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Publication Ethics

Principles of Transparency

1. Ownership and Management

The University Library supervises and manages FAU University Press on behalf of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). The University Library is a central institution of the FAU. It is legally represented by the director of the University Library, Ms. Konstanze Söllner. The current publishing manager of FAU University Press is Mr. Markus Putnings.

All series editors and members of the Academic Advisory Board are listed at http://www.university-press.fau.de/herausgeber-en.shtml . They are not tied to quantitative requirements or derive a monetary benefit from the series publications. The publishing staff as well as the management undergo regular internal and external training. Our staff is also part of the working group of German university publishers (AG Universitätsverlage,https://blog.bibliothek.kit.edu/ag_univerlage/).

2. Contact Information

University Library of Erlangen-Nürnberg
FAU University Press
Universitätsstraße 4
91054 Erlangen Germany

Please address any questions to: markus.putnings@fau.de. Phone: +49 (0) 9131 8527835

Please forward your orders to: university-press@fau.de.

3. FAU University Press Website

Web team
Coordination: Ulrike Riedlberger
Web design: Webteam of the UB Erlangen-Nürnberg, E-Mail:  ub-webmaster@fau.de.

The web team has compiled and verified all information provided on this website with the greatest possible care. If you become aware of any form of misuse of the website, please immediately inform the web team and the department responsible for computer security. For more information and contact details, please see: https://www.rrze.fau.de/infocenter/kontakt-hilfe/sicherheitsvorfaelle/.

FAU University Press uses the online publication system OPEN FAU as a central electronic archiving and publication platform.

4. Names of our Series

Our series titles are unique (usually FAU Forschungen or FAU Studien) and will never mislead potential authors and readers about the series’ origin or association with other series. The series titles are registered within the Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB, http://zdb-katalog.de) and the National ISSN Centre (http://www.dnb.de/EN/Wir/Kooperation/ISSN/issn_node.html).

5. Publishing Schedule

The periodicity of our journals are indicated on the homepage: https://www.university-press.fau.de/produkt-kategorie/reihen/. The FAU University Press book series do not appear in regular intervals.

6. Access

FAU University Press is a pure open access publisher. All publications are freely accessible online at https://www.university-press.fau.de/shop/ and via OPEN FAU .

7. Archiving

The university library guarantees the security and data protection for OPEN FAU in cooperation with the Regionales Rechenzentrum Erlangen. In addition, regular storage and backup routines are carried out. For indexing, storage and archiving of the electronic documents as well as the exchange of metadata, international standards such as the guidelines of the Open Archives Initiative are used. All publications are also forwarded to the German National Library's archive server and digitally preserved there.

8. Advertising

Usually, no advertising will be served or accepted. In agreed cases, series editors may promote the volumes of their series appropriately, for example with a list of the published volumes within the series publications.

Aims & Scope

9. Aims and Scope

In accordance with its Open Science Policy , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) offers its researchers the option of publishing their work open access with the university’s support. In this spirit, FAU University Press will not only make high quality print copies of a publication available at reasonable cost but will also facilitate worldwide electronic access to the publication in line with the open access concept. This ensures the optimal visibility and citability of a work and the research results can be readily found by search engines.

FAU University Press highlights the academic output of FAU and promotes open access in fields in which the publication of monographs is deemed to be of considerable relevance. The open access publishing programme of FAU University Press is expected to grow exponentially, both with regard to its subject range and the number of available titles, making research at FAU accessible to the international academic community.

Works published cover the full range of disciplines taught at FAU.

