OPUS is a publication platform for electronic documents at universities, founded in Stuttgart in 1998. OPUS is now used at numerous German universities. OPUS records and archives electronic full texts relevant to research and teaching. This means no documents with current or quickly outdated content, such as conference or lecture announcements, references to courses, etc., are included. Rather, the results and content of such events are included in OPUS in an unabridged form. OPUS offers all members of Trier University the opportunity to publish academically relevant documents in electronic form.

Electronic publishing with OPUS has several advantages.

More information is available under What does OPUS offer?

Documents cannot be modified or deleted. This ensures the documents’ legitimacy.

If the author wishes to make a change, they must resubmit the revised document. This process corresponds with the procedure for a new edition of a printed publication.

There is no time constraint.

Trier University Library ensures the long-term availability of the data published via OPUS with the support of North Rhine-Westphalia’s University Library Center (HBZ), on whose servers the data is hosted. In the case of dissertations and habilitation theses, the data is also stored on the servers of the German National Library (DNB).

In principle, publications in OPUS are equal to conventional publications and can, therefore, be cited.

Following ISO 690-2, electronic publications should be cited as follows:

The German Copyright Act (UrhG9) applies without restriction to documents offered in electronic form via data networks.

The following applies in particular:

Individual reproductions, e.g., copies and printouts, may only be made for private and other personal use (Section 53 Copyright Act). The production and distribution of further reproductions are only permitted with the author’s express authorization.

In any case, you should clarify the copyright and license aspects before electronic publication to ensure that the publication does not conflict with any third-party rights.

If you also want to publish the work with a publisher, you can do so without further ado. However, the publisher must agree to the University Library’s electronic publication.
Suppose you are unsure regarding your publisher’s copyright regulations and want to publish documents through OPUS. In that case, you can search directly for the regulations of specific journals or consult the Sherpa Romeo project’s publisher list.

The user is responsible for adhering to legal requirements and may be held liable for misuse.