Open Access

Answers

Hints for Search

Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT

When you use the Simple Search, all terms are combined by AND automatically. For a more tightly focused search you may use the Boolean Operators to combine different search terms.

AND: The document has to contain all search terms.

OR: The document has to contain one of the search terms. This function broadens your search and is recommended, when there are different terms for the same meaning.

article OR paper

NOT: This function works excluding and might be useful to reduce a large result list: Documents, which contain the one term, may not contain the other.

article NOT paper

The Boolean Operators work for the Advanced Search as well. You may use them to combine different search terms within one search field. For example, to search for documents of the author "Doe" in the years 2002 or 2003, use the query:

Author: Doe
Year: 2002 OR 2003

Wildcards

In the field 'Search:', you may use the symbols '*' and '?' as wildcards. Use them in place of a character or characters that are unknown or that may differ. You cannot use them in front of a word or search string.

Example 1: chemi* finds chemical but also chemistry or chemist. Example 2: licen?e finds licence and license.

You may use double quotes (") to search for phrases.

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Objectives and Contents of the Repository

The ifa Repository (“Repository”) of the Library of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (“ifa”) collects electronic publications from the fields of international cultural relations, cultural policy and related research fields to classify, maintain and make them openly accessible.

It is part of the ifa Library’s objective to collect and disseminate information on international cultural relations and international cultural policy. In particular, the Repository aims to intensify cultural exchange and to reduce inequality in exchanging and accessing knowledge.

Ifa expressly invites its departments and affiliated researchers, German governmental bodies, partner institutions and the members of the network International Cultural Relations Research Alliance (“ICRRA”) to submit relevant content to the Repository.

The ifa Library operates the Repository, which is based on the open-source software OPUS 4, in cooperation with the BSZ (Library Service Centre Baden-Württemberg/Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg). It is hosted and mirrored on secure university servers in southern Germany. It observes international metadata and data exchange standards and generates Open Access statistics.

The Repository comprises cultural congress reports, grey literature, policy papers, research articles and e-books, as well as working papers, conference materials, dissertations, and research data (“Items”). Each Item must have a licence conforming with Open Access.

Wherever possible, the Repository contains full texts in a uniform file format with standardised metadata (descriptive data) and abstracts (describing the resource’s content); if this is not possible, then it contains pure metadata records with links to copies that are available in other library databases, on websites or in the ifa Library.

The metadata of the Items is transferred to and therefore retrievable from library databases and via search engines such as the German National Library (“DNB”) and BASE Academic Search Engine.

The Repository’s working languages are English and German, but Items can be submitted in any language if metadata and abstracts are provided in English or German.

To maintain the Repository’s integrity, coherence and usefulness, Depositors are asked to only submit Items that are clearly relevant to the Repository’s objectives and are based on thorough research meeting ethical standards.

Depositors who do not belong to ifa, to German authorities or to ifa partner institutions, and who are not ifa-associated researchers require ICRRA membership to register as a Depositor.

ICRRA members shall contact the ICRRA Management Committee prior to submission if they have concerns about the relevance, quality, or legal status of an Item they may wish to submit. However, if ICRRA members have no such concerns, they may submit Items without first consulting the Management Committee, based on their own professional judgement and any ethical guidelines or frameworks they consider relevant.

In the event of intentional or grossly negligent violation of these Guidelines, third party rights or legal requirements by Depositors in connection with the submission of Items, ifa reserves the right to temporarily or permanently withdraw permission to submit. This particularly applies to the submission of Items with discriminatory, defamatory, politically, or religiously extremist or violence-glorifying content or for the unauthorised submission of Items violating copyright provisions. The assertion of any other claims remains unaffected hereby.

ICRRA may also sanction any intentional or grossly negligent violation of these Guidelines or of legal requirements by ICRRA members in the context of submitting Items to the Repository.

Upon transmission to the ifa Repository, the Item:

• Receives a permanent URL in the form of a Uniform Resource Name (“URN”), which can be linked to the author's or an institution's website or can be cited in other publications.
• Is preserved digitally and on a long-term basis.
• Gains global reach, increasing the impact of the research.
• Satisfies funding requirements prescribing that research must be openly accessible.
• Is administered by professional library staff.

Submission occurs via the Repository’s website. Once released, the Item is freely available online at no cost to the submitter or end user.

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Who can publish here?

Authorisation to submit Items to the Repository requires prior registration with the Repository as a Depositor. Institutional Depositors (e.g., universities) may also register. Authorisation to represent an institutional Depositor must be affirmed when uploading.

