Publishing on eDiss

Contents

Prerequisites

Before you start with the publication of your work, make sure that the following conditions are complied with:

  • You took note of the relevant dissertation regulations.
  • Two printed versions of your work are available.
  • For doctoral candidates of medicine only: You have received the invitation to the oral examination.

Requirements

Two printed bound copies and an electronic version (PDF file) of your work must be delivered to the Göttingen SUB. The PDF version has to consist of one file (rather than multiple, individual files) and may not be protected by any security settings.
We recommend to provide your document with navigation elements, i.e. with bookmarks or with a hyperlinked table of contents.

The printed copies and the electronic version of your work have to be identical.
There are two exceptions to this rule: Please do not include a signed "affidavit" in your PDF. We recommend that you do not sign the "affidavit" in the two printed copies for the SUB Göttingen either. [There is another exception for doctoral candidates of the GAUSS programs: for them, neither the affidavit nor the CV have to be included in the dissertation at all.]
The printed version has to include your curriculum vitae (CV). You may omit the CV in the electronic thesis. As always, the requirements of the respective doctoral regulations apply here.

Cumulative Theses

The dissemination and acceptance of this form of the thesis varies from faculty to faculty. Please read your dissertation regulations carefully and, if necessary, consult your examination board.

In a cumulative thesis several separate articles for journals or anthologies are combined into a dissertation. If some of them are already published, please check the rights situation with the respective publisher (quite a few publishers offer their own licensing service, e.g. THIEME). If you gave exclusive user rights to a publisher, you may not be allowed to embed the text of the relevant article in your electronic dissertation.

The following links may be helpful for checking the rights situation:
Theses-publisher-policies der TU Berlin, lists the different options for reuse of your own (online-)publication.
Sherpa/Romeo, an online database, which lists and analyses the open access policies of various publishing houses.
Copyright Clearance Center To our knowledge this American company offers to identify publishing rights to doctoral candidates for free.
Directory of Open Journals (DOAJ), is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world.
ThinkCheckSubmit, a helpful checklist to ask the right questions befor publishin your research results.
If you need to contact a publisher yourself this short draft (PDF-in German) might be of some help.

Once again we would like to emphasize that each doctoral candidate himself is responsible for settling the publishing rights situation before handing in the electronic dissertation..

Both versions (PDF file and printed copy) will contain

  • Cover,
  • Table of contents,
  • Introduction,
  • Disussion with summary of results (Synopsis),
  • All published articles / articles that have been handed in.

The printed copies will include all published, submitted or other related articles. Already published articles should please be included as an imprint of the publisher's PDF file. It is important that each article has an accurate source attribution.
An overview of all included, possibly already published articles, is also required. In the PDF file please add permanent and unique URLs to all the articles already published. These could consist, for example, of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for your article.

Embargo in case of secondary publication or patent application

In order to allow doctoral candidates to complete the doctoral process, more and more faculties are moving towards accepting the cumulative dissertation as published if it is available on the SUB's eDiss server as a restricted publication. This approach of delayed visibility is also common for dissertations that are related to a patent application.

Before submitting your eDiss (PDF and print copies), please clarify whether you need to apply for an embargo (blocking note - e.g. for cumulative dissertations due to the publication of individual articles, patent application). The contact persons for this are your supervisors or the examinations office/dissertation office.

It is your responsibility to notify eDiss of any necessary embargo period at the latest when submitting your dissertation at the latest. If a corresponding request is not submitted or submitted too late, the eDiss team cannot be held responsible for an incorrect publication date.

If you have an approved application, please upload it to the eDiss server in PDF format (file name: Embargo.pdf). To protect the embargo application data from public access, name the file exactly "Embargo.pdf" (not Embargo_xxxx.pdf or similar !) . It will be archived after your publication has been released and will then no longer be visible. We cannot guarantee the visibility protection of embargo approvals with a different file name. If the filename does not fulfil this requirement, the doctoral candidate is solely responsible that the (personal) data contained therein is publicly visible.

Alternatively, you can enclose a copy of the approved application when sending the printed copies of the dissertation to the SUB. The SUB undertakes not to make the documents (PDF and two printed copies) publicly accessible before the expiry of the embargo period.

