MADOC Policies

1. Mission of the research repository of the University of Mannheim

MADOC provides an organizational and technical framework for online publication of research papers. As part of this offer, academic research of high relevance is made available on the Internet for research and teaching purposes in line with quality standards. Electronic documents receive permanent addresses and are made accessible via national and international library catalogs, search engines and other bibliographic tools. The Mannheim University Library will archive the documents permanently in line with its technical capabilities. The German National Library guarantees long-term preservation of dissertations and habilitation theses.

MADOC - A service for the researchers of the University of Mannheim

With MADOC the university library offers a service for researchers of the University of Mannheim free of charge. This service includes storage, cataloging and archiving of all electronic research output published by members of the University of Mannheim. This applies to electronic publications as well as to electronic copies of print publications. The copyrights remain with the authors. A publication of the work via the repository is no obstacle to further publication in scientific journals or monographs as well as other repositories. According to the recommendations of the Council of Science and Humanities, all researchers of the University of Mannheim are requested to secure appropriate rights of exploitation for their work when signing contracts with publishers and to additionally publish their work in the repository. This may also take place after a holdback period. The authors or publishers of electronic documents are responsible to ensure compliance with copyright and exploitation rights. [on dissertations please see: http://www.dissonline.de/service/pdf/verlagsvertrag.pdf].

3. The electronic Document

The term electronic document within the meaning of these policies refers to a document which is based on text and graphics, stored in digital form on a storage medium and distributed via computer networks. An electronic document published in the repository complies with the following requirements:

• It is designated to be published.
• It is not a dynamic document. If changes need to be made to the document, the altered electronic document will be stored as a new version.
• • It complies with the technical parameters set by the university library.

4. Electronic documents published and distributed via the repository

The following categories of electronic documents are stored on and distributed via the repository:

• documents which have to be published according to examination regulations (dissertations and habilitation theses),
• publications or publication series like research reports, e-journals or series written or published by members of the University of Mannheim,
• documents like final theses written by students of the University of Mannheim if the publication was recommended by a faculty member.

5. Technical features of the research repository

Electronic documents are equipped with individual and permanent addresses which allow direct access to the documents. Electronic documents may be located via library catalogs, research in bibliographic metadata, keywords within the electronic document, alphabetical and classification categories, and dynamically created lists and indexes. For the analysis, storage and archiving of the electronic documents international standards like the directive of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) are used and developed accordingly. Electronic documents are available for at least 5 years. The archiving period is subject to the availability of the format, the software for viewing the document as well as the options for converting the document.

6. Organizational regulations

The repository is run by the Mannheim University Library. Electronic publication is free of charge for members of the University of Mannheim and members of institutions associated with the University of Mannheim. The deposit of electronic documents for distribution via the repository usually takes place via the Upload form on MADOC. Necessary additional work like the preparation of electronic documents or the conversion into other formats are upon request supervised or carried out by the staff members of the university library. For any questions regarding the research repository, please refer to the Department for Acquisition and Cataloging of the University of Mannheim.