The Academy’s Repository res doctae, [1] the document server of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen (AdW), in its capacity as institutional repository offers all members of the Academy as well as the members of its scientific committees and projects the organisational and technical framework conditions for electronic publication of scientific documents. The objective is to provide scientific documents via the Internet for research and teaching purposes by complying with acknowledged standards of quality, to ensure free access to these documents, to make sure that they are archived in the long term, that they can permanently be retrieved and quoted as well as to furnish central evidence of the electronic publications of the Academy of Sciences. [1] res doctae is the first Academy’s own platform for digital publication of research results. The name reminds of the first printed series of the Academy, the “Göttingischen Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen” which was committed to the charge of the Academy by its foundation president Albrecht von Haller in 1753 and which is published still today by the Academy under the title “Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen”. In the meantime, it has become the oldest review instrument in German language worldwide.

With res doctae , the Academy undertakes to collect, store, catalogue and to archive electronic scientific documents of its members and from its scientific committees and projects and to make them digitally available to the public. These can be documents that only exist in digital form as well as electronic versions of printed publications. What is also included are the publication series published by the Academy and older documents on hand, although up to now only publications that are available as printed version have been included in retrodigitised form; if the occasion arises, publications published by a partner institution may be added. In the long term, res doctae is supposed to become a digital platform of AdW’s scientific production with the document server furnishing central proof of the Academy’s research results as well as enriching and improving them by bibliographic data.

The Academy is a member of the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities which signed the "Göttingen Declaration on Copyright for Education and Research“ of 5 July 2004. With this Declaration, the Academy supports the declared aim that in a digitised and networked information society, access to global information for the purposes of education and science must be guaranteed for everybody at all times from any place. The users [2] of res doctae are entitled to make use of the documents published there free of charge and subject to the limitations stipulated by the German copyright. In particular, they may download and store the documents for private and other personal use as well as print them in small numbers. It is not allowed to sell these documents. [2] Personal nouns and pronouns used shall apply to both genders.

In pursuing the goals of the “Göttingen Declaration“, the Academy requires the authors of the documents to be placed to grant the digital rights of use to the Academy by means of a written agreement The members of the Academy who mainly publish in the series of the Academy open to them already transfer the digital rights of use on the granting of rights in connection with the printed publication. In its capacity as sponsoring authority of research projects and as employer of the staff members working in these projects, the Academy is furthermore entitled to comprehensive exploitation of the research results achieved in these projects. A uniform rights management thus frequently requires the transfer of all digital exploitation rights. The Academy hereby takes up the recommendation made by the Science Council for permanent and free availability of scientific knowledge supported by scientific organisations to which this was especially addressed within the framework of the Council’s Statement on digital supply of information by university libraries / press release 16/01. In accordance with this recommendation, the Academy on conclusion of its publishing contracts ensures the digital accessibility of the documents, preferably – after a blocking period, if necessary – by reserving the right to publish the document on the Academy Repository.

All scientists working for the Academy are required to reserve at least the right of digital use for themselves if they enter into their own publishing contracts which will allow them – after a blocking period, if necessary – to publish the document written by them on the document server of the Academy.

Responsibility for complying with copyrights and exploitation rights of third parties rests with the authors or publishers of the electronic documents.

According to this Guideline, the term “electronic document“ means a document which is stored in digital form on a data carrier and is distributed via computer networks. An electronic document to be published via the document server of the Academy meets the following requirements:

• It is meant to be distributed in public.
• The document has been finished. If modifications become necessary, the changed electronic document will be stored as new version.
• It corresponds with the technical parameters stipulated by the Academy.
• It is free of technical protective measures.

The following types of electronic documents are stored and distributed via res doctae:

Publications and series of publications with scientific contents written or published by the Academy, its members, its scientific committees and projects or by the persons involved in these committees or projects as well as by its partner institutions, e.g.

• Monographs, complete or in parts,
• Newspapers, journals or compilations as well as articles thereof,
• Conference or research reports,
• Lectures.

There is also the possibility of publishing pre- and post prints.

res doctae guarantees that the documents are archived in the long term and that they may permanently be retrieved and quoted. For long-term, globally unambiguous and location-independent referencing purposes, each document is not only provided with URL, but also with a Persistent Identifier in accordance with the urn:nbn scheme of the German National Library.

The fundamental aim is the permanent and free availability of the documents. The minimum period of archiving usually amounts to five years. In cases where there is adequate reason, distribution may be restricted in terms of location (e.g. access only from the IP-address sector of AdW) or in terms of time.

Retrieval of the electronic documents is possible via library catalogues, investigations in bibliographical metadata, search terms within the structures of the electronic documents as well as on the basis of dynamically generated lists and indices.

By generation of a checksum (Hash-Code), protection of the documents against falsification is guaranteed. The MD5-Message-Digest-Algorithm is used for the Hash-Code. The Hash-Code is stored with the document. In case that a test run with MD5 results in a different number, modification of the document must be assumed.

Operation and further development of res doctae are mainly integrated in national projects and initiatives such like Textgrid and DINI Certification. Standards defined both on a national as well as on an international level are taken into account, as well (Dublin Core , RSKW , DINI-Zertifikat , DDC ).

In order to facilitate an effective search as regards content on a national and international level, each new publication is equipped with bibliographic and technical metadata in accordance with the Dublin Core Format and is at least provided with a title, an Abstract, a classificatory allocation as well as with keywords in English and German language relating to the contents of the publication.

On behalf of the Academy, res doctae is operated as institutional repository by SUB Göttingen (State University Library of Lower Saxony of Goettingen) in cooperation with GWDG. Electronic publication is free of costs for the members of the Academy and the members of its research committees and projects. Transmission of electronic documents which shall be stored in and published via res doctae is effected after password-protected registration by authorized users via the publication module of the institutional repository which can be accessed from the home page of res doctae. Additional work required for publication such like the preparation of electronic documents or conversion into other formats is supported or carried out by AdW as per arrangement.

Point of contact for any questions in connection with res doctae:

Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
EDV-Controlling

Theaterstraße 7
37073 Göttingen
E-Mail: adw1@gwdg.de Telephone: 0551 / 39 5331

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