UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Dissertation and habilitation theses are independent publications and must be made available to the academic public. This can be done in various ways. The current regulations for the submission of deposit copies at the University Library can be found here. In addition, the respective doctoral and habilitation regulations of the faculties apply.

The submission deadlines or submission periods of your faculty can be found in the respective doctoral and habilitation regulations of the faculties.

You can find a non-binding overview here:

Information as of December 2024 without guarantee. The current doctoral and habilitation regulations of the respective faculty apply.

You can find the current regulations for the submission of deposit copies at the University Library here.

The following submission options are possible:

Electronic publication

• Submission of the electronic version for publication in the repository of the university libraries of Saxony-Anhalt Share_it.
• Submission of one printed copy
• The printed version must be identical in form and content to the electronic version.
   

Publisher publication

• Submission of two printed copies of the publisher's version
• The content and scope of the publisher's version must correspond to the approved version of the thesis.
• Submission of the publishing contract (commercial publisher) and distribution of the print version and/or the e-book via the book trade.
• The publication must have an ISBN and be registered with the German National Library.
• The commercial publisher is responsible for sending two deposit copies of the publisher's publication to the German National Library.
   

Journal publication

• Submission of two printed copies of the approved version of the thesis
• The thesis must be published once or in several volumes of a journal or consist of individual journal articles and correspond to the approved version of the thesis in terms of content and scope.
• If a cumulative academic publication is published, the individual contributions should be included in full.
• If a secondary publication of a contribution is not possible for legal reasons, it could be replaced with the bibliographic details of the contribution including DOI link to the publisher's version and/or abstract. The responsible faculty will decide whether this is possible.
• The commercial publisher is responsible for sending two deposit copies of the publisher's publication to the German National Library.

• The thesis can be searched, viewed and cited worldwide using the DOI.
• There are no costs for online publication on the server Share_it. The University Library only needs one printed copy.
• Publication of the university publication elsewhere is generally still possible, as the university library is only granted the non-exclusive right of use.

 You can find more advantages of Open Access publications in the graphic “Why Open Access?” from the open-access.network.

_{Why Open Access?, open-access.network, CC-BY 4.0 International}

For the publication of your thesis on the server Share_it you grant the OVGU the non-exclusive right of use. This means that you irrevocably grant the OVGU the non-exclusive right, unlimited in time and space, for the thesis

• for electronic storage, in particular in databases,
• to make the thesis available to the public in international data networks (§ 31 para. 2 German copyright law),
• for conversion for the purpose of long-term archiving or visualization, taking into account the preservation of the content (the original archiving remains intact),
• to modify and/or complete the supplied metadata, if necessary,
• to pass on the thesis and the associated metadata to the German National Library, Open Ar-chives Initiative, as well as other document servers and specialist databases with the same aforementioned rights that are relevant to the subject or region.

The right of use applies to all known types of use.

 As part of the publication of the thesis on the server Share_it, users are entitled to use the thesis free of charge in accordance with copyright law, in particular to download, save or print a small number of copies of the thesis for private and other personal use (§53 UrhG).

 You retain the copyright and the unrestricted right of use for your thesis. This means that you can publish the thesis elsewhere (e.g. with a publisher) and continue to use it otherwise.

Please note that blocking or even removal of the thesis from Share_it is only possible for urgent legal reasons (e.g. criminal law, data protection) (see Share_it guidelines).

Please also note the General Terms and Conditions of Share_it, the Share_it guidelines and the form Granting a Deposit License.

Cumulative theses contain journal articles or other academic contributions (e.g. book chapters) that have already been published by a publisher or have been submitted for publication, e.g. preprints or accepted manuscripts. Please refer to the doctoral and habilitation regulations of your faculty to find out whether and in what form a cumulative thesis is possible.

The particularity of cumulative theses is that individual parts have already been published. Nevertheless, the thesis as a whole must be published after completion of the doctoral or habilitation procedure, and hence legal aspects must be considered. You can find more information in this video or this checklist.

If there are co-authors, their consent for the publication of the article in the academic thesis should be requested and documented.

In addition, the rights of use of already published articles in a cumulative thesis must be clarified. A simple case is an open access publication, e.g. with the Creative Commons license “CC-BY” or other CC licenses. In this case, no consultation with the publisher is necessary before secondary publication. Only the CC license conditions must be observed.

If the exclusive rights of use of an article have been assigned to the publisher, a second publication is not possible without further consideration. The rights and obligations are set out in the publishing contract. A careful review of the license agreement or the publisher's website (e.g. “Sharing Policy”, “Copyright Policy”, “Rights Permission”, “Self Archiving” or “Green Open Access”) can help to determine the rights of use. If you are unsure, please contact the publisher directly and ask about the possibility of publishing the article in the thesis.

