KOBRA

  1. I log in to the KOBRA site with my uk number. If there is no uk number, registration is possible on the same page.
  2. After successful login I choose between
    1. the collection "Upload": Here I can enter all information like title, abstract, free keywords etc. myself. Or
    2. the collection "Comfort delivery". Here I upload my PDF and the university library takes care of the necessary entries.
  3. The last thing to do is to approve the KOBRA license.
  4. As soon as I have uploaded everything, the formal check of the PDF by the KOBRA team takes place.
  5. If there is a need for technical or formal adjustments, I will receive feedback from the KOBRA team by e-mail. The submission must then be made again with the adapted version.
  6. I will receive my PDF again at the end for checking.
  7. Once the final PDF has been approved, it is published promptly within a few days.

 

As an author, you are free to choose whether or not to license your publication and which license you would like to use. For optimal dissemination of your research results, we recommend granting a free license; CC-BY and CC-BY-SA are the most liberal licenses - they facilitate subsequent use of the research results while the author(s) are still specified.

 

As an author, you have all exploitation rights according to the Copyright Act. If you publish a document on KOBRA for the first time, you transfer a simple (non-exclusive) exploitation right to the library. In addition, you can grant rights of use to other persons or institutions, such as a publishing house, in order to publish the publication there.

In the case of a subsequent publication by a publisher, please inform the publisher that your work has already appeared as an OA publication.

The publication on KOBRA is free of charge.

Am I allowed to publish my cumulative dissertation online on KOBRA at all, although the individual parts have already been published/submitted for publication?

The cumulative dissertation must be published on KOBRA according to § 16 para. 4 clause d) of the General Regulations for Doctoral Studies at the University of Kassel of 2021. Depending on which rights you have assigned to the publisher for the respective articles, they may be published according to the wording or in the publisher's layout or not at all as part of the dissertation. Often publishers are more generous with regard to the "subsequent use" of their own articles in dissertations than with conventional so-called "secondary publication"/"self-archiving".

If an article may NOT be reproduced in the publication, a reference to the "missing" article (ideally including DOI) must be inserted in its place instead.

If you are unsure whether and in what form you may use the articles in the publication, please feel free to contact publikationsdienste[at]uni-kassel[dot]de.

What do I do if there are still single articles in review?

The fact that in the case of cumulative dissertations not all articles have to be published already necessarily brings a potential problem: The plagiarism checks of the publishers usually find the KOBRA publication. This may result in an article being rejected because it has already been published elsewhere. Therefore, if your articles are still in the pre-publication phase, the option of an embargo should be used. It is not necessary to choose the maximum embargo duration, but only the expected period of time until the final publication of the contribution.

 

What else do I have to consider for cumulative dissertations?

Content and formal regulations for cumulative dissertations are regulated in both the General and Special Regulations for Doctoral Dissertations(https://www.uni-kassel.de/hochschulverwaltung/schnelleinstieg/uebersicht/mitteilungsblatt/regelungen-fuer-promotionen#accordion-collapse-7577).

Please contact your supervisor or the Dean's Office of the relevant Faculty for further information before publishing.

 

If the doctoral dissertation is published as a pure online publication without a free license (open access), the publication must be printed in duplicate and bound and submitted to the dissertation office of the university library. In addition, the publisher must provide permanent, barrier-free access for members of the University of Kassel. If the publisher is technically unable to do this, the infrastructure of the University Library can be used as an alternative. In such a case, please contact the University Library (publikationsdienste[at]uni-kassel[dot]de) as early as possible to find a suitable solution.