It is your responsibility to notify eDiss of any necessary embargo period at the latest when submitting your dissertation at the latest. If a corresponding request is not submitted or submitted too late, the eDiss team cannot be held responsible for an incorrect publication date.

The publication process

Create your dissertation as PDF

Click here to a guide to convert your electronic thesis into one PDF File (rather than multiple, individual files) without security restrictions.

The absence of security restrictions is required for the following reasons

  • As an open access publication server eDiss guarantees its users that they can read the found documents and print them for private use. Document encryption or print restrictions of the document would prevent this.
  • In order to include your thesis in our full-text search we must be able to extract its text.
  • In the course of the archiving, it may be necessary to convert your document into other formats.
  • For the report to the German National Library the document may not have any security restrictions.

Log in to eDiss (registration)

For the initial registration, please click on “Register" in the right upper box at the top of the page.
A form will appear requesting your email address. After completing and submitting the form, you will receive a message with a link to your future user profile. Now please enter here your name and telephone number. You may also specify the language in which you want to recieve notifications from us.

This procedure ensures that no unknown person can register your name on eDiss without your knowledge. Immediately after registering, you are logged in.

To log in to eDiss, just click “Login" in the upper right box in the top of the page and enter your email address in the form that appears. After submitting the form, you will be logged in.

As an authenticated user, you have the option to publish on eDiss, resume interrupted publications or (in your user profile) subscribe to automatic notification via email on new releases in individual collections.

For security reasons, we recommend that you log out (not just close the browser) at the end of your session. To do this click on your name in the upper right box in the page header. A menu will pop up with a “Logout" option.

"Publish now" - Start the online publication process

Click “Publish Now" in the main menu at the top right. Please select the faculty or program in which you want to publish your work.

PLEASE NOTE: As long as the publication process is not completed, you can return at any time to a previous step and change both the input data and your documents. After completing the process no further changes are possible to your publication!
In exceptional cases, you may contact us with reasonable requests for changes to an already published dissertation.

1. Describe your document

In this step you are asked to provide additional information about your doctoral thesis. First some personal information (date of birth and your address) is required. The birth date is necessary to identify your person.
All personal information, along with your email address will be treated confidentially and will not be visible to other eDiss users.

Additional fields on the form are used to describe your work. Please enter the required data (title, subtitle, summary, etc.). Title, keywords and abstract must be available in English. If your thesis is written in a different language, you will be asked to provide English translations for these particulars.

The last field, "Message to the editors" is optional and gives you the chance to leave a message for the editors. The content of this field is evaluated by our editors and not made public.
Mandatory fields are printed in red and marked with "*". You can only proceed to the next step once all the mandatory fields are filled in.

2. DOI assignment

At this point, your electronic dissertation is automatically assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). It represents the unique reference tool for your eDiss and should be used from now on to cite your work in the scientific context. To enable you to include the DOI already in your PDF or print copies, you can also interrupt the publication process at this point. Please copy the DOI, paste it in the desired places in your document and then continue with the publication process.

3. Document upload

To upload your document a form is displayed. Here you can use the “Browse" button to choose your document on your computer and click on “Upload File" to upload the file.

PLEASE NOTE: The first uploaded file should be your thesis as PDF.

You may then upload many more documents in any format (images, tables etc.). This is useful for example if you want to complete your dissertation with additional charts, tables, survey results, laboratory data, etc., based on your work. Publishing your work in various formats, for example additionally as an ebook, is conceivable as well.
For uploading sensitive data (e.g. approved emgargo application) see Help.

4. Check the document description

Here you will see all the information collected in the previous steps together with a possibility for making corrections. Please read over the data you entered carefully and make any necessary corrections.

5. Select CC License

Basically, every publication on eDiss comes with a Creative Commons 4.0 (Attribution) license. CC licenses govern what readers who download your work can do with the text. By default, the license assigned is CC BY (Attribution) 4.0.

You have the option to assign a license of your choice if there are good reasons not to use the default license we recommend. Please use the drop-down menu

6. Accept the publication contract

In order to publish your dissertation on eDiss, you must conclude a contract with us in which the rights of the server operator (deposit license) and the access rights of the users (CC usage license) to your publication (see above) are precisely defined. The contract is considered concluded when you give your consent to the contract by ticking the checkbox below the contract text and click on "Conclude publication".
Contract as PDF document

PLEASE NOTE: We would like to point out once again that no changes to your publication are possible upon completion of the online publication process.

