Publishing in the VET Repository
The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) offers its employees and external authors the possibility of initial and secondary publication via the VET Repository.
The VET Repository is a modern research and publication tool for literature on VET and VET research. In addition to currently over 67,000 references, the VET Repository offers a constantly growing stock of open access publications.
Aiming to make the vocational education and training literature easier to locate and access, not only monographs, but also articles from journals and edited volumes relating to VET research are selected and their content indexed in the VET Repository. The focus here is on the following topic areas:
- Dual education system, VET system
- Training position market and employment system
- Career and qualification research
- Social science and economic fundamentals of vocational education and training
- Structure and organisation of vocational education and training
- Company-based and college-based learning
- Digitalization in vocational education and training, Industry 4.0
- International vocational education and training, international cooperation in vocational education and training
- Transitions, educational behaviour and educational pathways
With the further development of the VET Repository to the central access point for literature about vocational education and training research, the opportunities for publication via the VET Repository have been established and expanded. The VET Repository is now also available as a publication platform. A distinction is made between different methods and forms. Generally, both initial and secondary publications are possible via the VET Repository.
Initial publications
Initial publications are specialist publications that have not yet been shared with the wider public. The VET Repository offers BIBB employees the opportunity to publish preliminary research results online in the form of BIBB Discussion Paper. These can then be published in one of the BIBB publication series or in an external journal. The preliminary discussion allows suggestions and discussions from the expert community to be added to the publication.
In addition, both BIBB employees and external authors also have the opportunity to publish grey literature. There is no standardised definition of grey literature.
The following specifications apply to the VET Repository: These are publications with content that goes beyond general information and that are not published in a commercial context. This includes academic theses, study and research results, project and work reports, and conference reports.
Secondary publications
A secondary publication is a republication of, usually academic, texts that a publisher or institution has already published. In content acquisition, secondary publications are a means of increasing the share of full texts in the VET Repository.
Based on secondary publication rights, authors have the right to reuse their publications. The ruling under Section 38 (4) of the German Copyright Act (Urheberrechtsgesetz) means that, since 1 January 2014, it has been possible to make use of the secondary publication right for articles that appear periodically. The prerequisite for this is that it relates to research activity that is at least 50% publicly funded.
Graduate support
Another key objective of the VET Repository is to encourage newly graduated academics. Therefore, as part of our graduate support, they can publish their academic theses via the VET Repository as initial or secondary publications. This applies to Bachelor’s and Master’s theses as well as PhD theses and post-doctoral qualifications.
Publication policies
Initial publications via the VET Repository receive a standardised cover sheet and imprint. The assignment of a Uniform Resource Name (URN) ensures that these publications can be cited. Within the scope of the right to a mandatory deposit copy, these are sent to the German National Library. For capacity reasons, no editing, layout work or typesetting is performed for initial and secondary publications. In the case of publications in cooperation with or solely created by external authors, these authors can commission editing, layout and typesetting services. The costs for this shall not be reimbursed.
Further information
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