Besides authorised staff members of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), registration is currently open to members of the International Cultural Relations Research Alliance (ICRRA) only. For information on ICRRA and on how to become a member, please see the ICRRA website.

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Technical Framework Conditions

Items are stored as electronic documents in the Repository. Electronic documents are documents that are stored on a data storage device, are distributed via computer networks, and are based on text, or graphics.

Items intended for submission to the Repository must be designated for public dissemination (see below for the legal conditions). Furthermore, Items in the form of electronic documents requiring changes (dynamic documents) must not be submitted to the Repository. Items must be platform-independently readable. This means that texts must be published in the PDF or PDF/A format.

As a general rule, and to meet the objectives of the Repository set out above, Items are to be submitted without technical protection tools or digital rights management measures or tools.

The ifa Library uses nationally and internationally defined cataloguing standards to record the bibliographical data of Items and its content. For example, standardised or freely assignable keywords describe the content. Additionally, each Item is indexed with a mandatory abstract. The Depositors assign the metadata by entering it into the online submission form. As the Repository operator, the ifa Library checks, standardises and, if necessary, supplements or corrects the metadata.

The Item’s and the abstract’s bibliographic data or metadata must be written in English or German, with names in non-Latin scripts being romanised in accordance with German library cataloguing standards.

Submitted Items are not immediately released for the online interface of the Repository. The ifa Library conducts a technical test of the Item to ensure that its format and file size is suitable for publication in the Repository. Furthermore, the ifa Library checks the Item’s relevance for the contents of the Repository/Repository catalogue, compliance with the publishing houses’ distribution guidelines, including any copyright limitations pursuant to the RoMEO-database (cf. http://sherpa.ac.uk/romeo) and the existence of an Open-Access-compliant Creative Commons licence. However, this examination does not constitute a copyright examination. The ifa Library only checks if there are publisher provisions pursuant to the RoMEO database in relation to an Item, and if there is a Creative Commons licence, but not if it is in legally binding effect.

No further examination of the Item’s content or its quality is performed. ifa is not responsible for the Item's content.

The Depositor receives a corresponding notification upon release. ICRRA members are granted the opportunity to apply for notification when a new Item is published.

Depositors or third parties cannot change or erase Items. The ifa Library reserves the right to erase Items or block accessibility or availability in the event of content-related or legal violations. If a Depositor wishes to change the content, then a new Item is to be submitted, as is the case for a new edition of a printed publication. Multiple versions of an Item can be linked with each other.

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Legal Framework Conditions

The submission and subsequent release of Items in the ifa Repository require the permanent transfer from the Depositor to the ifa of the non-exclusive right to make the Item openly available on the internet.

The Depositor thus transfers the following rights:

• a permanent non-exclusive right of use pursuant to Section 31(2) UrhG (German Act on Copyright and Related Rights) to make works publicly available in international data networks pursuant to Section 19a UrhG,
• the right to transmit the Item and the associated metadata, including the abstract, to DNB's document server and, if applicable, to other suitable document servers with the rights granted to ifa,
• the right to change, amend or complete the disclosed metadata and to make it available and usable without restriction
• the permanent right to store the Item electronically together with the associated metadata,
• the permanent right to long-term archiving/visualisation and to the conversion required for this purpose, while respecting and preserving the content and preserving the original archiving, also in the case of publication within the Repository, and
• the right to make the Item available to third parties for download for non-commercial use, with ifa itself not being entitled to commercial exploitation of the Item at any time.

The transfer of rights set out above is effected by giving a Statement of Consent on the occasion of submitting the Item. In the course of registering as a Depositor, the Depositor already submits to the applicability of these Guidelines.

The copyrights, exploitation rights and rights of use to the Item remain unaffected by the granting of rights set out above. The ifa only receives a non-exclusive right of use. Publication in the Repository does not preclude publication elsewhere. If several authors co-wrote an Item, then they are co-authors of this work. Thus, the Item may only be published if each author gives consent.

The Statement of Consent and the granting of the rights contained herein can only be made validly if the Depositor is entitled to grant the above rights. The Depositor must thus affirm that he is entitled to do so and prove the existence of a Creative Commons licence, or grant such a licence when uploading if the Depositor is entitled to do so.

In accordance with the licence information provided during the upload, the ifa can add a cover sheet to the Item before the Item is released, on which the existing or granted Creative Commons licence is displayed, unless it is already included in the Item itself (e.g., in its imprint). The ifa only acts in a technical capacity in implementing the licence specification made by the Depositor during the upload, since independently adding the licence to the Item is not technically possible for the Depositor in each case. The ifa does not grant its own licence or evaluate the specified licence.