If a secondary publication is not permitted by the publisher, articles could be removed from the university publication. However, this requires consultation with the respective faculty if the article must be included in full in the thesis. If articles are removed from the thesis, they must be identified by the bibliographic details of the article including the DOI link to the publisher's version and/or abstract. Furthermore, the removal of the article cannot change the page numbering of the version of the thesis accepted by the thesis committee.

If a second publication of the article is possible, special requirements of the publisher should be taken into account, e.g. version of the article (preprint, accepted manuscript, publisher's version) or special wording (e.g. “© Publisher XY. Reprinted, with permission [full citation of original published article] ..."). Furthermore, the article should be cited with its bibliographic data and a DOI.

If the printed and electronic versions of the thesis are not identical, because articles in the electronic version must be replaced by a bibliographic reference and DOI, the university library is obliged to submit two printed copies to the German National Library in addition to the electronic publication (Ablieferungspflicht von Dissertationen und Habilitationsschriften, 2015, DNB in German).

If possible, the articles should not be inserted as image files in order to ensure the accessibility of the document and full-text search.

• The thesis must be submitted to the University Library in the version approved by the doctoral or habilitation committee.
• There are formal requirements for the title page of deposit copies. Templates for title pages can be found in the appendices of the respective doctoral or habilitation regulations and should contain the following information, among others:
  • Accurate title
  • Accurate author's name
  • Date of birth of the author
  • Indication that the approved version is provided
  • The reviewers
  • Submission date (if applicable, see faculty regulations)
  • Date of thesis defense

The doctoral and habilitation regulations can be found here.

The general requirements for thesis also apply to the electronic version, e.g. information on the title page. You can find out more under “What requirements must the deposit copies of a thesis fulfill for submission to the University Library?”

Specific requirements for the electronic version:

• For data protection reasons, the electronic version must not contain a CV or a dedication/acknowledgment.
• The electronic version must have an active table of contents.
• The file name should be structured as follows:
  Last-name_first-name_type-of-thesis_current-year.pdf
  (Example: Mustermann_Max_Dissertation_2024.pdf)
• Please use the PDF/A format (Portable Document Format Archive) for the submission of your thesis. Here you can find an overview of how to create PDF/A files with Word or Libre Office (in German).

The general requirements for theses can be found under "What requirements must the deposit copies of a thesis fulfill for submission to the University Library?" 

Specific requirements for the printed version:

• The printed copies must be printed on age-resistant, wood- and acid-free paper and bound in a durable binding.
• No ring or spiral binding may be used.
• The affiliation of the thesis to the OVGU must be clearly indicated. 

The quality requirements for the printed copies of the thesis are high, as long-term use and archiving of the publication by the University Library must be guaranteed.

The certificate of submission can be obtained from your relevant faculty. It is needed for the submission of the deposit copies to the University Library. If the information on the certificate matches the copies you are submitting and the copies are in the correct form (in particular, please note the specifications for the title page), you will receive the signed certificate or we can send it to the relevant faculty. Subsequently you receive your diploma.

The form “Granting a Deposit License” for the electronic version can be found here. You can find more information on the license under “What should be considered when publishing electronically?”.

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) is a system for the systematic classification of publications. It was developed in the USA in 1879 and is used worldwide for systematization in libraries. You can find more information on the DDC on the website of the German National Library .

When you submit your thesis to the University Library, you will be asked to assign a DDC yourself, as you know the content of your thesis best. This will be checked again by our subject librarians after submission and adjusted if necessary. You can find a helpful search engine for assigning DDCs here (German only).

• The electronic version can be submitted by e-mail to publizieren@ovgu.de. If it is not possible to send it by e-mail, please contact us for alternative means of submission.
• The printed version can be handed in personally at the Lending Desk of the University Library after making an appointment via publizieren@ovgu.de or sent to us by mail to

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität

Universitätsbibliothek / z. Hd. Medienbearbeitung

Universitätsplatz 2

39106 Magdeburg

• The form “Granting a Deposit License” for the electronic version and the deposit copy can be sent to us by mail.
• The certificate of submission from the relevant faculty can be sent to us by e-mail

Electronic publication

• Submission of the printed copy with accurate title page
• Certificate of submission
• Submission of the electronic version with the correct title page and active table of contents. The electronic version cannot contain an acknowledgement/dedication or a curriculum vitae.
• Submission of the signed form “Granting a Deposit License”

 Publisher publication

• Submission of the printed copies with accurate title page
• Certificate of submission
• Submission of the publication contract with the publisher

Journal publication

• Submission of the printed copies with accurate title page
• Certificate of submission
• Submission of the publication contract with the publisher (if applicable)

Cumulative thesis as electronic publication

• Submission of the printed copy with accurate title page
• Certificate of submission
• Submission of the electronic version with the correct title page and active table of contents. The electronic version cannot contain an acknowledgement/dedication or a curriculum vitae.
• Submission of the signed form “Granting a Deposit License”
• If there are differences between the electronic and the printed version, two additional printed copies for submission to the German National Library.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us by e-mail (publizieren@ovgu.de).

Please note that we cannot offer legal advice.