  • Our authors can publish books either in our series ‘FAU Forschungen’ and ‘FAU Studien’ or as an individual book outside of these regular series.
  • Papers by FAU researchers, postdoctoral dissertations and other dissertations awarded the grade ‘summa cum laude’ are published in the ‘FAU Forschungen’ series. This series has two categories: ‘FAU Forschungen, Reihe A, Geisteswissenschaften’ for publications in the fields of the socio-economic sciences and the humanities or ‘FAU Forschungen, Reihe B, Medizin, Naturwissenschaft, Technik’ for publications in the fields of science, technology and medicine. The Academic Advisory Board of FAU University Press decides which papers should be published as part of the ‘FAU Forschungen’ series.
  • The series ‘FAU Studien’ also has several categories, which are usually associated with a particular department or faculty. Postdoctoral dissertations and other dissertations must be recommended by the supervising professor as well as the series’ editors before they can be included.
  • In addition to existing publication series, certain new interdisciplinary series such as ‘FAU Kunst und Bildung’ and ‘FAU Lehren und Lernen’ have appeared. These are usually published by members of interdisciplinary centers.
  • FAU University Press also publishes individual titles, such as conference volumes and exhibition catalogues, which are not part of any series.

All activities of FAU University Press are undertaken with no profit-making motive. This allows FAU University Press to maintain a high degree of independence, thus placing the focus on quality instead of quantity.

Rights & Fees

10. Copyright and Licensing

Authors will be required to contractually transfer to FAU University Press

  • the simple, non-exclusive rights of usage of the digital publication only as specified under the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution (CC BY, the preferred license, unless there are legal arguments against it) or the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
  • and, in the case of printed versions, the simple, non-exclusive rights of usage for the agreed period of availability.

Our authors thus retain possession of their exclusive rights of usage in addition to the right to publish their work in its present or any other form elsewhere or to make alternative use of it. Other contractual agreements and other Creative Commons or open licenses may be chosen in individual cases.

11. Author Fees and Other Revenue Sources

FAU University Press is not a profit-making organization, thus the costs incurred cannot be covered by other earnings. Costs must be borne by the authors themselves. The author fees are purely cost-based and never affect the editorial decisions.

A one-off fee of 20 euro (including for example the proportional fee for the ISBN agency) is charged for the publication of a manuscript in digital form only . ..

If digital publication is to be supplemented by a print-on-demand version, the additional processing work involved means that the one-off publishing fee is 60 euro; this does not include the printing costs incurred and, where applicable, the shipping costs for the proofs and the complete print run. These costs must be borne by the author, too. An Excel calculator for generating non-binding printing cost estimates can be found on the download page . For advice on available financial sponsorship options for print editions, please contact the foundations, funds and sponsoring associations of FAU and the Graduate Centre.

The university library manages the university-owned publishing house “FAU University Press” on behalf of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). Accordingly, FAU University Press receives institutional support in the form of personnel, premises and infrastructure from the university library. There are no revenues from advertising or merchandise sales.

Quality Assurance

12. Peer review process

In accordance with the Open Science Policy of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), FAU University Press promotes the most open form of academic communication possible. This also includes non-anonymous reviews of book manuscripts submitted. Visit https://www.university-press.fau.de/publizieren/open-peer-review/ for more details about the open peer review process.

  • The premium FAU Forschungen series papers are reviewed by all members of the Academic Advisory Board of FAU University Press. This is composed of eminent researchers who do not have any commercial links with and are not in any other way dependent on FAU University Press. As an independent advisory board, it also generally monitors the academic quality and integrity of the activities of FAU University Press.
  • The FAU Studien series mainly consists of postdoctoral dissertations and other dissertations. These are reviewed by the series editors; moreover, a recommendation from the relevant supervising professor is also required. The series editors also have no monetary interest in the series publications, but are only responsible for the academic quality of the published titles.
  • In addition to existing publication series, certain new interdisciplinary series such as ‘FAU Kunst und Bildung’ and ‘FAU Lehren und Lernen’ have appeared. These are usually published by individual or all members of the relevant interdisciplinary center, such as the Interdisciplinary Centre for Aesthetic Education (IZÄB), and these are subject to review by the series editors equivalent to that of the publications in the ‘FAU Studien’ series.
  • ‘FAU Drucke’ includes individual titles such as exhibition catalogues. These are usually not subject to a formal peer review process, but if the board of FAU University Press considers it necessary, they may be reviewed by specialists in the subjects working in the University Library who will provide constructive input. As FAU University Press is organizationally closely linked to the University Library, the subject specialists are not formally regarded as external reviewers, but they are naturally encouraged to ensure that the best possible quality is maintained.