This affirmation also includes the declaration that the Item and its submission do not violate legal regulations, official orders or decisions or rights of third parties.

The Depositor shall be obliged to clarify any third-party rights that may be affected (in particular copyrights, exploitation rights and rights of use) prior to submission and to obtain any necessary consents in verifiable form.

If the Depositor becomes aware of the existence or development of legal obstacles, he shall inform ifa thereof without delay.

Upon submission, the Depositor also undertakes to indemnify ifa against all claims made by third parties against ifa on the basis of rights which they hold (in particular copyrights, exploitation rights and rights of use) in respect of the item and to reimburse ifa for the costs arising from this indemnification and to assign any own claims against third parties on request. Furthermore, the Depositor agrees to the deletion or suspension of the accessibility or availability of the Item in the cases specified in these Guidelines and declares that he/she is aware of and agrees to the provisions for sanctioning violations as specified in this Guideline.

Only such Items will be admitted to and released for the Repository where the copyrights and other rights of the entitled persons are being observed and have been observed. Accordingly, Items are only released if a licence exists for the Item or (if the Depositor is entitled to grant a licence) is granted in the same way upon submission. In order to meet these requirements, the consent of the rights holders must be obtained and, if necessary, proven. If a Creative Commons licence already exists for the Item, proof of this must be provided for the upload.

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Is it possible to upload an Item to the ifa-repository and also have it published by a publishing house?

In most cases, this isn't a problem. However, you should always check whether your contract allows publication on our document server or not. To do so, please search the SHERPA/ROMEO list.

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How do I upload my publication?

Log in with the access data that you have received after registration.
• Click on Upload.
• Choose a document type, choose a file to upload and click on Upload File. Please note that:
• The file type must be TXT or PDF.
• The file name can’t be longer than 50 characters and must not contain characters other than alphabetic characters (a-z, A-Z, no umlauts), numbers, hyphens, and underscores. (Spaces are thus not allowed in the file name.)
• Read the Guidelines and Statement of Consent, agree to them via the checkbox, and click Next Step.
• The metadata is used to describe your work in catalogues and other bibliographic directories. Describe the document using the categories and fields. Depending on the document type, some of these fields are mandatory and therefore have to be filled in. Please describe your document as clear as possible. Mandatory fields are marked by “*”. Some examples are:
• the document type (must be chosen from the list)
• the language of the document (must be chosen from a list)
• the title of your document and the language of the title. Please note that the title must be in Latin characters.
• the abstract of the document (in case it is written in any language other than English, please add an English translation as well)
• the licence under which you want to publish your document (must be chosen from a list)

After you have finished the form, all data will be displayed once again for a check-up. You then have two possibilities: you can correct them if necessary or submit your document for checking to the ifa Library staff.

Note:
In order to publish your work, cookies have to be enabled in your web browser.

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What metadata standard is used in the Repository?

Metadata can be defined as

• data describing one or more ressources or as
• data associated with an object and describing it.

Basically metadata describes documents, objects or services and contains information about their content, structure or form. They are a description of data or "data about data". Bibliographic datasets and catalogue entries in library catalogues are a kind of metadata.

The ifa Repository uses the fifteen basic elements of the Dublin Core Metedata Element Set (short Dublin Core (DC)). Dublin Core is the result of international efforts to reach a collective consensus in describing electronic objects (in the broadest sense).

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Under which licences can works be made available on the ifa Repository?

Authors can choose which terms of use must be regarded for their publication. These terms are defined in a license. This repository supports different licenses, from which you can choose one (i.e. Creative Commons Licenses/).

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Who can I contact to find out more about the ifa repository?

ifa-Bibliothek
Charlottenplatz 17
D-70173 Stuttgart

Telefon: +49.711.2225.147

E-Mail: bibliothek(at)ifa.de

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Who can I contact to find out more about ICRRA?

For further information on the International Cultural Relations Research Alliance (ICRRA) you may consult the following website:
https://www.ifa.de/forschung/icrra/

There you will also find more information regarding membership and contact details.

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Documentation

This document server is based on the repository software OPUS4.

Information on OPUS can be found here: https://www.opus-repository.org/.

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Imprint

Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa)
Charlottenplatz 17
D-70173 Stuttgart

Telefon: +49.711.2225.147

E-Mail: bibliothek@ifa.de

The Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V is a registered association.

Representative
Gitte Zschoch
Secretary General

Register of societies: Registration Number VR 6007 (district council Stuttgart)

Tax identification code: 9901504592 (tax office Stuttgart corporate bodies)

VAT Reg.No.: DE 147794073

The care of the hardware and software of this server is up to the Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg (BSZ).

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