Data Policy

Metadata Policy

  • Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
  • The metadata may be re-used in any medium without prior permission for not-for-profit purposes provided:
    • the OAI Identifier or a link to the original metadata record are given
    • KUPS is mentioned as data provider.
  • The metadata must not be re-used in any medium for commercial purposes without formal prior permission.

Content Policy

  • Anyone may access full items free of charge.
  • Copies of full items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided:
    • the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given
    • a hyperlink and/or URL are given for the original metadata page
    • the original copyright statement is given
    • the original rights permission statement is given
    • the content is not changed in any way.
  • Full items or parts of it must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holders.
  • KUPS is not the publisher or the publishing company; it is merely the online archive.

Submission Policy

  • Only accredited members of the University of Cologne are allowed to deposit items on KUPS.
  • Authors/submitters are only allowed to submit fulltext items or datasets for which they are authorized.
  • The validity and authenticity of the content of submissions is the sole responsibility of the depositor.
  • The administrator/technical editor only checks whether the author/submitter and the deposited items meet the profile of KUPS. Attention is paid to compliance with bibliographic standards.
  • Items may not be deposited before the contingent embargo period expires (e.g. a publisher's embargo period, embargo period of a scientific project)
  • The author/submitter exempts the provider of KUPS of any third-party claims arising from fulltext items or datasets deposited by the author/submitter.

Archiving Policy

  • Items are preserved indefinitely.
  • Accessability and readability of items is provided as long as it is possible with affordable technical effort. The archival period is at least five years.
  • The archival life of the items depends on the availability of the format, the viewer software as well as the conversion options.
  • In order to ensure a long-life accessibility items will be migrated to other formats if possible.

Authenticity Policy

  • Items may normally not be withdrawn from the repository.
  • Special reasons for withdrawal are e.g. copyright violation, plagiarism, falsified research or legal violations. In this case the library will remove the item or parts of it from the repository without any advance notice.
  • Items in KUPS may not be changed after deposition in the repository. An updated version of the item must be uploaded instead.

Technical Policy

  • KUPS is operated by the USB Cologne.
  • KUPS is powered by EPrints 3, a freely available software which has been developed by the School of Electronics and Computer Science of the University of Southampton.
  • Items are given individual and permanent addresses in order to ensure citability. The addresses are registered as URNs (Uniform Resource Name).
  • A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) can be assigned.
  • International standards such as the guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) are used for the exchange of metadata with other service providers and search engines.