Hand in two printed copies of your work at the SUB.

The printed copies and the electronic version of your dissertation have to be identical.
As a rule, your curriculum vitae must be included in the printed version (at the end). We recommend that you omit your CV in the electronic version of your thesis. In principle, however, the regulations of the doctoral regulations apply. (Please enquire at your examination office.)
In the electronic version of your dissertation, please do not include a signature in the affidavit. We recommend that you do not sign the "affidavit" in the two printed copies for the SUB Göttingen either. [Doctoral candidates of the GAUSS programs: neither the affidavit nor the CV have to be included in the dissertation at all.]
These are the only permissable differences between the printed and the electronic version. No changes are possible after publication.

PLEASE NOTE: Doctoral candidates of medicine provide us with a copy of the invitation to the oral examination together with the printed versions of the dissertation.

Please send us the two printed copies of your dissertation via mail or deposit them in the mail box at the staff entrance (at the back of the central library) or hand them in at the reception desk of the central library.

Postal address:
SUB Göttingen-Zentralbibliothek
eDiss
Platz der Göttinger Sieben 1
37073 Göttingen

Done! Your publication will be activated by our editors.

As soon as we receive the PDF and the printed copies of your work, your electronic publication (metadata + abstract) will be made publicly visible by the eDiss team. You will be informed about the activation via email. The PDF will be automatically unlocked one week after the metadata is published. (For restricted dissertations initially only the metadata and abstract will be made visible for the duration of the embargo).
The confirmation of the publication will be forwarded to the responsible examination office / dean's office immediately after the release.
You will need this together with your "Revisionsschein" (not applicable for PhD students of the Faculty of Medicine) to be able to pick up your certificate at your responsible examination office / dean's office.

Embargo/Blocking note in case of secondary publication or patent application

In order to allow doctoral candidates to complete the doctoral process, more and more faculties are moving towards accepting the cumulative dissertation as published if it is available on the SUB's eDiss server as a restricted publication. This approach of delayed visibility is also common for dissertations that are related to a patent application. In any case, it is the doctoral candidates' responsibility to apply for delayed visibility of their dissertation according to their respective doctoral regulations. Information on this can be obtained from the examination office/dissertation office responsible for you.

If you have an approved application, please upload it to the eDiss server in PDF format (file name: Embargo.pdf). To protect the embargo application data from public access, name the file exactly "Embargo.pdf" (not Embargo_xxxx.pdf or similar !) . It will be archived after your publication has been released and will then no longer be visible. We cannot guarantee the visibility protection of embargo approvals with a different file name. If the filename does not fulfil this requirement, the doctoral candidate is solely responsible that the (personal) data contained therein is publicly visible.

Alternatively, you may include a copy of the approved proposal when sending print copies of the dissertation to SUB. SUB agrees not to make the documents (PDF and two print copies) publicly available before the embargo period expires.

Interrupting the online publication process

You can interrupt the online publication process at any time with the button “Save and continue later". You then have the option to save your current information in order to continue with it later or to delete the incomplete publication.

Resuming an interrupted publication process

Authenticated users will see an option for “Submissions" in the menu on the left. By clicking on “Submissions" you will receive a list of all publications you ever made, and may then select the publication on which you wish to continue working. You will be restarted at the first step of the online publication process.

To navigate inside the online publication process please use the navigation bar directly on the forms labeled with each step. When using the browser's forward and backward-button we can not guarantee error-free operation.

My publication was rejected

This can happen in two places

  1. Your document was not uploaded in the "Document upload" stage of the online publication process. Click here to see what to do!
  2. After completing the online publishing process the editors refuse your publication. In this case, you will get a message from the editors with the exact reason for the refusal.

If corrections on your PDF document are required, please carry these out first. Then you can resume and finish the online publication process with the corrected document. If the publication was rejected on the basis of descriptive data, you can immediately turn back to the publishing process again and correct this information. This is identical to the procedure used to resume an interrupted publication.

PLEASE NOTE: Your uploaded document(s) and all previously provided data are saved in the online publication process. You will not need to enter your data twice. However, it is necesssary for you to accept our contract after every correction. Following this your publication will again be available to our editors for activation.

Contents