project management functions; example: GitLab

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VG Wort (Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort) is a German collecting society that specializes in the administration and remuneration of copyrights in the field of written works. Its main task is to collect royalties from various sources, including copying and distribution rights, in order to distribute them to the entitled authors and publishers. Academics can also benefit from VG Wort. To do so, a rights administration agreement must be concluded with VG Wort and the notification must be made within certain deadlines. Distributions are made once a year according to specific distribution plans.

A prerequisite for participation in the distribution is a certain distribution of the texts. In the case of book publications, this is defined by proof in library and union catalogs: The current prerequisite for remuneration is that a work can be verified in at least 5 interlibrary loan-relevant locations and in 2 regional union systems. Obligatory copies in the German National Library (DNB) and donations are not taken into account.

An online publication is also eligible for registration (registration system for texts on websites; METIS). However, participation in the main distribution requires the use of counting pixels and a high minimum number of accesses (750 per year for over 10,000 characters and 1500 for 1800-9999 characters). This hurdle of minimum access is almost never reached in a scientific context. In this case, the path via the special distribution is open.

The following applies to the KOBRA publication server: as KOBRA does not use a tracking pixel, only the special distribution can be considered, regardless of the access figures for online publications.

VG Wort acquires specific exclusive rights from its authors. Although this is fundamentally at odds with CC licensing, authors of open access publications have the option of participating in VG Wort's distribution. VG Wort has never rejected this approach and considers CC licensing to be compatible with its rights management practices.

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Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, is the re-publication of a work that has already been published elsewhere - usually by a publisher. Self-archiving usually takes place on institutional or disciplinary repositories and can serve in particular to make a version freely available worldwide (open access).

Making the publication freely available increases its reach:

(a) Through indexing and tagging, the self-archived copy becomes findable in the KARLA catalogue, among others, but also via - academic and popular - search engines such as Bing, Google, Google Scholar, or BASE.

(b) Via the service Unpaywall, the self-archived versions are linked to their - usually chargeable - primary publications. Thus, they are directly accessible from Scopus or the Web of Science as well as from the respective publisher's site via the plugin unpaywall.

In addition, self-archiving may serve to fulfill the Open Access requirements of a funding body.