FAU University Press will not guarantee manuscript acceptance, fixed or short peer review times. If a PhD candidate must submit the mandatory copies of a thesis within a short remaining time, it is necessary to ask the bodies responsible in writing to extend the deadline according to Section 15 Paragraph 5 Rahmenpromotionsordnung (RPromO).

Our reviewers are encouraged to use the materials of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This includes, for example, the use of the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers and the COPE Flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts); for example, what to do if a reviewer suspects undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript.

13. Ethical Guidelines

Authors are expected to avoid any misconduct. Please observe FAU´s rules for ensuring good scientific practice (https://www.fau.eu/graduate-centre/information-and-services-from-a-to-z/good-academic-practice/) as well as the following rules of FAU University Press:

  • The manuscripts or parts of manuscripts (e.g. contributions to edited volumes) must meet the standards of scholarly texts; the reprinting of PowerPoint slides or speech manuscripts of lectures is therefore generally excluded; the same generally applies to AI-generated texts not written by the author, see also 13.1.
  • The submitted manuscript cannot have been previously published or offered to another publisher or publication platform; this also applies to OPEN FAU itself.
  • Research results may not be divided into several parts to increase the number of book publications.
  • No research data or research results have been fabricated or manipulated to support the conclusions of the author. Authors should be able to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the research results upon request. FAU University Press strongly recommends open data publishing using OPEN FAU or RADAR (https://www.radar-service.eu/radar/en/home).
  • All sources must be disclosed and correctly quoted. If large amounts of other people’s written or illustrative material are to be used, permission must be sought. FAU University Press may use the library’s full-text databases to screen for plagiarism.
  • All authors whose names appear on the title page have contributed to the scientific work and vice versa. ‘Honorary authorships’ are forbidden, as well as the enclosure of involved authors.
  • Written consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors. In addition, the supervisor of the work must agree to the publication of dissertations, as well as the series editors when publishing in series.
  • When human subjects or animals are investigated, authors should provide written consent from the human patients or probands and approval from the responsible ethical committee (for example https://www.ethikkommission.fau.de) or give a statement that approval was not required, and why.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, FAU University Press will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines.

13.1 Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI tools

At the current state of the art, AI tools such as ChatGPT are generally unable to determine the presence or absence of conflicts of interest, or to reliably verify and represent copyright and licensing agreements. Authors always bear full responsibility for manuscript parts created with an AI tool and are responsible for violations of the ethics of publishing; as with all content, authors must also ensure that they have permission to use any third-party content included in the submission, including that created using AI.

Authors who use AI tools in the preparation of a manuscript, in the creation of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data must be transparent in the Materials and Methods Section (or similar section) of the work about which AI tool was used, how it was used, and how they fulfilled their responsibility to clarify legal and ethical aspects as stated above.

14. Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

Any conflicts and complaints should be reported to the board of FAU University Press in writing for documentation purposes and submitted to the following address:

FAU University Press
zu Händen Herrn Markus Putnings oder Vertretung im Amt
Universitätsstraße 4
91054 Erlangen/Germany

In addition, the Academic Advisory Board (http://www.university-press.fau.de/herausgeber-en.shtml) can be contacted if FAU University Press or its activities are the subject(s) of the complaint. In this case, please contact the chairperson of the Academic Advisory Board (Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Leven, karl-heinz.leven@fau.de). Both the board of FAU University Press and the Academic Advisory Board use the flowcharts and materials of COPE.

It is advisable for authors to declare any circumstances relating to ethical considerations, financial arrangements or planned patent applications that could be construed as conflicts of interest on their part at the time of manuscript submission, or at the latest in the legally binding publishing contract. FAU University Press reserves the right to consult its legal department for advice and to reject any manuscripts that violate the interests of third parties or that reveal the proscribed influence of third parties.

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