pedocs

pedocs (pedagogical documents), the repository that has been set up and is maintained by the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, collects electronic full texts from the domains of educational research, and makes the texts accessible according to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities . Global accessibility is guaranteed by its integration into the German Education Portal - the central entry point to pedagogical information - and into the German Education Server, as well as by its findability in search engines. Moreover, pedocs closely collaborates with the German National Library (DNB) in striving towards the long-term storage of documents, in order to assure they will be searchable via pedocs for a long time. peDOCS is also engaged in ENABLE!. The platform is aimed at uniting individual actors involved in the science publishing system in a network based on partnership, for a collaborative enablement of Open-Access publications in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the development of new and innovative models. peDOCS has been an official member of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) since July 2020. COAR supports the open access movement and the networking of repositories around the world.

Besides offering documents the scientists enter into the system themselves, thus rendering their own publications openly accessible via pedocs, scholarly literature is acquired by pedocs subject to different co-operation models in close collaboration with renowned publishing houses. This type of acquisition assures access to edited scholarly contents that can be unanimously cited.

Authors will achieve a broad dissemination of their works by publishing on the pedocs server. At the same time, they are represented in the domain of recognised education portals. Visibility and perception are crucial conditions to a sustainable scientific discourse and to research.

By publishing on pedocs authors, publishers an ohter institutions support the Open Access approach, targeting the free access to scientifically relevant information.

Full texts offered on pedocs

pedocs brings together a broad realm of publication types:

• Primary publications in pedocs;
• Publications supplementary to publishing house publication;
• Renewed publication of out of print editions;
• Qualification/graduation works such as doctoral theses, habilitation theses;
• so-called "grey literature", e.g. project reports, conference volumes

Visibility of publications

Several dissemination pathways, both disciplinary and general, are pursued, in order to assure that the documents launched on pedocs are visible and searchable. Publications can be searched via:

• Search options provided by the German Education Portal and the German Education Server;
• Google indexations, which we actively promote, and other search engines;
• Delivering the data to so-called OAI servers, which maintain nodes for searching scientifically relevant literature e.g. , OpenAIRE or OAIster (to the OAI-Interface);
• Documentation by the German Education Index, the most important documentation system of pedagogical literature in the German language area;
• The online catalogue of the German National Library (OPAC) under its conditions of digital preservation.

Further advantages and services related to pedocs

• Citation ascertainment by assigning a permanently consistent internet address (URN, DOI), assuring that the publication remains unchanged;
• Delivery of the publication to the German National Library, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), for long-term storage;
• Legal assurance for authors, publishers and users;
• Quality assurance by DINI certification
• Reference to the review status of a publication (e.g. peer-reviewed)

Collaboration with authors and publishers/co-operating partners

Authors can support open access and free access to scientifically relevant literature by publishing texts directly on pedocs, or by assuring their contractual right to a post-print online publication of their work in due course. You are welcome to consult pedocs for further advice. Self-archiving on pedocs is quick and easy, and rights are transferred by means of uncomplicated opt-in-procedures.

We offer publishing houses and other co-operating partners diverse models of co-operation for providing us with delayed publications. pedocs thereby supports marketing functions by positive feedback to the publishing houses' core business, that is prmoting and selling books.

Setup and expansion of services

pedocs is currently at an inception stage. New services will successively be extended and further developed. We would appreciate your feedback in order to remove programming errors.