Introduction
The TU Berlin University Press is a service of the University Library of Technische Universität Berlin. The University Press publishes quality assured publications for all faculties/academic chairs at TU Berlin and currently produces some 40 new publications annually. The default license is the Creative Commons CC BY license.
Quality assurance of content
The University Press takes every measure to ensure the quality of the works it publishes and regularly revises and improves review procedures.
All academics at TU Berlin are required as both authors and reviewers to abide by the Statute on the Safeguarding of Good Academic Practice at TU Berlin.
The University Press reserves the right to reject submitted publications or return them to the author for correction.
The issue of quality assurance is dealt with in detail in the discussions between the University Press and authors and editors. The OPERAS Peer Review Certification Criteria serve as a basis. The specific quality assurance measures are a subject of the publishing contracts:
- Almost all of the University Press’ publications are published within its 30 current monograph series. Some of these series have external editorial boards whose members are named in the individual volumes. By signing a publishing contract, the members of the editorial boards ensure the quality of the individual volumes. On the basis of a rigorous selection process, they decide which titles meet the quality standards of the series for which they are responsible. Dissertations are only published as part of a monograph series. In addition to the quality assessment undertaken by the reviewers, dissertations are also subject to a quality assurance by the series editors.
- Some publications are not published as part of a monograph series. A number of quality assurance options are available for these publications, including editor review and peer review.
1) As a rule, the respective heads of academic chairs are responsible for organizing an (external) quality assurance procedure.
2) If there are any doubts concerning the quality of a publication, University Press staff will consult the University Library’s relevant subject librarian. They support quality assurance by recommending external independent experts who are consulted for peer review.
3) Peer review by independent experts.
Books published by the TU Berlin University Press are simultaneously published as open access publications and are available free of charge on the website of the University Press and via TU Berlin’s DepositOnce repository for research data and publications. This guarantees the global visibility of texts and enables an ongoing critical review of the academic quality of their content.
Formal quality assurance
All TU Berlin University Press publications are subject to a rigorous formal quality assurance. Manuscripts are carefully proof read several times for formal, typographical and layout errors and inconsistencies focusing on type area, fonts, headers and footers, headings, image captions, typographical errors, etc. Working together with the authors/setters, the manuscripts are prepared for print in an often lengthy and iterative process.
Technical quality assurance
TU Berlin University Press publications are published in TU Berlin’s Repository for Research Data and Publications DepositOnce. Every publication is stored using the PDF/A format suitable for long-term archiving. Files contain bookmarks and complete entries as document properties (author, title, license information, etc). Each publication is assigned a DOI as a persistent identifier. For selected collective volumes, DOI is assigned at article level.