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vifabioDOC
The Collection policy
The spectrum of subjects covered by vifabioDOC includes biology and its many sub-disciplines, including general biology, anatomy, morphology, physiology, cell biology, molecular biology, general microbiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, biogeography, ecology, systematic botany and systematic zoology as well as biochemistry and biophysics of plants and animals. Details of the delimitation are governed by the layout of DFG-funded special subject collections; accordingly, the following topics are not included: anthropology, microbiology (if medically, veterinary or technically aligned), general biochemistry (if not in relation to animals or plants), medicine and applied disciplines such as forestry or agriculture.
Institutional affiliation or geographical background of authors plays no role. For publications on, for example, ecology or biogeography there are no restrictions on the geographical location (this means works can cover any part of the world). There are also no restrictions on the language in which a publication must be written.
Scientific quality of publications on vifabioDOC are ensured through particular quality criteria. Of prime importance are publications that have already been published elsewhere (electronic postprints from print or electronic journals), or those from professional societies; these publications have already gone through quality control. With publications that are being made electronically accessible for the first time on vifabioDOC, quality control takes place with the vifabioDOC editors; any publication must comply with standard scientific rules, for example correctly citing any literature and providing sources for any figures that come from other works. Otherwise, they will be declined.
Various types of documents can be published on vifabioDOC: individual journal articles can be published by the author, or the publisher as well as the originating professional association (as long as the respective copyright conditions are met). Professional associations or other bodies can publish periodicals like journals, conference reports or newsletters (newsletters must consist mostly of scientific content and not be just collections of event notices and addresses). Apart from dissertations and theses, which are accepted without further examination, scientific theses (diploma, bachelor and masters theses) can only be submitted with a recommendation from the assessor. Further types of documents that tend to be, as grey literature, difficult to obtain such as biological or natural history excursion guides or laboratory manuals can be published on vifabioDOC as long as they fulfil the scientific quality criteria.
As a rule, publications are kept on vifabioDOC in PDF format. Giving regards to forward compatibility with future computer systems and long-term preservation, the files should use the PDF/A standards (information on PDF/A can be found on Wikipedia as well as the University of Frankfurt (Main) Library web site).
The aim is not to duplicate online documents from other repositories on vifabioDOC. Rather vifabio provides search tools that allow successful searching across the full range of subject-relevant repositories.